Evans Carlson’s China Years and the Birth of Marine Raiders

A review of Stephen Platt’s The Raider, chronicling Evans Carlson’s journey from Mao’s army to the Pacific front and shaping tactics still influencing the military today

The Military Reading Room is thrilled to welcome Sara Bush Castro and Nicholas Reynolds as our first Guest Book Reviewers. Sara is a historian of U.S.-China relations and an instructor at the National Security Space Institute; Nick (nicholasreynoldsauthor.com) is a historian who served in the USMC and the CIA. This piece started as a review Sara wrote for The Journal of America’s Military Past (campjamp.org), where Nick is the book review editor.