Finding the manpower to defend democracy has been a recurring problem. Russell Weigley writes: The historic preoccupation of the Army's thought in peacetime has been the manpower question: how, in an unmilitary nation, to muster adequate numbers of capable soldiers quickly should war occur. When the nature of modern warfare made an all-volunteer army inadequate, the major Western democracies confronted the dilemma of involuntary military service in a free society. The core of this manuscript concerns methods by which France, Great Britain, and the United States solved the problem and why some solutions were more lasting and effective than others. Flynn challenges conventional wisdom that suggests that conscription was inefficient and that it promoted inequality of sacrifice.

Sharing similar but not identical diplomatic outlooks, the three countries discussed here were allies in world wars and in the Cold War, and they also confronted the problem of using conscripts to defend colonial interests in an age of decolonization. These societies rest upon democratic principles, and operating a draft in a democracy raises several unique problems. A particular tension develops as a result of adopting forced military service in a polity based on concepts of individual rights and freedoms. Despite the protest and inconsistencies, the criticism and waste, Flynn reveals that conscription served the three Western democracies well in an historical context, proving effective in gathering fighting men and allowing a flexibility to cope and change as problems arose.

Jerry Malone finds himself flying to London for a new case involving a sordid divorce of a local beauty from a British Lord. When the Lord is murdered Jerry is dragooned into an international intrigue involving Arab terrorists, MI5, British diplomats and the Queen. Before the case is over he has to confront thugs in London and Paris and dodge knockout needles on London Bridge.

Jerry Malone can't go home again. After he escapes Hurricane Katrina, he lives in Manhattan wearing mismatched suits and making mismatched relationships, longing for a redux. When a rich New Orleans heiress hires wisecracking and world-weary Jerry for a case, he returns to his Crescent City. Jerry and the heiress need to find out what happened to a mutual friend who is missing and perhaps dead in the city. Searching the city, he watches it rise from mud, oil, and ashes, and possibilities of his personal redemption reveal themselves. Working in scandal-ridden New Orleans, a city notable for continually rebuilding from The Big Blow and other disasters both social and material, Malone begins to rebuild a failed career and relationship. A tarnished attorney turned detective, he battles the destructive forces of New Orleans' corruption and post-Katrina disintegration. He uncovers and derails a plot by a Saudi native to kill candidates for president by using the New Orleans Museum of Art and an unsuspecting kinetic artist as his tools. Malone's challenge is to save the artist, the city, and himself in a novel framed by post-Katrina confusion, international espionage, murder and violence shrouded in an atmosphere of jaded jazz joints and a city filled with half-failed resurrections and funky characters. The character-driven plot involves crime, terrorism, sex and the quirks and struggles of the post-Katrina social milieu.

This first scholarly biography of Hershey (1893 - 1977) and the first historical study of the draft from 1940 to 1970 presents valuable insights into the operation of the political system and the national defense policy. Serving as draft director under six different presidents, he played an important role in home-front mobilization, the evolution of Cold War politics, the treatment of conscientious objectors, blacks, women, and in the Vietnam protest. Flynn reveals the interaction between the private man and the public person.
Originally published in 1985.
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