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Summary: WW II Reader Illuminates and Fascinates
Review: This is a compilation book featuring articles that have appeared in MHQ, the military history magazine.Authors such as Stephen Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegan and others explore some of the finer points and fascinating vignettes of the Second World War. This book is not a complete history of the conflict and does not intend to be. For the reader who has an understanding of the basics of the war, this fine collection will serve to illuminate little known aspects and operations as well as introduce topics that can be explored in greater depth by other books. I personally was fascinated by several of the articles. There is a gripping account of the retreat from Bataan and the stoic majesty of General King who had to surrender the American forces in the Philippines. Caleb Carr writes a good account of the German invasion of Poland that gives more credit to the Poles than readers usually find. Likewise the articles on Stalingrad and the Turning Points of Tarawa are interesting. John Keegan does his usual masterful work in an account of the Battle of Berlin. But the stories that one usually doesn't hear about are the real treats. Paul Kemp reveals one of the Italian success stories in Decima Mas, about a waterborn sabatouge unit that was successful in sinking and damaging significant British shipping in the Mediterranian. I had not been aware of this unit at all before this book. Also new to me were descriptions of a Nazi automated weather station landed in North America on the coast of Labrador and the tale of a Soviet offensive contemporary to the Stalingrad encirlement that was a large failure and cost Stalin 500,000 men. Descriptions of the reaction in Tokyo to Pearl Harbor on December 8th, an account of Orde Wingate's Chindits, the story of the Channel Dash by German naval surface ships, the successful raid that destroyed the Nazi heavy water factory in Norway, the diary of a B-17 tail gunner and the account of a Kamikaze pilot who survived his mission are fascinating. With it's varied topics, first class authors and relatively short articles, this book should not boor the history buff and will probably introduce all but the professional military historians of the period to new information and fascinating stories of World War II.
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Summary: Heavyweight Authors Write on World War II
Review: We have heavyweight authors such as William Manchester, Stephen Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegan, and others write essays covering all aspects of World War II in this heavyweight volume of 688 pages. The essays are fairly short so you can put the book down and come back to it later without feeling you have to pick up where you left off. From familiar stories such as the invasion of Normandy to an interesting story on Germany's Black Knight, Field Marshal von Rundstedt and another on General Curtis LeMay will provide you, the reader, with additional information whatever your background on World War II. As mentioned, the book is long, but the essays enable you to break the book up into managable parts so you are able to pioneer your way through it successfully. Don't be intimidated by the length. It is worth the time to wade through it.
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Summary: Illuminating Collection Of Essays On World War Two!
Review: What a wonderful gift editor Robert Crowley has given us with this treasure trove of individual essays from individual contributors in this spellbinding book covering a number of different aspects and experiences during World War Two! As one of the authors, the late popular historian Stephan Ambrose has shown us with many of his own works, the history of the Second World War was such a massive and variegated plethora of anecdotes, campaigns and experiences that it is nearly impossible to exhaust the steady stream of captivating stories that spring from its loins like bouncing babies, fully formed, into the waiting reader's lap. This is a particularly attractive package of essays, perfect for people who want something relatively short, as each individual offering within is, something one can read on a plane flight in its entirety and then pick up later without trying to remember the context or story thread where he had left off. And each of the stories makes for fascinating reading indeed. The list of authors included is both impressive and eclectic, ranging from Ambrose, who weighs in with the taut and stirring tale of a platoon of paratroopers attempting to take and control a bridge key to the initial thrust of the first few hours of the Normandy landing, to Caleb Carr, better known for his success as a novelist ("The Alienist") but quite an eminent historian as well, to William Manchester to John Keegan to Antony Beever to Stanley Weintraub to David M. Glantz. And this is only some of the luminary historically prominent authors gathered together in what can only be described as a bravura collection of stories and perspectives on the total war effort, ranging in topics from the island hopping effort in the South Pacific to the desperate hours of the first few hours leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in the French Ardennes in December of 1944. Despite my own wide reading of similar historical sources over the last thirty years, I found several of the articles quite illuminating and educational, as with Caleb Car's treatment of life on the ground as the invasion of Poland proceeds in September, 1939 in the precipitating event that quickly served to trigger the advent of the Second World War as such. Similarly, articles by Charles Berges, Sir David Fraser, and Carlo D'Este proved both fascinating and edifying in illuminating aspects of the war only poorly understood and studied in the existing literature. This monograph especailly serves the interested private scholars like me who wants to know more about various different aspects and perspectives of the war that are not adequately or fully treated elsewhere, and used in conjunction with marvelous other resources such as Gerhard Weinberg's masterful "A World At Arms", Richard Spector's terrific ""Eagle Against The Sun", and William Shirer's eye-witness testimony in "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich", gives us a much richer and more comprehensive understanding of the signal historical event of the 20th century. Enjoy!
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Summary: World War II Vignettes
Review: With any compilation from various authors, the articles in that type of book tend to be a bit uneven. Some articles are excellent, others less so. That is the situation with this work, I feel. There are the majority of articles which rate five stars, and there are some which go as low as three. I have therefore averaged out my ratings as a whole, and come up with this four star rating opinion. That having been said, let me recommend this work to you if you are at all interested in learning little bits and pieces about important parts of WW II. It is also quite possible that you will enjoy some of the articles that I did not, for everyone's take on writing is subjective. You may not learn a lot of new information in this book, but at its best the info is presented in extremely interesting ways, and even in some of the lower- rated articles, there are still nuggets of information which I appreciated receiving. You won't be disappointed by reading this work.
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