THE HISTORIC VIEW

Most people wouldn't associate the book publishing industry—especially the military history book publishing industry—with people who like to live on the edge. But that's exactly where Matt DeLaMater has been residing for years.

" Anyone who gets into a start-up publishing—as a real business and not a hobby—is a financial risk taker," says the 42-year-old DeLaMater, a 1986 Penn State graduate. "The book market has never been more challenging and the ground rules are constantly changing."

DeLaMater's risk has been the creation of the Military History Press
(www.militaryhistorypress.com ), a small publishing company based in Oakland, California. Producers and distributors of military books, the company has just published its first original book, The Soldier's View: The Civil War Art of Keith Rocco, a 192-page lavishly illustrated, high-end trade art book.

DeLaMater first became interested in military history as a small child growing up on an army base, Fort Benning, watching soldiers train for war, and wondering "what happened to all of them." Attending Penn State from 1982 to 1986, he studied general arts and sciences and eventually devised his own multidisciplinary major.

"I'd taken a course in intellectual history and really enjoyed the broad perspective it offered instead of one narrow facet," he recalls. "So I submitted a program idea to the dean and it was approved. My idea was to focus on the birth of the modern world, a modern perspective on history, philosophy, and literature from the French Revolution through World War II. I was really grateful that I could design the curriculum myself."

And that broad view reflected itself in DeLaMater's life after graduation. He enrolled in a Master's of Fine Arts program in creative writing at George Mason University, taught on a fellowship there for three years, did a bit of business and technical writing, and ended up teaching emotionally disturbed adolescents in a private school in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. While teaching, DeLaMater started writing articles at night for a historical journal, Napoleon. Although he didn't quit his day job, DeLaMater became editor of the journal, and grew increasingly interested in publishing. Soon, he and his business partner, Dana Lombardy, decided to take the leap into book publishing.

DeLaMater had met Keith Rocco at various speaking engagements and was a big fan of his work. When the artist approached him with the idea of doing a book, DeLaMater enthusiastically signed him on.

"What separates Keith from a lot of popular Civil War artists is that he's most interested in the point of view of the common soldier," DeLaMater explains. "Most of the commercial artists feature the famous personalities—like Jeb Stuart or Robert E. Lee—but Keith's work is not about glorifying or creating romantic images of the chivalry of war. He portrays the point of view of the soldiers who were there. We also felt it most appropriate to present the text using soldiers' own words to accompany Keith's images."

Having recently made his first television appearance as a Napoleonic expert on the History Channel, DeLaMater is current editing A Polish Partisan, the story of a Pole who fought in the famous Hubel partisan unit before he was captured and sent to Auschwitz. He is also working with another Penn State alumnus—Mike Hanlon, who graduated in 1969 from the College of Earth & Mineral Sciences—on The Great War: An Introductory Guide, a military and cultural history of World War I.

"We are focusing foremost on direct marketing as we slowly expand into the brutal book market of the post-Amazon world," he says.

DeLaMater says that his time at the University intensified his interests and that the study of military history is always relevant to our present-day global concerns.

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