Dirty Little Secrets of World War Ii : Military Information No One Told You...

Rating:
Summary: A very pleasant reading
Review: "Dirty Little Secrets" is a funny and enjoyable book if you are interested in a brief summary of military history of II WW. It reveals many small facts, sometimes irrelevant for a big treatise; they give a tragicomic dimension to the secrets of battles and operations during the war. Many details and anectodes are narrated as a complement to the official history of military and political industrial complex, giving a touch of irriverence to the picture of war efforts played by the partecipants.

Of course, if you are looking for a comprehensive textbook, this is not your volume; but it is an hilarious reference (often a serious one) of military affairs in II WW for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book of Trivia
Review: Despite the title there are no earth shattering disclosures of anything in this book. This is not a book for the serious military scholar. It is a book for those with a passing interest or hobby in the history of World War II. I found it to be an enjoyable book that I read simply as a leisure activity. Its' format, which is broken down into sections of around a paragrapch and generally never more than a page or two, make for ease of reading. It does have value as a tool for generating thought on WWII topics. In closing this book was alot of fun to read and anyone who is not a serious military historian will likely find the information presented to be somewhat illuminating and will appreaciate the authors' straightforward reader friendly writing style.

Rating:
Summary: A few curious facts, overall very low quality
Review: First, and least important -- the book lacks a chunk of pages, which is "compensated" by some other pages present twice. OK, that's beside the point. What's more important, is that while a few facts in the book are curious, most are not. Moreover, some of the reported is wrong, nay, ridiculous, so I wonder if it isn't wrong all over and I simply don't know any better.

As is made very clear, this is not a history book, and you'll definitely need to read something else to get the background for the events reported in this book. With this in mind, maybe you don't need to deal with this one at all. Overall, this book is a waste of time. Better read something else more systematic and informative, and w/o baloney.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely misnamed.
Review: I found very few dirty little secrets. It's a fun title that doesn"t deliver. Lots of dry statistics that are shuffled, dealt, reshuffled & dealt again & again. I may have a superior attitude about what I read concerning World War II. But it is my recreation. It must inform or interest or amuse me. This book fails on all accounts. I turned every page to give it a fair chance & it was a wasted effort. This book may have its place. If the reader is not ever going to read another book on World War II it's okay. That MacArthur & Churchill & FDR are related (how?) & that you can't fart at 30,000 feat are examples of the factoids in this book. It has tipped me off to avoid all the other Dirty Little Secrets book in this series.

Rating:
Summary: Still a good read nevertheless
Review: I'm not sure if I rank as a casual reader of military history- in the last two years, I've read in detail about a dozen books on the last World War, and about that number casually as well-but I picked up Dirty Little Secrets. It's been a welcome addition to my small library of books on this period since then.

It is easy for military historians to discount some of the "revelations" in it as either not new, or just plain factually wrong. It is true indeed that the authors of the book are somewhat biased in their writing- a fact that they're not ashamed to admit, as one would be able to read in the first few pages- and may be difficult for casual readers to accurately discern whether some fact is indeed the whole truth, or just a plain misrepresentation. Even then, the book is still highly enjoyable to read, as the authors have a lively writing style that's not intimating. Without make a final judgement to the how accurate to fact are the authors' stance on some issue, I still found their opinions a refreshing read, for example on Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement" policy.

Finally, it's equally easy for new readers to the genre to get into, and best of all, the organisation of information in it is well suited to a person casually reading selected pages of the book, as opposed to having to read it from front to back in order to make any sense out of it. The book may thus not be suited for expert readers of this period; but for the casual reader, it may well be worth a look.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Research Poorly Written
Review: The US army actually had more ships than the US navy? Polish cavalry never actually fought German tanks? These and other tidbits of historical trivia are compiled in this book. Ranging from odd facts such as the number of inkstamps used by Nazi Germany to the debunking of popular myth like the supposed failure of the Maginot Line, this tome is a good addition for the library of any WWII buff.

Rating:
Summary: Trivia you thought you knew
Review: This book is excellent for those who want to supplement their knowledge of World War II with real human stories and analysis of why the war went the way it did.

The way it's written, it can be read at the pace you choose. It's divided into small anecdotes, and can be an excellent bathroom reader.

Rating:
Summary: A great repository of facts, a little disorganized....
Review: This was a very interesting book. the main problem however was the fact that it was very disorganized and if you wanted to find a certain piece of info, you had to search for a long time. Reccommended to any history buff...it is quite entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Its a great book of interesting facts
Review: Unlike the "true Historians" who belittle this book, I recommend this book to people who really want to learn about the peculiaritites of World War Two. Of course if you've read a billion books about World War Two and have a superiority complex then you would not want this book.

But for the casual reader of military history like myself, this book if filled with interesting and even soemtimes odd or humorous facts facts on the greatest war in military history which isn't covered in high school history like how the Allies could accurately predict the garrison of Japanese islands by counting the number out outhouses on an island then looking to the Japanese field manual for outhouses per how many men.

I recomend this book for all of you casual readers of military history and not "true historians" who have a superiority complex. It is a treasure chest of interesting facts to people who dont read fifty books on World War Two every week.

While this book may not be handy for doing a report on World War Two, it has plenty of interesting facts and figures though.

Rating:
Summary: Still a good read nevertheless
Review: While a member of Generation X, my interest in World War two is more than that of a kibitzer (though I am no serious historian). As such, I found much of the information interesting and well-written, but the presentation was very poor. The author lets a very strong political bias and commentary on modern events intrude (sometimes rather rudely, and always inappropriately) in his narration of factual events. This really prevents the book from reaching its potential as a tool for introducing the novice to some of the more interesting points of WWII. This book would be best suited as a gift for someone of High School age who is interested in the subject.