Yes Still Here

As an old Chinese curse put it may you live in interesting times.  I've certainly been experiencing that the last few months which explains the lack of posting.  I'm hoping that in the new year things are going to improve.  Though I suppose there are no guarantees.

I do hope to be able to get into some sort of a rhythm as far as reviews and the what's new posts go.  In that spirit today are tomorrow I'll be posting a new review and next week starting up taking a look at new releases though I doubt there will be much since we're so close to the holiday season.

Heroism in the Forest: The Jewish Partisans of Belarus by Zeev Barmatz

One of the veins of new material that has come out about the second world war in recent years is out of eastern Europe. First with the opening up of Soviet archives and now with the development of histories focused in on the individual republics. There is also been an increased interest in partisan activities especially with the combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today's book is Heroism in the Forest: The Jewish Partisans of Belarus that pretty much says what the title suggests.

 It's a short book I would guesstimate perhaps 40,000 words consisting almost completely of primary accounts from participants. I also think that they are all Jewish. There was nothing from the Soviet partisan units or for that matter the Germans who had to fight them. i would've preferred a little more context in that way. Stories themselves are interesting telling as they do about this trust between Jewish and other units. Usually around the Jewish units wanting to protect women and children and the Soviets being more interested in projecting military force. As well as anti-Semitism on the Soviet's part. The book gives the impression that at times they were fighting more with the other partisans and they were with the Germans.  Much is made of the Bielski partisans especially the camps set up to take care of the noncombatants. The book concludes with the Russians taking over after the war.

I don't think I'm the audience for this book. The back copy makes a big deal about how this will change peoples perspective on Jews meekly going to their fate. Considering one of the first scholarly books I read on the second world war by Martin Gilbert made sure to point out Jewish resistance to the Nazis I never had that impression to begin with. The lack of analysis is frustrating. From a strictly military perspective how many German units did they tiedown? How many Germans did they kill? How did this affect German logistics for their campaigns? Or if we don't want to discuss the military situation how many Jews were saved?

I do think it deserves a place on an Eastern front bookshelf. Simply for the novelty and to hopefully encourage more material like this from the publisher. After all how many Israeli publishers are publishing in English these days?

This was a review copy.

For the Record

Just for the record nothing interesting in this weeks new releases. Hopefully have a review up tomorrow.

What's new for the week of August 6, 2013

Ok let's see if I can  keep this up... As explained before these are releases this week that jumped out at me.


Music & the British Military in the Long Nineteenth Century By Trevor Herbert and Helen Barlow well may as well start off with something expensive and out of left field. Also a fan of classical music and I've never seen a study like this before.
Alexander P. de Seversky and the Quest for Air Power By James K. Libbey I've read one of the subjects books on airpower and I want to learn more about his theories.
The Rocky Road to the Great War: The Evolution of Trench Warfare to 1914 by Nicholas Murray I'm a sucker for books on changes to doctrine and strategy.
The Nine Years' War and the British Army 1688-97: The Operations in the Low Countries by John C R Childs a painful price especially for a paperback but I haven't seen a book length treatment of this campaign. Obscure always gets points from me.
Under the Blue Beret: A U.N. Peacekeeper in the Middle East by Terry "Stoney" Burke Canadian Armed Forces memoirs post-World War II are rare enough and not a general with a political acts to grind.
Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864 by Earl J. Hess now the use of fortifications though the different conflict than above.

Still Alive

Yes I'm still alive. Realize I haven't been posting anything for quite a while. I have no good excuses so I'll just say that I'm going to try to do better. Though having a review opportunity I'm excited about certainly helps. Tomorrow a "what's new" post will go up and hopefully I'll have some reviews shortly.

What's new for the week of May 21, 2013

Here are the releases that jumped out for me for the past week.

Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword: The British Regiment on Campaign, 1808-1815 (Campaigns and Commanders Series) by Andrew Bamford looks at the combat effectiveness of the British army as it related to noncombat casualties. Not quite sure this is as controversial as the back cover blurb makes out however it may be the first book to devote a full-length study so it deserves a place on the list.

The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War by Richard Rubin as the centennial approaches I would expect to see more books like this. Sounds more like reportage than history.

Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions, 1863-1864 by Paul N. Beck one of those conflicts I only know from short references and other works. Linking it to the whiter civil war does make sense.

City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas by Roger Crowley title pretty much says it all.

What's new for the week May 14, 2013

So here we go.

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 By Rick Atkinson This is the big headliner for the week. I have his first two volumes and enjoyed them although they are more aimed at the popular history and of the spectrum. Will definitely have to pick this up.

Napoleon on St Helena By Mabel Brookes a reissue and I'm not sure how it's considered in the literature but it's a topic I've wanted to learn more about.

The Snake Eaters: Counterinsurgency Advisors in Combat By Owen West books on the occupation of Iraq seem to have slowed to a trickle. I wonder if this is due to burn out or perhaps a dearth of new material. The nuts and bolts of counterinsurgency on the ground is certainly something worthy of study.

What's new for the week May 7, 2013

Here is what looked interesting this past week.

The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea by Walter R. Borneman group biographies like this can either be brilliant at showing parallels and contrast or can be a bit of a mess especially when there's individuals that there isn't much material on.
 
GENERAL ALBERT C. WEDEMEYER: America's Unsung Strategist in World War II by John McLaughlin I have heard of him but the references are always short. Planning and strategy have been a big part of my reading over the years.

The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe by Stephen Harding this story sounds like something out of a bad action movie but they always say that truth is stranger than fiction.

The Catapult: A History by Tracey Rihll hay have some siege weapons.

What's new for the week of April 30 2013

So let's see what jumps out at me this week.

Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present by Brendan Simms I am a sucker for a grand narrative. Especially if it manages to avoid generalities and doesn't make mistakes. So I'll be very interested to see how this is received. Perhaps only military history in the grand strategic sense still it gets a spot on my WishList.

Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century by Geoffrey Parker pretty much the same goes for this book as well.

The Immortal 600 by Karen Stokes I know a decent amount about what the Confederacy did with POWs but not so much about the Union. This looks like this could help balance that. Hopefully the use of human shields and retaliation would be placed in some sort of context. That this isn't just a North evil, South courageous analysis.

What's new for the week of April 23rd 2013

Not much this week just the one book.
 Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign By Earl J. Hess looks like this could be an interesting study on a key part of the campaign

The Slaves’ Choice: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812 by Gene Allen Smith

In my experience books on the War of 1812 follow the same narrative of American naval success and British/Canadian success on land, the level of emphasis placed upon these two things is usually based on the author’s nationality. So it is unusual to come across a book that deals with the topic in a new and different way. A book like this is: The Slaves' Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812 which looks at the relationship of the US with its slave and free black population. The book starts out with the American revolution discussing how manpower concerns soon led to the acknowledgement that some African Americans would be needed to fight either as free men or as slaves who were rented out to the army with their salary going to their owners.

The core of the book is taken up with the War of 1812 discussing at length the British reaction to this and attempts on the part of the British forces to encourage slaves to desert, hopefully undermining American manpower. Along the way anecdotes of those who decided to stay and fight for the Americans as well as those who signed up with the British are discussed. The campaign in Florida against the Spanish is also touched upon. With books like this it is often difficult to do it without either dealing with disjointed anecdotes or simply to provide a narrative history of the events and occasionally reference the topic. Fortunately, this book manages a happy mix of the two. I wouldn’t recommend this as a first book on the war, but there is enough here to understand what is going on.

The book concludes by arguing that seeing the success of black troops, the antebellum South became more fearful of the possibility of slave revolts. So, ironically, those free men who fought for the Americans made things worse, at least until the American Civil War. I think he may be underestimating the effect that the slave revolt on Haiti had.

Recommended for those who want a different look at the War of 1812 and the issue of African Americans in combat prior to the American Civil War.

Book was provided for review.

What's new for the week of April 16th 2013

 Here are the books that look interesting that were released in the last week. Not much this time.
Grant at Vicksburg: The General and the Siege by Michael B. Ballard I've read quite a bit on this campaign so I'll be interested to see what's new here. There's also supposedly a debunking of the famous "Grant goes on a bender" story.
Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss by Laurence Rees I know what you're asking do we need another book on Hitler? I have to say I'm a bit skeptical considering the title which screams late-night documentary but this thing is blurbed by some big names so I'm willing to consider it.

First World War Memory and the Next Few Years

I was all prepared to write several thousand words about the closest thing to a historical debate we have had in Canada for a very long time.  Mainly the blog post put forward by a current NDP, member of parliament suggesting that the First World War was something that Canada should not have been involved in and only Communists had stood up against it.  On rereading the original article I realized that the post in question was from 2007 which does blow up my thesis that this is the beginning of a historical debate that should encompass the next few years, filled as it is with the centennial of the various military actions.

I also found the original piece rather odd. After all, the war support in French speaking Canada was never as high as it was in English Canada. This is true of both world wars. I am not exactly sure why the Communists specifically are being put forward here. As for Vimy Ridge, I have actually most seen it described as the coming together of English Canada, specifically separate from French Canada.

That being said, I do think the next few years will be very interesting. I can only see more debates like this popping up. I only hope that Canadian media, both in book publishing as well as TV and perhaps even film are able to produce suitable material. I have already heard stories out of the UK about jockeying for position as far as the publishing schedule goes.  I am worried that since the Canadian industry is so much smaller and we have comparatively fewer experts that there won’t be much. Also our anemic film and TV industry, trapped as it is by reproducing American reality TV shows and occasional quirky comedies, may not have the chops to produce our own Saving Private Ryan.  It is, perhaps, an unfortunate bell weather that the recent Canadian film to deal with the First World War Passchendaele seems to have been more as an excuse for Paul Gross an aging leading man to bed a nurse during an artillery barrage. I will be optimistic and try on this blog to point out things as they happen going forward.

For the record I was also gratified to see  Thomas Mulcair of as well as the veterans affairs critic strongly condemn the statements.  Stupid and insulting as they were.

What's new for the week of April 9th 2013

Here are the books that looked interesting when I scanned through Amazon's new releases list in military history.
Bolivar: American Liberator . By Marie Arana I'm weak on South American history particularly 19th century so I'm very interested in this book. It's a biography but hopefully the military campaigns will have decent coverage it's over 600 pages.
Mussolini's Death March: Eyewitness Accounts of Italian Soldiers on the Eastern Front by Nuto Revelli translated series of interviews with Italian veterans. Originally published back in the 60s. As the back copy mentions the soviets and Germans get most of the coverage so this is an important book.
Tragedy at Dieppe: Operation Jubilee, August 19, 1942 by Mark Zuehlke I've been reading his Canadian battles books on World War II for years. They're always excellent and include lots of eyewitness accounts. So I'm looking forward to this.
The Biafran War: The Struggle for Modern Nigeria by Michael Gould finishing off this week with another book on an obscure conflict. I always say that we don't need another book on Normandy we need books on the other conflicts so I should practice what I preach and take a closer look at this one.

Let's try this again

Yes I been gone for quite a while. Things came up including a death in the family. Now I'm back willing to try to take a stab at things. At least considering my traffic numbers it's not like I'm been disappointing any of you. A new  books list up shortly. With a review in the next few days..

What's new for the week of January 8th 2013

I'm back after a hectic Christmas season hopefully I'll be able to do this weekly from now on. I guess we'll see. These are new releases that looked interesting I haven't had a chance to read any of them yet though.

My Share of the Task: A Memoir by General Stanley McChrystal this is easily the sexiest new release. Mentioning it more for completeness than anything else the reviews I've seen so far aren't exactly glowing.

Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency by Dr Huw Bennett often held up as a model counterinsurgency this takes a revisionist view. I looked quite a bit at this when doing my MA. Interested to see how his argument holds up.

The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan look at the rise and I suspect fall of the "COIN mafia". This goes straight to the top as far as a purchase list for me.

Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era by William J. Cooper my interest in the American civil War comes and goes but the dysfunction of the CSA particularly it's chain of command is always worth a look. Davis of course being responsible for much of it.

What's new for the week of November 13 2012

I was busy last week so this contains the last two weeks of releases. As I've said before I haven't read any of these they just sound interesting.
Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb by Feroz Khan I don't think there is much in English on Pakistan's program. The fact that this is written by someone from the nation with experience makes it all the more interesting.
A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust by Mary Fulbrook perhaps tangential to military history I think this does have a place here. Both for what it says about NAZI ideology which after all started the war as well as the wasteful use of manpower Germany inflicted on itself.
STALIN'S FALCONS RESURGENT: Soviet Air Power and the Battle of Kursk 1943 by Mark A. O'Neill I tend to be a bit leery of books on the eastern front. There just are so many landmines to be avoided but on the other hand this is one of the few books to deal with aviation.

The utility of one star reviews

While writing up the last review I took the time to look at the other reviews I could find online. I noticed something that I have noticed other times when dealing with books that have controversial topics. Often the one star reviews are more useful to me than the five star reviews for the simple reason that if one star reviews are able to use actual facts to show their arguments are correct, that gives the book less credibility, while if the one star reviews simply involve ad hominem attacks without giving reasons then that strengthens the book. For example, many years ago I worked up a reading list on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by reading one star reviews. If the one star reviews said that the author was either an anti Semite or part of the Zionist conspiracy without providing examples of how they were wrong, it was likely that the book was much closer to the truth than the negative reviewer wished to admit. I naturally found that out with the previous book on the Tamil Tigers.

The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers by Gordon Weiss

The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers
 by Gordon Weiss

 This book describes the final days of the campaign of the Sri Lankan government to defeat the Tamil Tigers. This was highly controversial and it has, in fact, been described as the first foreign policy failing of the Obama administration. The use of heavy weapons, including artillery against civilians, as the author notes, turned what were operations against a terrorist group that the world community approved of to one that for a time, at least, made the Sri Lankan authorities isolated within the international community.

The book starts out with a history of the Tamil Tigers and their attacks against the government. This takes up the first few chapters of the book. He does bounce around inside the timeline. It is not a strictly linear telling, which can make things somewhat confusing.

The heart of the book is a description of the final assault. The author, who worked for the UN is exceedingly careful in describing the events. For instance, after describing the use of artillery against a school which killed several female students, he points out under international law how this could be a legitimate military target, then lays out the Sri Lankan government’s argument that it was.  Next using various reports to show that this was not accurate. It is much more convincing than if he had simply complained against the use of military hardware against civilians. He criticizes both sides, both the government for its heavy handed tactics as well as the Tigers for using the people as human shields.

This is not a book for someone who thinks that the government was within its rights to do anything to stop terrorists or, for that matter, that the Tamils were freedom fighters who could do anything against a corrupt government.

The book is also excellent at describing the international community’s reaction, first, after 9/11 becoming serious about the Tigers as a terrorist group, doing what they could to disrupt the highly sophisticated fund raising operations in the western democracies—Canada, Australia and the US—and how this gave the Sri Lankan government carte blanche in the beginning to step up operations against them. While the operations were taking place, the politics of the ualigned countries and third world came into play when the western nations wanted investigations against the Sri Lankan government’s actions. Countries such as India and China viewing these as a violation of sovereignty did what they could to block them, which is something that, of course, is going on today in Syria.

The book concludes on a rather depressing note discussing that these sorts of conflicts is something that will be needed to be confronted in the 21st century.

I would recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in the conflict and who doesn’t have an ideological dog in the fight. 

This book was provided by the publisher for review.

What's new for the week of October 30 2012?

As mentioned earlier, one of the reasons for starting this blog was to keep a handle on interesting new military history releases.  So I have looked at the last week or so of Amazon books and will here list those that I find interesting.  Just to be clear, I haven’t read any of these books.  So I have no idea whether or not they are any good. Given an infinite amount of time and resources these would be the books that I would be reading.

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks I've been looking forward to this since I heard it was in the pipeline. I greatly enjoyed his Fiasco on Iraq from 03 through 05. For some reason I never did pick up the sequel.
We Got Him!: A Memoir of the Hunt and Capture of Saddam Hussein by Steve Russell a new paperback written by the CO of the unit that captured Hussein. I'm usually not big on first person accounts like this but for this I'd make an exception.
Border Crossings: Coming of Age in the Czech Resistance by Charles Novacek OK an other memoir but all I know about the Czech resistance is the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
The Army Isn't All Work: Physical Culture and the Evolution of the British Army, 1860-1920 by James D. Campbell ouch well I did say infinite money. I find studies like this that go off the beaten path to be fascinating. Physical training being at the core of good soldiering I'm surprised it's not discussed more.
Yamashita's Ghost: War Crimes, MacArthur's Justice, and Command Accountability by Allan A. Ryan I've read quite a bit on the Nuremberg trials but not much on the ones carried out in Japan.
The Persian Invasions of Greece by Arthur Keaveney I've read a lot of ancient history in my time so it has to jump out at me for me to consider it. This book does mainly because it claims to have some material from the Persian side.