In The Return of the Department of War, you are confronted with the troubled history of America's military self, from 1789's War Department to the symbolic renamings of 2025. Drawing on congressional hearings, laws, and presidential records, the book reveals how a single term—\"war" or "defense"—shapes not only institutions but the nation's very conception of itself. A book of law, power, and memory, it asks whether America actually arms for defense, or has always been, in plain terms, a war republic.