Maurice Isserman, Ph.D., is the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College, where he teaches U.S. history, including the history of mountaineering. A former Fulbright grant winner, his prize-winning books include FALLEN GIANTS (co-authored with Stewart Weaver, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Banff Mountain Book Festival Award for best mountaineering history, the National Outdoor Book Award for best history, and the Andrew Eiseman Writers Award), THE OTHER AMERICA (recipient of A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book Award), and CRONKITE’S WAR (co-authored with Walter Cronkite IV). He has written for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the American Historical Review, as well as numerous academic journals and contributed volumes. He lives in Clinton, New York.

Books by Maurice Isserman

The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors

by Maurice Isserman - History, Nonfiction

At the start of World War II, the US Army had two cavalry divisions --- and no mountain troops. The German Wehrmacht, in contrast, had many well-trained and battle-hardened mountain divisions. Starting from scratch, the US Army developed a unique military fighting force, the 10th Mountain Division, drawn from the ranks of civilian skiers, mountaineers and others with outdoor experience. The resulting mix of Ivy League students, park rangers, Olympic skiers and European refugees formed the first specialized alpine fighting force in US history. By the time it deployed to Italy at the beginning of 1945, this ragtag group had coalesced into a tight-knit unit. In the months that followed, at a terrible cost, they spearheaded the Allied drive in Italy to final victory.