History Lecture Series Highlights 80th Anniversary of End of World War II
February 25, 2025
With 2025 marking 80 years since the conclusion of World War II, the Dr. Arnoldo De León Department of History’s 2024-25 History Lecture Series commemorated the anniversary with a lecture on universal military training since the war’s end.
Published in 2014, “Every Citizen a Soldier” was awarded a Crader Family Book Prize Honorable Mention and was described as “a very accessible, strongly researched, evocative history” analyzing “uniquely American concerns of citizen armies and national security.”
An ASU faculty member since 2011, Taylor has since published five additional books:
- “The All-Volunteer Force: Fifty Years of Service” (2023)
- “The Advent of the All-Volunteer Force: Protecting Free Society” (2023)
- “George C. Marshall and the Early Cold War: Policy, Politics, and Society” (2020)
- “Contemporary Security Issues in Africa” (2019)
- “Military Service and American Democracy: From World War II to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars” (2016)
Taylor’s book, “Military Service and American Democracy,” was selected in 2020 as required reading for every first-year cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point – and he has also won a Sharon Ritenour Stevens Prize from the Association for Documentary Editing.
Additionally, Taylor is the editor for the “Studies in Marine Corps History and Amphibious Warfare” book series with the Naval Institute Press. He has also contributed to 24 other books and published more than 100 reference articles and book reviews. His books are housed in more than 2,000 libraries across the U.S. and in 56 countries around the world.
The History Lecture Series is funded by the department’s Dorsey B. Hardeman Endowed Chair in History. The 2025-26 series will begin with new installments in the upcoming fall semester.
Previous 2024-25 Lectures