The first annual military history symposium sponsored by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and hosted by the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, took place in August 2003. It brought together an outstanding group of civilian historians and military officers for the purpose of discussing a variety of historical case studies and the ways in which they illuminate current military issues and operations. As the subtitle of the symposium indicates, the topics spanned two centuries of American campaigning, ranging from the Army's "nation-building" activities during the Reconstruction of the post-Civil War South and the trans-Mississippi West; through US counterguerrilla warfare in the American Civil War, the Philippines, Korea, and Latin America; to the US occupation of Germany after World War II and American interventions in Mexico, China, Russia, Panama, and Afghanistan. Without exception, the presentations were thought provoking and elicited lively discussion among the attendees.