Rating: 
Summary: Great Compilation.
Review: A great collection of articles by recognised authorities. I got it as a bargain book but would be more than happy to pay full price - or more!
Rating:
Summary: Great Compilation.
Review: A great collection of articles by recognised authorities. I got it as a bargain book but would be more than happy to pay full price - or more!
Rating: 
Summary: Great book on WWII
Review: First off, I almost gave this book 5 stars - so it's really 4-1/2.
This book is a series of articles by various authors - most of them historians and all very well written. The articles are ordered chronologically so you are moving through the war as you read the articles - which works very well.
What makes this book so good however is the articles were picked to discuss items that haven't seen much (if any) discussion in most books about the war. For example the war in France after Dunkirk - which was a lot more extensive than I had realized.
Add to that the articles are all good to very well written and you have a great book.
Get it.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Essays highlighting the untouched
Review: No End Save Victory provides the reader with interesting and insightful short essays highlighting some of the most overlooked periods of an often overplayed part of history.Covering the lesser know battles and looking at the performance of the other side, No End Save Victory offers the reader a view at history through the eyes of some of our most famous historians. How many books or articles have been written about the French defense after Sedan? How many movies show the confusion and tenacious fighting qualities of our Phillipeano allies as they fell back onto the Bataan Penisula? These are some of the essays which fill this great volumn.
If you sick of "popular" history books and want to hear from some of the best writers on less often written essays, No End Save Victory is the book for you. Sully
Rating:
Summary: "Color" Commentary on WWII
Review: This book is an excellent companion piece to any conventional history of the Second World War. This compilation of essays represents a "best of the best" of previously published articles from the magazine MHQ, and each provides unique "color" commentary on snap-shot events of the war, some well-known,
some not. Obviously, some of the contributions are better than others, but there are none that I didn't enjoy reading. The more noteworthy ones include novelist Caleb Carr's look at Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland. The author of two works in the book (the second is a look at the "Black Knight"-Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt; an interesting piece marred by poorly substantiated and thus unfair criticism of Gen. Eisenhower's strategy in 1944-45), Carr makes a good case in his first essay that the conduct of the often forgotten Polish campaign which started the war is worthy of a lot more study and attention than it has generally received. Similarly, David Glantz gives us a good look at Operation Mars, the gigantic offensive designed to push the Germans away from Moscow in 1942. The offensive was a colossal failure but Soviet suppression and the victory at Stalingrad allowed this battle to be shrouded in obscurity for most of postwar history. David Shears provides two interesting looks at the possibilities surrounding Operation Sea Lion, Germany's half-hearted (and ultimately junked) plan for invading England. In this same theme, "The Turning Points of Tarawa" by Joseph H. Alexander gives a startling reassessment of the bloody battle for Tarawa, from predominantly a Japanese point of view. For stories from the Home Front, Theodore F. Cooke Jr. gives readers a very illuminating look at Japanese reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor in "Tokyo, December 8, 1941," while George Feifer's "The Last Picture Show" gives an account of Joesph Goebbels' bizarre film project in the dying days of the Third Reich to rally German morale to face the final cataclysm. Interesting "I Was There" pieces include "The Day the Hornet Sank", a memoir by a nineteen year old petty officer "Airedale," and "A Kamikaze's Tale," the first account published in the West by a surviving Kamikaze flier. Worthwhile assessments of wartime leadership include Alistair Horne's "In Defense of Montgomery", an apology for the often disparaged British field marshal by an historian worthy (if name-recognition wasn't such a marketing factor) of front-cover billing, but unfortunately he's trumped by the overrated William Manchester (who does have a good, if somewhat disjointed account of the Battle of Britain in this book), as well as the ubiquitous Stephen Ambrose. While I did not agree with many of Horne's conclusions--I would say that von Rundstedt's description of Rommel also fit's Rommel's nemesis Monty: "a brave man, and a very capable commander, but not really qualified for high command" (besides, Monty was a pompous [jerk], a point Horne willingly concedes)--this essay is still highly recommended reading. I was more sympathetic to Victor Davis Hanson's rehabilitation of the legacy of Curtis LeMay (America's version of the RAF's "Bomber Harris") in "The Right Man." While he's been an object of left-wing ridicule beginning primarily in the 1960s, a frank, contextual appraisal of LeMay's wartime (and postwar, too) accomplishments indicates that he's worthy of recognition as one of our great wartime commanders (and deserves credit as the architect of the strategic force crucial to democracy's victory in the Cold War). Read this piece together with Williamson Murray's "Did Strategic Bombing Work?", an excellent rebuttal to the often repeated assertion that the Allied bombing campaign against Germany was not only ineffective but patently immoral. Finally, Eliot A. Cohen's "Churchill and his Generals" is not only an excellent study of the British Prime Minister exercising wartime leadership, it's also an important reminder to Americans of the inseparable linkage between politics and war. Our traditional desire to separate those two considerations has arguably led to outcomes that fell well short of expectations following many of America's wars. All in all, this book should be considered an essential addition to any World War II library.
Rating:
Summary: "Color" Commentary on WWII
Review: This book is an excellent companion piece to any conventional history of the Second World War. This compilation of essays represents a "best of the best" of previously published articles from the magazine MHQ, and each provides unique "color" commentary on snap-shot events of the war, some well-known,
some not. Obviously, some of the contributions are better than others, but there are none that I didn't enjoy reading. The more noteworthy ones include novelist Caleb Carr's look at Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland. The author of two works in the book (the second is a look at the "Black Knight"-Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt; an interesting piece marred by poorly substantiated and thus unfair criticism of Gen. Eisenhower's strategy in 1944-45), Carr makes a good case in his first essay that the conduct of the often forgotten Polish campaign which started the war is worthy of a lot more study and attention than it has generally received. Similarly, David Glantz gives us a good look at Operation Mars, the gigantic offensive designed to push the Germans away from Moscow in 1942. The offensive was a colossal failure but Soviet suppression and the victory at Stalingrad allowed this battle to be shrouded in obscurity for most of postwar history. David Shears provides two interesting looks at the possibilities surrounding Operation Sea Lion, Germany's half-hearted (and ultimately junked) plan for invading England. In this same theme, "The Turning Points of Tarawa" by Joseph H. Alexander gives a startling reassessment of the bloody battle for Tarawa, from predominantly a Japanese point of view. For stories from the Home Front, Theodore F. Cooke Jr. gives readers a very illuminating look at Japanese reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor in "Tokyo, December 8, 1941," while George Feifer's "The Last Picture Show" gives an account of Joesph Goebbels' bizarre film project in the dying days of the Third Reich to rally German morale to face the final cataclysm. Interesting "I Was There" pieces include "The Day the Hornet Sank", a memoir by a nineteen year old petty officer "Airedale," and "A Kamikaze's Tale," the first account published in the West by a surviving Kamikaze flier. Worthwhile assessments of wartime leadership include Alistair Horne's "In Defense of Montgomery", an apology for the often disparaged British field marshal by an historian worthy (if name-recognition wasn't such a marketing factor) of front-cover billing, but unfortunately he's trumped by the overrated William Manchester (who does have a good, if somewhat disjointed account of the Battle of Britain in this book), as well as the ubiquitous Stephen Ambrose. While I did not agree with many of Horne's conclusions--I would say that von Rundstedt's description of Rommel also fit's Rommel's nemesis Monty: "a brave man, and a very capable commander, but not really qualified for high command" (besides, Monty was a pompous [jerk], a point Horne willingly concedes)--this essay is still highly recommended reading. I was more sympathetic to Victor Davis Hanson's rehabilitation of the legacy of Curtis LeMay (America's version of the RAF's "Bomber Harris") in "The Right Man." While he's been an object of left-wing ridicule beginning primarily in the 1960s, a frank, contextual appraisal of LeMay's wartime (and postwar, too) accomplishments indicates that he's worthy of recognition as one of our great wartime commanders (and deserves credit as the architect of the strategic force crucial to democracy's victory in the Cold War). Read this piece together with Williamson Murray's "Did Strategic Bombing Work?", an excellent rebuttal to the often repeated assertion that the Allied bombing campaign against Germany was not only ineffective but patently immoral. Finally, Eliot A. Cohen's "Churchill and his Generals" is not only an excellent study of the British Prime Minister exercising wartime leadership, it's also an important reminder to Americans of the inseparable linkage between politics and war. Our traditional desire to separate those two considerations has arguably led to outcomes that fell well short of expectations following many of America's wars. All in all, this book should be considered an essential addition to any World War II library.
Rating:
Summary: Essays by Today's Foremost World War II Authors
Review: This book offers a fine collection of essays written by today's foremost authorities on the second world war. Authors such as Stephen Ambrose, John Keegan, and Dan Kurzman have contributed to this fine book. The layout of the book is excellent. Instead of having individual chapters, the editors have put the essays into chronological order, so the reader doesn't necessarily have to read the book in sequential order. Rather, the reader has the freedom to skip to the parts of the book that they find the most interesting if they so choose. Each essay gives a unique insight into a specific area of the war. Some of my favorites included "Diary of a Tail Gunner", told by a B-17 tail gunner who survived twenty six missons over Nazi territory. I also enjoyed "The Other Pearl Harbor", which discussed MacArthur's failures in the Phillipines after the Pearl Harbor attack. There is something for everyone in this book, regardless if you enjoy reading about the European or Pacific theaters. This is a good book and gives a fine overview of the entire war as well as some lesser-known encounters.
Rating:
Summary: Essays by Today's Foremost World War II Authors
Review: This book offers a fine collection of essays written by today's foremost authorities on the second world war. Authors such as Stephen Ambrose, John Keegan, and Dan Kurzman have contributed to this fine book. The layout of the book is excellent. Instead of having individual chapters, the editors have put the essays into chronological order, so the reader doesn't necessarily have to read the book in sequential order. Rather, the reader has the freedom to skip to the parts of the book that they find the most interesting if they so choose. Each essay gives a unique insight into a specific area of the war. Some of my favorites included "Diary of a Tail Gunner", told by a B-17 tail gunner who survived twenty six missons over Nazi territory. I also enjoyed "The Other Pearl Harbor", which discussed MacArthur's failures in the Phillipines after the Pearl Harbor attack. There is something for everyone in this book, regardless if you enjoy reading about the European or Pacific theaters. This is a good book and gives a fine overview of the entire war as well as some lesser-known encounters.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book - Highly Recommended
Review: This collection of essays is nothing less than superb.
Rating:
Summary: Collection of articles from MHQ on WW2
Review: This is a collection of articles by various mostly eminent historians covering most of the critical events of World War II. It includes articles by Caleb Carr (the novelist who wrote The Alienist), William Manchester (biographer of Churchill and MacArthur), Antony Beevor (author of books on Stalingrad and Berlin), and Theodore F. Cook (specialist in Japan during WW2). The articles consist of everything from studies of battles to biographies of the major combatants.
This book is better a bit than Cowley's volume on the Civil War. He does ruin some of the articles by cribbing his introductions from the actual articles that he's introducing. The authors themselves, however, are just about as stellar as they can get in the current round of historians, including Manchester, who's now retired, and Carr, who's stopped writing military history in favor of novels. The other misgiving I have is that this isn't a complete history of the war. The reader must have a reasonable knowledge of the war before s/he begins reading the book, to understand all the nuances and points that are made by the various authors.
I liked this collection, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in military history or World War II.
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