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DIMITRI'S 50 BOOKS READ IN 2016
JANUARY1.
by
Adam ZamoyskiFinish date: 11 january 2016
Genre: history
Rating: B
Review: A good primer for the totally unitiated, written with love and mindful of the running themes in Polish history. However, could've used a 'further reading' section and stronger chapters on the communist and contemporary periods.
You might want to change your spelling of January, Dmitri. I do things like that all the time!!!!
2.
by Nikolaus Wachsmann (no photo)Finish date: 16 january 2016
Genre: history
Rating: A
Review: Wachsmann came to the fore with a book on a more neglected sector of the Nazi penal universe: regular prisons and prison camps. He uses this prior knowledge to good effect in tracing out the haphazard existence of the KL system. It goes past the troika of pure death camps (Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor) and while Auschwitz inevitably retains a dominant position in the narrative, it shares in the deconstruction of popular mythology.
The sum amounts to a Holocaust bible, bar the equally voluminous publication by David Cesarani of the same year.
3.
by John C.G. Röhl (no photo)Finish date: 18 january 2016
Genre: biography
Rating: B-
Review: Condensing 4,000 pages into a mere 250 is too conchise to remain clear: those without prior knowledge of Wilhelm II, most popularly through his vignettes prior to the war, such as his thinly veiled threats to two successive kings of Belgium, will still come away with little more than the image of a sable-rattling buffoon...
One could write 250 pages solely about the Kaiser's childhood and not begin to touch on the complexity of the man! I guess this is a summary book of the author's trilogy about Wilhelm II.
4.
by
Primo LeviFinish date: 24 january 2016
Genre: memoir
Rating: B+
Review: A microscopic but enlightening account of the Auschwitz medical ward. I have not read any 'mature' works by Levi, but this is a promising hors d'oeuvre.
5.
by
Shlomo VeneziaFinish date: 27 january 2016
Genre: memoir
Rating: B+
Review: The only thing that stands in the way of a 5 star rating is Schlomo Venezia's self-discipline in the face of the historical method. He refuses to speculate on everything he wasn't an eyewitness to. His testimony to the legendary Sondernkommando uprising of '44 suffers for it, but otherwise he gives incomparable insight into one of the most intruiging aspects of life in Birkenau. The story of his youth in Greece touches upon a different sort of occupation, dictated by the deterioration of the German-Italian alliance and the obscure role of Bulgaria in the Holocaust.
Good choice of books, Dmitri and very fitting on this day after the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.BTW, don't forget to put the word "Review" before your text. Thanks and keep up the good progress.
6.
by
Lola LafonFinish date: 29 january 2016
Genre: novel
Rating: B-
Review: Neither fiction nor biography, Nadia C. drives the universal story of fleeting flory and child fame while also glancing at the impoverished conditions of 1980s Romania. Lola Lafon wisely avoids melodrama.
FEBRUARI7.
by
Farah PahlaviFinish date: 2 february 2016
Genre: memoir
Rating: B+
Review: A Dutch king once wrote to his son and heir: "No one is born to the throne without paying the toll". Farah's story offers a touching glimpse at the human face behind the powerful monarch of post-war Iran, whose ambitious modernisation evolved faster than his people's mind could. The only reproach the reader can lay at her feet at present is an underestimation of the popular mood's turn for the dark, the consequences of growth that benefitted the population unevenly. Nevertheless, her love for Iran's beauty and culture shines throughout and urges us not to buy into the media image of a country of veils and state-employed terrorists. It is capable of much, if its rulers permit.
8.
byBenjamin Ziemann(no photo)Finish date: 4 february 2016
Genre: history
Rating: C
Review: Based upon the correspondence between Bavarian farmers and their families back home, this book explores how the Great war disturbed & changed rural society. The answer is: not that much. Women were burdened with the workload, requisitioned horses were sorely missed and the men at the front could think of little else but these two matters, often writing down detailed instructions on how to run the farm and handle leftover horses (traditionally an activity requiring the physical strength of an adult male). Most of this is familiar through Remarque's Detering. So is the socio-economic conflict between the agrarian producers and the deprived city-dwellers.
Not unexpectedly, the post-war liberating modernisation of German society affected the rural world least of all. Commemoration of the fallen was flawlessly incorporated into established religious practices. The economic regulations established by Weimar to combat wartime inflation cut quite deep, however.
I miss a deeper insight into the equine requisitions and the rural veterans' involvement in the Freikorps. One surprise is the torough demolition of the post-war view on universal Kameradshaft at the front. The social gulf between enlisted men and officers, reinforced by material benefits, was only bridged briefly in combat by examplary first-line CO's. As for amidst the ranks, I think an Iraq veteran put it nicely: "imagine your average office building full of co-workers you don't really like but have to work with. Do that for months on end 24/7". Rural Bavarian recruits seem to have felt this particularly hard, coming from close-knit communities and relying on their pre-war social framework wherever possible.
Academically, the book deserves credit: Ziemann has published extensively on rural Germany during 14-18, the Bavarian correspondence is an important rural source since the Prussian version was bombed to shreds in 1945 together with all the other Great War archives in Potsdam. He sprinkles his research with historiographical discussions of a vast German-language literature inaccessible to many English-speaking readers. The reason so much of the content seems familiar is because the book was part of the bibliography for the centennial heavyweight masterpiece
by Alexander Watson(no photo)
9.
by
Jan M. MałeckiFinish date: 9 february 2016
Genre: history
Rating: B+
Review: I bought this is Wawel Castle during my January trip to Poland but didn't start reading it until back home. Maybe I should've skimmed it in the hotel room, because this is a history for everyone who feels like walking the streets of downtown Krakow with a knowledgable guide in their hands. Nary a street doesn't get an origin story or an anecdote. Vanished buildings will manifest themselves,mostly churches that survive in street names but also the town hall . Existing buildings will reveal their eclectic appearance, such as the Cloth Hall on Main Square, which the unwary visitor would easily mistake for the town hall, were it not that the free-standing belfry tower next to it is actually a remnant of the town hall.
The author clearly is in love with Krakow. He stresses the cultural and religious significance of the city, even in times where its economic importance or political weight was in decline. He makes a strong, rather convincing defence for Krakow in its good-natured "which is the better city" feud with Warshaw.
As a history book, it provides a down to earth perspective on Polish history: guns rumble on the horizon, but don't necessarily fire over the walls. Krakow has been at the centre of many important events in the country's history and its landscape has been scarred & altered accordingly, but has also been spared the worst of the world wars' violence (...excepting the Jewish quarter of its population). History looks very different from the sidelines.
In short : Visit Krakow and take this with you !
Thanks for the review, Dimitri. I have visited Krakow and it is a wonderful city. I wish I would have had this book with me.
10.
by
Clive CusslerFinish date: 13 february 2016
Genre: novel/adventure
Rating: B
Review: the cover you see is the edition I read to pieces until age 16, like all the Cusslers. Then I took a leap and started reading familiar fiction in the original English. Over the years I managed to purchase all of these beloved stories. Only one eluded me until 5 days ago: the very first Dirk Pitt, Pacific Vortex. By now it is indeed a historical source of sorts, at least to me.
How does it fare apart from the nostalgia value ? Quite well. The character of Dirk Pitt possesses inevitably some Invincible Hero traits (and in later novels too much worldwide American gung-ho for some critics), but he was always a sober alternative for the Hollywood action heroes of the 1980/90's: he got wounded, the wounds hurt and took time to recover from*. Judging from the foreword, a marine engineer stood out from the military/law enforcement crowd of tough guys at the time.
Featuring Summer as 'the love of his life' was perhaps an overambitious line for a first novel, but it has contributed to the long-term character development of Dirk Pitt.
*
and
are the best example of this.
11.
by
Andrew RobertsFinish date; 19 february 2016
Genre: biography
Rating: A
Review: a comprehensive biography of Napoleon Bonaparte with equal attention for his political and administrative accomplishments, which have outlived the impact of his military victories on Europe. It reaches out to the novice and firmly adheres to its titel 'the Great' in abolishing a few diabolical myths which are perpetuated in the enemy's (read: British) popular historiography.
I'm looking at you,
by Desmond Seward(no photo)Andrew Roberts will wet your appetite for more Eagles in clouds of gunpowder that vibrate with the cry "Vive l'Empereur !"
Roberts book is wonderful. The battle descriptions make them come alive
12.
byDavid Mason(no photo)Finish date: 21 february 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B-
Review: An adequate battle narrative that follows in the footsteps of Alistair Horne's popular classic* but the language is much more straightforward and the facts are not framed within elegant tableaux. The lack of footnotes makes it unclear how much post-1962 research has been incorporated, alltough the "further reading" postscript does list a few solid titles and use has been made of (older) French books. Since 2000 there have been a few valuable additions to the Verdun field**.
My copy is 75% underlined, carries thesis-related notes and even an asterisk to remind myself what a salient is (was there a time I did NOT know that ??). So one of these starts counts as nostalgia. And reading it on the centennial date is perfect.
*
by
Alistair Horne**
byIan Ousby (no photo)
byRobert T. Foley (no photo)
13.
by Vincent O'Hara (no photo)Finish date: 27 february 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B+
Review: The first effort of a well-oiled team that would go on to crown the waves with a similar book on the Great War*. Each contributor is a recognized expert on his navy, where necessary assisted by native historians with better mastery of primary sources. Each chapter evaluates the weaponry, training, doctrine and ultimate performance according to a standard set of subtitles. This allows for a greater deal of easy comparison; it is the main strength of the book. It cannot stand on its own, but it will broaden your understanding of events in traditional battle narratives.
The assessments challenge orthodoxy where needed; for example, the Regia Marina is shown to have acquitted itself better in some respects than classics such as Morison's two-ocean war allow**.
The re-assassment that struck home the hardest for me had to do with the American "Orange" war planning for the Pacific; a popular view of Pearl Harbor is that it forced the U.S. Navy into learning to use carriers as the core of its force. In actuality, they had been given a more central role in the 1930s scenarios. Rather, it was the Japanese that couldn't shake off the "big gun" obsession over the years, resulting in tactically outdated strongmen like the Yamoto. Here, the structural uniformity of the book allows us to trace the impact of Jutland on all post-war navies: most of them began the 1920's with an inheritance of Dreadnoughts that increasingly became cumbersomely outdated. The limits imposed by the naval treaties of Washington (1922) and London (1930) forced them into evolving towards a more carrier-based fleet or creative forms of cruiser construction (such as the Japanese hull alloys).
Given the dominance of the U-boat as the German naval forces' most effective weapon in both world wars, it might surprise you to learn Hitler was a traditionalist (or not, in terms of land warfare he pretty much never got his head out of the trenches once the Blitzkrieg went on the defensive) : l like big guns and I cannot lie. In this respect, he had something in common with Stalin. Just like he reversed the shift to deep-penetration offensive warfare back to linear defensive warfare, he reversed an interest in combined operations and cruisers to a traditional navy built around battleships.
The USA comes out on top in terms of preparedness: clear deals with the industry ensured steady replacement of ship losses, just as a comprehensive training program prevented the shortage of experienced cadres such as plagued Japanese naval aviation once the Pearl Harbor veterans were decimated.
The French Navy, like its Soviet counterpart, didn't see much action, ironically more for political reasons than anything else. As an active ally, it could've simply acted according to its interwar focus on Italy and interdicted Axis shipping to the African theater ; as things stood, the Italians did a fine job despite the best efforts of the Royal Navy, whose story is sung to the sad tune of imperial overstretch.
*
byVincent P. O'Hara (no photo)**
by
Samuel Eliot Morison
MARCH 14.
by
Christopher HibbertFinish date: 4 march 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B-
Review: The seasoned bard of the Ancien Régime follows the American revolution through British eyes. Not every edition's title states this plainly, a publisher's strategy that was later repeated for A Few Bloody Noses: The American War of Independence*. Luckily, there is no inherent revisionism here. Contrary to Harvey, Hibbert takes us to the other side of Bunker Hill to provide the novice with a solid framework for further reading. This book cannot equally accommodate within 350 pages the more familiar American story, but it will profit in combined reading from the pattern of the British war plan. For sheer pleasure, it is also elegently written.
The development of the War of Independence can be explained through a relationship of cause and effect. The authorities in London or the local commanders more often than not provided an action to which the American opposition would feel obliged to react. This pattern is well-known in regards to the origins of the conflict. Increased control over the colonies in the form of new taxation (which was customary for British colonies but to which the lightly taxed Americans were wholly unaccustomed) giving shape to long-term economic grievances over the non-expansion policy of the crown towards the rich interior of the continent.
The outbreak of hostilities occured between troops present in Massachusetts. The American resistance had to preoccupy itself with establishing an armed force out of a population that possessed heterogeneous military experience and few resources, in the hope of raising an army that could take the field against Redcoat regulars and not disintegrate due to short-term enlistment. Meanwhile, the transatlantic command formulated a strategy based on the relatively meager manpower available for service overseas, since it had a global empire to defend against the hostile attentions of Spain and France. Thinning out garrisons in the West Indies or the Channel Fleet risked the loss of colonies or even an invasion of the home islands. Not to be neglected were the post-war relationships with the thirteen colonies; even if they proved successful in securing independence to build an American nation, good relations were in Great Britain’s commercial interest. In short, bloody repression or large-scale land offensives were out of the question. Based upon these reflections, possession or short-distance blockade of Atlantic ports promised the best outcome. Either way, the size of reinforcements was constrained by the limitations of transatlantic logistics in the age of sail.
The British war plan thus evolved into a focus on the constrained garrison of New York. In a first phase, a union with British forces in Canada was the idea; in a second face, the action shifted to the southern theater of the Carolinas and the American breadbasket of Virginia. Most of the maneuverings on both sides fit into this pattern, down to the siege of Yorktown, where Cornwallis hoped for a time-out after the defeat of his last New York-bound invasion. To this must be added the strain of the incessant quarrels within the British high command, of the simultaneous defensive war against the French navy and the non-manifestation of massed Loyalist support.
The narrative ends all too abruptly on the Field of Surrender, with no mention of the Treaty of Paris. Unfortunately, this applies to almost every morcel of diplomatic activity outside of 1778, with a few pages on the peace-feelers extended by the rebuffed Carlisle Peace Commission and the Treaty of Alliance with France. The battles narratives are to the point; there is little discussion of weapons and tactics except for a standard chat about the limitations of the smoothbore musket and the deficiencies of the purchased commission. A look back at the impact of the Seven Years' War would've been interesting, since the disdain among seasoned commanders in the American theatre for colleagues of the 'German school' clearly refers to the split evolution of warfare on two continents.
The absence of a conclusion doesn’t matter regarding the causes of the British defeat; the infeasibility of a ‘hard� victory over enormous distances was clear from the beginning. It was an accomplishment that a war which one side had to fight with one first tied behind its back continued to the point where bòth sides neared desperate exhaustion.
*
byRobert Harvey(no photo)
15.
by
Robert K. MassieFinish date: 14 march 2016
Genre: history
Rating: A
Review: this book has been praised to seventh heaven and back, what can I add ? It does not tell the neatly wrapped story of the origins of WWI, nor does it focus exclusively on the naval armaments race between the British and German empires. At over a 1000 pages it is certainly not aimed at the novice history aficionado.
Rather, it is a score written for the saga of Clark and MacMillan*. All aspects of the rising antagonism between the Great Powers of Europe make an appearance in the flesh, resurrected from contemporary sources down to entire conversations quoted ad verbatim.
Well-known tableaux such as the funeral of Edward VII (which opened for the Guns of August) and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary (printed to death) are joined by episodes that usually warrant scant lines, even tough they are each marked as stepstones on the road to the outbreak of war:
Here, the French brave the perils of the Sahara only to wearily watch a British flotilla approach Fashoda. Here, the Kaiser's unruly horse ruins the majesty of his entry in Tangier; six years later a solitary, frustrated German merchant waves the gunboat "Panther" to shore in order to justify an armed intervention in Morocco. Here, two Jewish businessmen make a last-minute bid to ease the Anglo-German antagonism by inviting Lord Haldane for a mission.
The Leitmotif of the book is the naval race. Fisher's impact upon the development of the Dreadnought and the reorientation of naval defence towards protecting the Home Islands from the Hochseeflotte is similarky humanized and stripped of its inevitability. Here, the mercurial Fisher prevails thanks to his good rappport with the King, beset on all sides by powerful opponents within the naval establishment.
For those familiar with the facts of European diplomacy and defence in the period ca. 1890-1914, Massie will bring them to life with love.
*
by
Margaret MacMillan
by
Christopher Clark
16.
byStephen Bungay(no photo)Finish date: 18 march 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B
Review: A solid overview of the fight for areal suppremacy prior to the Nazi invasion of England. The daily actions are reported in considerable detail, sometimes a bit too much for my taste, but intersected by informed chapters on doctrine, radar, machines and men.
Bungay sometimes puts his points too bluntly and a few statements border on Anglophile, while he shows himself to be capable of sound reasoning when he notices how the importance of Fighter Command dawns on Kesselring, or, intriguingly, how the Blitz on London in the later stage of the battle was the manifestation of a combined strategy of RAF attrition & of an economic stranglehold on Britain.
- "Sealion was a bad plan. eagle, barely a plan at all, amounted to little more than flying over England, dropping bombs on various things and shooting down any fighters which came up as a result" - "the Battle of Britain took the course it did because the major decision-makers in the Luftwaffe did not know or understand what was actually going on."
17.
byAnthony Farrar-Hockley(no photo)Finish date: 20 march 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: D
Review: Rushing in from Mons and rushing out towards the Christmas truce, the unit-studded war of movement rolls over 150 pages and oversized maps, catching its breath occasionally to deliver meagre biographical info on the High Command. In wanting to do too much, it has aged terribly.
18.
byIan Castle(no photo)Finish date: 23 march 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B+
Review: The Osprey format works best for small-scale subjects: the meticulously documented airship bombing raids on London spread over the first 3 years of the war fits the bill nicely. Largely owing to the limited number of Zeppelins avaliable for detachment from other duties, the raids were few in number , with the customary 96 pages providing ample space for eyewitness accounts and maps tracing impacts on the street grid of London. the artwork could've used a close-up look at a Zeppelin cabin and a cutaway view of the ship's entire interior structure.
19.
by
John TerraineFinish date: 23 march 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B-
Review: A decent look at the last six months of the Great War, bar 50-odd pages of introduction that hurry forward from New Year 1918. The focus is squarely on the Western Front, with the Bulgarian & Turkish collapses wrapped up in singular background sentences. Terraine is a good writer who employs lengthy ad verbatim reproductions of correspondence and conversation to breathe life into such matters as the abdication of the Kaiser or the composition and deliverance of the Armistice terms. In lesser hands, the cohesive structure of the book would be fatally weakened; Terraine overplays his hand only in the final chapter, where politics and pursuit warfare alternate dizzingly.
Representative for his generation, he drew many parrallels between the embrionic unified command under Foch and the vastly expanded (staff)work necessary to keep the Allied coalition of the next World War running smoothly. Equally, the discrepancies between the American way of war as interpreted by Jack Pershing and the bitter caution by the exhausted Franco-British command receive a lot of attention, as do Foch's overly political decisions.
Tough elderly and brief (259 pages), this book can still pose questions that sit well next to the more globally orientated No Man's Land by John Tolland and David Stevenson's exhaustive With Our Backs to the Wall.
*
by
John Willard Toland
byDavid Stevenson(no photo)
20.
by
Brian PosehnFinish date: 26 march 2016
Genre: comic
Rating: B-
Review: Deadpool's warped sense of humour fits in well with a campy 70's setting; unfortunately The White Man made for a lame villain; Next, using his renegration ability as the object of a North Korean research project is a great set-up for a movie sequel (akin to Wolverine), but the dedicated volumes felt spread thin.
21.
byReiji Suzumaru(no photo)Finish date: 26 march 2016
Genre: manga
Rating: B-
Review: Underneath its sexuality, "Love in Hell" has a few very original and intruiging ideas about the atonement of the afterlife. There's a graphically disturbing movie in here. Unfortunately, the story runs out of space in the final third; the sense of languish in part 1-2 suddenly makes place for a rush.
22.
byPeter Barton(no photo)Finish date: 27 march 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B-
Review: Peter Barton's archeologic interests bring an original angle to the Somme story, paying tribute to the herculean mining efforts of the Royal Engineers that were to facilitate the infantry advance once the guns fell silent - providing the corps commanders made use of the opportunity. Herein lies the main theme of his battle analysis: good use of attack tunnels & trenches at right angles to the German lines was as vital to success as a fine-tuned co-operation between artillery firing wire-cutting schrapnel and the infantry. These were the only factors within the control of the British Army that could at least in part negate the enormous tactical advantage the high ground all along the Somme front as enjoyed by the Imperial Army.
His sales pitch is the use of then-classified panoramas of No Man's Land and the enemy lines, often juxtaposed with panoramic photographs of the battlefield as it appeared in the early 2000's. Undeniably, these are an enormous help for your geographical orientation as the text moves over one sector after another towards the junction with the French. So are the maps, both original & commissioned for this book. Together, they make it a good primer for students of the Somme.
However, it's best to grab a few other books after this one. The infamous First Day takes up half the pages. It's a real shame the rest of the battle isn't explored as crystal clear. As the scene moves in mid-september from the relatively smooth gains in the southern sector to the deadlock in the north, the autumn weather starts to weaken the written cohesion along with the trenches.
There is little of the classic Haig-bashing and little sifdetracking towards his feud with Rawlingson. The conclusions drawn from the offensive, such as they are, give little support to the idea that a series of limited bite-and-hold attacks would've fared better under either man's direction.
I don't fully agree with that. If the Western Front as a whole taught us anything, it's that time and again the attackers bit off more than they could chew. However, I'll leave that dispute to the grand late Martin Gilbert vs. the revisionist team of Prior & Wilson, re-released in time for the centennial! *
Speaking of which: Barton's worth taking along in the backseat for a drive to Thiepval and other monuments along the frontline.
*
by
Martin Gilbert*
byRobin Prior(no photo)
There you have it, all of march in one go. Between a wonderful weekend around Ypres, bombings in Brussels and so many friends to have diner with, reporting and reviewing the reading take a backseat.To be fair , the longest book was a chapter-by-chapter, bit-by-bit nightstand affair going back to 2015. If military history isn't your cup of tea, I'm not a machine, either: sometimes wise-cracking mutants and horny devils are the best repose.
Mod
by
Jack CampbellBut great progress and some wonderful military history books too. The bombings in Brussels - not so good - in fact downright ugly and upsetting.
APRIL23.
by
Alan MooreFinish date: 1 april 2016
Genre: graphic novel
Rating: C
Review: Dutch edition in 3 parts ; an unexpected disappointment. Alan Moore's work is rightly praised*, but the story is overly long and the artwork simply does not appeal to me. No matter how clever it is to draw inspiration from Victorian illustrations and no matter how meticulous the background research was. furthermore, as a work of fiction, it seems heavily based upon a questionable theory/ book on JTR from the late '70s, goolishly coinciding with the spree of Peter Sutcliffe. To be fair, I loved the attention to detail on life in the London slums. Visually, however, it needs the palet of Brian Bolland or John Higgins imposed on the artwork of Kevin O'Neill.
by
Alan Moore
by
Alan Moore
by
Alan Moore
24.
by
Christian JacqFinish date: 3 april 2016
Genre: historical novel
Rating: B-
Review: ** SPOILER ALERT** French novelists have our full knowledge of Ancient Egypt to draw upon and flesh out a realistic environment for their story. Christian Jacq has ample experience at this and shows off his sources with little footnotes referring to archeological sites. The Battle of Kadesj is not exactly an obscure event in pharaoic history, so it's a HUGE turn-off to see it unfold literally as told by the hagiographic ancient accounts, with Ramses III single-handedly taking on the Hittite army, litterally radiant with divine protection...there's plenty of hypotheses on how he turned the battle around with tactical ingenuity.
I have always found the Battle of Kadesh to be of great interest since many people believe Ramses II 'wrote himself a victory'. Since it is a novel, I suppose the author can portray the pharaoh in any light he chooses, however, the Amazon description of the book is a bit much, considering the true battle is exciting enough on its own.
25.
by
Fyodor DostoyevskyFinish date: 7 april 2016
Genre: autobiographical novel
Rating: A-
Review: FOR "THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD" ONLY
While most of Dostojevski's authobiographical observations of prison life are only fully comprehensible to those knowledgable about customs of tsarist Russia, others resonate through the gulags down to the present day, as you can tell a lot about a society by observing its prisoners. I am no crusader for prison reform at heart, but one of his closing statements tugs a string: "And how much youth lay uselessly buried within those walls, what mighty powers were wasted here in vain! After all, one must tell the whole truth; these men were exceptional men...but their mighty energies were vainly wasted, wasted abnormally, unjustly, hopelessly. And who was to blame ?"
Some people deserve to have the key thrown away. Most can find contentment in the security of a regular life, even if they need to learn it behind bars first
26.
byElizabeth R. Varon (no photo)Finish date: 15 april 2016
Genre: American history
Rating: C+
Review: Contrary to hagiography and popular memory, Appomattox wasn’t a gentleman’s agreement between Robert E. Lee & U.S. Grant to bury the hatchet. Technically, the Army of Northern Virginia was cornered after a westward flight out of Richmond and Petersburg. Both men entered a limited agreement to grant safe passage to its repatriating veterans, thus preventing a union with other leftover Confederate forces in the field. In a deeper sense, both generals claimed the moral high ground for their side. The South interpreted Appomattox as the omen of a mild peace which would restore its pre-war political weight and customs, apart from slavery. The North interpreted Appomattox as a just genuflection, paving the way for profound social change.
Varon is single-minded in her thesis. She pays a lot of attention to Lee’s mental frame of reference as representative of the slave-holding elite, less so to Grant’s, and to the shaping of Lee as a symbol of pro-Southern commemoration. The Northern point of view is assembled from a variety of voices, reflecting the fundamental differences of opinion between hardcore abolitionists, moderates and Copperheads. They don’t merely concern the memory of defeat, but also the shaping of the post-war Jim Crow laws under Andrew Johnston. All of this is contained largely within the timeframe of 1865-1866 and supported by numerous peer quotes, notably Reconstruction expert Eric Foner.
Who leads me to a few reservations. The book hints at Grant’s presidency, but doesn’t reach it. It incorporates the earliest phase of Reconstruction, but sideways � it manages to make its point, but so many stories play on the edge of the narrow focus that I come away with the feeling that there’s little new ground broken, merely sliced off. For a newbie such as myself, it makes for a good post-war primer, but I have Foner waiting around for that ! *
P. S. look out for the unintentionally hilarious fear-mongering outcry that “a Negro will want to run for the highest office of this country�; it makes we want to hop in the nearest time machine with a list of the accomplishments of a damned fine presidency.
*
by
Eric Foner
27.
by
Jeremy BlackFinish date: 24 april 2016
Genre: comparative history
Rating: B-
Review: Jeremy Black rates the American Civil War, Wars of German unification and both World Wars by various definitions of the concept of total warfare. This comparison requires a fair amount of prior knowledge, since campaigns are used as bare evidence. In the process, he engages in a fair amount of revisionism aswell, such as the gospel on historiography stood at the time of publication. Sometimes the total war theme allows for long-term insights, such as the deficiences of German operational art.
I couldn't use this material for my general review, but I don't want to withhold a few notes on the final chapter: It's only a chapter, but it does grind sharp axes with a few commonly held views on WWII, alltough the situation has improved since the mid-2000's.
- Allied victory through sheer material weight. They learned to fight better. David M. Glantz' work on the Red Army was beginning to have effect in reassessing the learning curve of deep defence and sustained offensive (250+ miles). Also by improving logistic factors such as blood transfusions and vehicle replacement. Interesting exception: British shipbuilding. Unlike in WWI, the industry was unable to replace shipping tonnage lost to U-boats and only Lend-Lease ships restored the balance. The
- by contrast , the exceptional fighting quality of German & Japanese troops, as propagated by the post-war studies by German ex-generals to the tune of "whatever went wrong, I'm sure Hitler had done" . They both made mistakes and the Japanese were loathe to learn from them, facing the operationally fine-honed Sovjet penetration with unimaginative suicide attacks. German units were of varied quality, especially by the time of the campaign in Western Europe.
- the historian's habit of arranging every interwar conflict as a prelude to 1939-45. Even the Spanish & Chinese civil war were fought in a very different, more fluid way.
- The Blitzkrieg successes of 1939-1940 were already being re-evaluated according to the phrase "the Germans won because their opponents made the mistakes the enemy wanted them to make". A little factoid that my memory of this subject is build around: the Polish campaign depleted the German armour pool so severely that the Phoney War was a necessary breathing pause. Even then, captured Czech armour was a necessary additive and the French armour, when present in sufficient force on the first line, was well capable of dealing more than a bloody nose.
28.
bySteven J. Zaloga(no photo)Finish date: 25 april 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B+
Review: Anything written by Zaloga about armour promises to be more than mediocre by Osprey standards, and his introduction to the proverbial American tank of WWII delivers. The twists and turns of the development history out of the M3 are well charted. In discussing the armament & armour, much well-deserved attention is paid to the Sherman’s weaknesses in the face of the Tiger series and assorted German anti-tank weapons.
A sprinkling of ‘fun facts� breathes life into what is essentially a 60-page tech manual, such as the higher mortality rate of loaders in absence of an individual escape hatch and the infantry’s annoying habit of pillaging modified hatches to cover their foxholes. These help to dispel a few inaccuracies, such as the Sherman’s fuel tank’s notorious tendency to burst into flame whenever its armour was penetrated. In reality, combustible material in the German AP rounds combined disastrously with the tendency (prevalent in the Third Army) to stock as much ammo as possible in every nook and cranny. This practice was born of urban battlefield experience, where shooting first and looking close later neutralized many a lurking anti-tank crew or sniper, to the detriment of France’s church towers.
I would’ve liked to hear more about divergent practices and GI ingenuity; the improvised anti-panzerfaust ‘skirts� made of sandbags or spare metal pass the revue and the hedregrow cutters of Normandy get a mention, but an intruiging phrase In Wikipedia’s article on the Sherman has no equivalent here: “The 75 mm gun also had an effective canister round that functioned as a large shotgun. In the close fighting of the French bocage, the 2nd Armored Division tanks used Culin Hedgerow Cutters fitted to their tanks to push three tanks together through a hedgerow. The flank tanks would clear the back of the hedgerow on their side with canister rounds while the center tank would engage and suppress known or suspected enemy positions on the next hedgerow.�
As usual, the format feels constrained in the hands of a gifted storyteller. The sections on the operational history and the different types of Shermans feel rushed, the latter partially compensated for by the commentary to the colour plates, of which there can never be enough.
Still, It’ll be on my mind when I get to see the FURY tank RON/HARRY (T224875) from the Bovington tank museum in a few weeks :-)
29.
byDominic Lieven(no photo)Finish date: 29 april 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: A-
Alltough some damn foolish thing in the Balkan would indeed bring about a European war, the role of the two Great Powers situated on the east side of the continent in its origins have received less attention in the English-language historiography than those of Great Britain, its French ally and its infamous main opponent, the German Empire. Dominic Lieven handles the Russian origins of the Great War with gusto.
Between the defeat of the tsarist forces in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 and the assassination in Sarajevo, Russia was closely involved in every pan-European war scare, to an almost annual rythm if one adds the two Morrocan crises (1906/11) and the tension with Great Britain over spheres of influence in Persia (settled provisionally in 1907). The annexation of Bosnia by the Habsburg empire (following a de facto occupation since 1878) comes close to being a turning point in Russian Great Power politics; not a weight usually attributed. The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 are understood in terms of the questionable Serbian and Bulgarian allegiance to Russia.
Throughout, themes of tension run through the minds of Russian diplomats, ministers and generals. Pan-Slavism towards the rapidly shaping Balkan nations was popular with the press and the middle classes, but difficult to translate into foreign policy without the responsibility of war. Closely related was a form of Russian nationalism that seeked to orientate the towards Europe and its liberal modernism, to restore the country to the strength it possessed prior to the confrontation in the Far East. The defeat had been a clear signal that tsarist autocracy and semi-serfdom were no longer a reliable basis for an economically secure Russia. In terms of the industrial demands of modern warfare, this was undoubtedly true. Diametrically opposed was a desire to focus on the development of Russia's "empire in Asia", exploiting the economic resources of the Siberian landmass without crossing the sphere of influence that Japan was carving out in Northern China. Regaining strength by minding one's own business often also seemed like a good idea.
This divergence was never solved. The only element in foreign policy that nobody wanted to neglect was the alliance with France and its investment in the development of Russia's infrastructure. Russia was not fully prepared to declare war on Austria-Hungary over the Balkan states, but proved equally unable to reign in their mutually incompatible nationalist expansionism. Ironically, Germany was often the voice of mediation and instrumental in reigning in the Vienna hawks whenever they pushed for war against Serbia lest it stirred Habsburg Slavs into revolt and separation. Most importantly, no motive was strong enough for Russia to actively seek war. By july 1914 however, the Tsar and his advisers were tired of backing down in the face of Austrian challenges towards Belgrade and honoured their commitment to France.
Lieven is clear and elegant, breathing life in the individual decision makers, who merit a whole chapter which takes up a fifth of the book. Lined up, they can all be ranked by the degree of their Pan-Slavism and their familiarity with European diplomacy. As a general rule, experience gained through postings in European capitals tempered jingoism with realism. He profits from previously unmined Russian arches (some closed again at present) to challenge convential views on the Russian role in the last decade of peace, which were more often than not glanced at through the published memoirs of White exiles.
In the first sentence of the preface he drops a bombshell right away, presenting the fate of Ukraine as pivotal to the outbreak of WWI, alltough he doesn't return to this line of thought until the very end, where he combines it with the proposition that Germany could've won the war by settlement if it had been able to hang onto the annexations of Brest-Litovsk to counterbalance the might of the United States. This in itself is worth another book. It's also a pity that the war and revolution can't be discussed with the same clarity and depth as the outbreak period. "Empire, War and the end of Tsarist Russia" only covers the first third of its subtitle. I wish for a sturdily boxed trilogy that runs op to 1920.
30.
by J.W. Rinzler (no photo)Finish date: 30 april 2016
Genre: comic
Rating: B
Review: This series of alternate Star Wars universes has the best of both worlds. The artwork is radiant, like a storyboard breathing colour. The divergences from the canon storyline are often so innovative that they could've provided focus points to improve the sequels. The last of four story arcs "The Star Wars #0-8", feels a bit weaker than the tightly-shifted stories for each chapter of the original trilogy.
MAY31.
by
J.K. RowlingFinish date: 8 may 2016
Genre: fantasy
Rating: A
Review: I'm 4 books into the Harry Potter series...why only now? Maybe because I fell outside the YA demographic when the phenomenon was at its height, maybe because the glossary sounded so afwul in translation, mostly maybe because I was given the boxset for my birthday. I see Rowling maturing a a writer, even tough each book sticks to a formulaic Quest story, with the Voldemort story arc biding its time in the background (for now). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a simple black and white fairy tale that charmed the world. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the tale that its predecessor should've been. The Potter universe is starting to take on shades of realism while Harry goes on much the same quest as before. Next, these shadows take on the shape of the dreaded Dementors who guard Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban . Together with Harry's wrongly accused uncle they represent the moral ambiguity that emerges in full in part 4, where abuse of authority completes the construct of a Harry Potter universe that both children and adults can enter.
the previous books in this series are mentioned:
by
J.K. Rowling
by
J.K. Rowling
by
J.K. Rowling
32.
byЭдвард Радзинский[Edvard Radzinsky] (no photo)Finish date: 24 may 2016
Genre: biography
Rating: B-
Review: "From the author of The Last Tsar, the first full-scale life of Stalin to have what no previous biography has entirely gotten hold of: the facts." This is a publisher's blurp that actually rings true. There are many outstanding political biographies of Jozef Stalin, but Radzinsky focuses squarely on the man and tries to unearth what went on behind that imperturbable moustache.
I'm not sure which kind of biography is preferable to start with, but the intimate variety seems to work for me. To compare : the shreds of the personal portrait mixed in between a lifetime of politics tend to sink out of view in bricks such as Kershaw's Hitler, but thematically organised quicksilvers such as Anmerkungen zu Hitler or Hitler: Eine Bilanz provided the necessary leightweight framework.
This book will no doubt equally be a foothold when tackling political biographies of Stalin. They will be necessary, because an intimate focus, here and often, means the role of Stalin in the political history of Russia only comes across half-clearly.
Once at least, Stalin wrote the truth in a letter to his old mother:
"Mama, do you remember the Tsar ? That is sort of what I am now".
Cited:
by
Ian Kershaw
byGuido Knopp(no photo)
by
Sebastian Haffner
33.
byChristopher J. Priest(no photo)Finish date: 24 may 2016
Genre: graphic novel
Rating: A-
Review: My first encounter with Deadpool was the movie; perhaps that is why I rate the comics often on how their storylines would work in the form of a movie script, read: how much of that delightful DP wackiness do they deliver ? The Avenger crossovers are just weak; his encounters with the Punisher are very entertaining, but the protagonists are such polar opposites that their battles are best left on paper. I never warmed up to the Agent X series, alltough the villains of the origin story are very cinematic. The best storylines breathe an atmosphere of pulp fiction, with the Merc falling for a tattoo femme fatale that buries him alive, or getting sucked into the rampage of serial killer high school girls. The appearance of "Pool Boy" is a sweet highlight that shows how the uneven tone of its acts make a mesmerizing musical out of this whole omnibus.
Read in parts to prevent overdose. Regeneration of entertainment guaranteed.
I read The Last Tsar. I remember getting aggravated with the time travel and "premonition" declarations in it. Does Mr. Radzinsky do the same within Stalin?Though I did find all the personal tidbits he includes interesting.
,
by Эдвард Радзинский (no photo)
Skeetor wrote: "I read The Last Tsar. I remember getting aggravated with the time travel and "premonition" declarations in it. Does Mr. Radzinsky do the same within Stalin?."
Not to my recollection; at most he looks forward in Stalin's life but doesn't pull any DeLoreans.
Dimitri wrote:Not to my recollectio..."
Thanks
34.
by
Norman DaviesFinish date: 27 may 2016
Genre: history
Rating: A-
Review: By the time the Solidarity movement started to have an impact on the political stabilty of communist Poland in the early 80's, the Iron Curtain had long cut this country off from the conscious memory of Western Europe. Davies was at hand to resfresh that memory.
More than an introduction to the history of the Polish lands, which have never completely corresponded to the frontiers of the state at any time, this book is a declaration of love to the accomplishments of Polish culture and the sheer resilience of its inhabitants.
You tend to agree once you've attended a Chopin concerto in Krakow, seen the ruins in the Uprising Museum and wandered a resurrected Warshaw. My grandparents can talk of "having lived through the war" in occupied Belgium, but by comparison we got off easy.
The 2001 edition updates events from the fall of communism to the turn of the millenium. These addenda are of limited value, but the 'current events' opening chapter has matured into eyewitness history.
JUNE35.
byPhilip J. Haythornthwaite(no photo)Finish date: 21 june 2016
Genre: military history
Rating: B+
Review: Somehow having picked up that Haythornthwaite is a go-to author for Napoleonic warfare, this sun-bleached hardcover reads surprisingly familiar for someone with limited knowledge of early modern warfare: the benefits of skirmisher clouds and élan-filled collumn charges versus mutually supporting squares in checkerboard are fleshed out most tastily.
Throughout, the degree of continuity in the British Army shines through, reaching back to the American campaigns of the Georgian armies and forward to the trenches of the Crimea:
recruitment practices based on drink or escape from comely wenches in dishonourable condition, a deficient and monotonous diet of bully beef, the "galloping at everything" attitude of the mounted men....
The author proves his worth by presenting these generalities in a well-structured text, with liberal examples that more often than not serve to present the ambiguities in the stock image of Wellington's Army. For example, the proportion of recruits who had prior experience with horses was not discernably higher in the cavalry than among the infantry, nor were most horse units dominated by the nobility.
He does not shy away from the brutal reality of the battlefield. the late John Keegan would've approved of such inclusions as the finer points of flogging (to the legs if the back was too ruined by previous punishments) , the link between saber techniques and wounds sustained (British slashing would severely disfigure the faces of French opponents) or the unstoppable momentum of solid shot (even when not bouncing it could dismember en masse)
Dimitri wrote: "34.byNorman DaviesFinish date: 27 may 2016
Genre: history
Rating: A-
Review: By the ..."
I'm glad that was a better book than the one I just finished by the same author. i was rather disappointed in it but this one obviously sticks to the subject.
by
Norman Davies
Jill wrote: "I'm glad that was a better book than the one I just finished by the same author. i was rather disappointed in it but this one obviously sticks to the subject." I know I've posted this somewhere else in The History Book Club already, but for the benefit of the nice people following this thread, I'll recommended again a superior powstanie read that i'm currently devouring:
byAlexandra Richie(no photo)
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916 (other topics)Gallipoli 1915: Frontal assault on Turkey (other topics)
Gallipoli (other topics)
The Mammoth Book of the West (other topics)
De stad der blinden (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Robert T. Foley (other topics)Philip J. Haythornthwaite (other topics)
Peter FitzSimons (other topics)
Jon E. Lewis (other topics)
John Wyndham (other topics)
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Our Required Format:
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1.
Finish date: January 2016
Genre: (whatever genre the book happens to be)
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Review: You can add text from a review you have written but no links to any review elsewhere even goodreads. And that is about it. Just make sure to number consecutively and just add the months.