Robert F. Jefferson Jr.’s Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century America: Closing Ranks is a crucial contribution to a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic, contested, and sometimes uneven relationship between military service and civil rights. In this fine volume, Jefferson assembles an impressive collection of insightful essays by a diverse range of accomplished scholars. The result is a concise and cogent analysis of how black veterans have grappled with their military service and leveraged it in the broader struggle for civil rights. This noteworthy anthology should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the vital linkages between military service, black veterans, and civil rights in American society during the twentieth century. Students, scholars, and general readers alike will benefit from reading it.