World War I Books

A Couple of old WW I titles that are favorites of mine, and in some way influenced my thinking.

The Battle for Europe: 1918 by H. Essame.  Charles Scribners Son's, New York, 1972. 216pp, Index.

A nice short "popular" account of the time, I probably bought and read it in 1976 (It still has an Edward McKay price sticker inside, a bookstore in Fayetteville, North Carolina).  Covers the period from the Kaiser's Offensive to the end of the war, mostly from the British perspective.  The author himself and his viewpoint are much closer to how the participants probably viewed the events than anything you will find in current "Mainstream" literature about the period.

The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I.  by Arthur E. Barbeau and Florette Henri.  Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1974.  279 pages, Index, Illus.

Another "Find";  I am not sure when I acquired this, probably as a mail order discount book (1981?), but it is not marked as a remainder. This book certainly influenced my thinking on the subject, I hesitate to call it an "Early" work, but it is not loaded with the scholarly analysis modern titles tend to be lumbered with.  Worth seeking out because when it was written, these events were within living memory, closer to the authors than WW II is to most people living now.  Certainly by this time ever National Guard and Army Reserve center had an "Army Heritage" poster featuring the (Black) 369th Infantry in action.

The Last of the Doughboys by Richard Rubin (Book Review)

The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and their forgotten World War.

by Richard Rubin, New York, Houghton-Mifflin, 2013, 518 pages, illustrated, maps, index.
 ISBN 978-0-547-55443-3

This has been on the "New Books" Display for a couple of months at Barnes & Noble, it revolves around the last ditch effort of the author to collect oral history from the last surviving American veterans of WW I. By the time the author started, most of the Gentlemen (and one lady) were pretty much on their last legs and living in "Assisted Living" of some sort.  But the book succeeds on many levels, it is much more than a collection of half remembered war stories

The author obviously did some thorough research on his subject once started. The book could serve as a decent "Drum and Trumpet" introduction to American military participation in the war.

There has been a flurry of books on the beginning of World War I, this is an excellent way to introduce students to how different the world was then, and the human dimensions of the conflict.  And includes some interesting discussion of veterans lives postwar. Complemented by what are (these days) pretty good maps, and introducing the issues of Race and Women quite well, if not really exploring the participants feelings on those subjects.

I am very happy my local Public Library added a copy to their collection.

Going in Circles: Hitler's Panzers by Showalter

I'll admit, this morning I entirely forgot the significance of todays date (See this date's post from last year).
Last weekend I bought a recent book (new to me), the only thing at Hastings I could find of marginal interest to me I could afford: 

Dennis Showalter

Hitler's Panzers: The Lighning Attacks that revolutionized Warfare.

Berkely Caliber, New York, 2009.  ISBN 978-0-425-23004-6

Pretty good actually, I really liked his treatment of the organizational expansion issues.  As a popular overview for beginners, outstanding, well written (I've tried to read a couple of pieces of real dreck recently), and only a couple of minor technical errors. 

Repeated discussion of how NOT nice the Germans were. Only two mentions of recent contemporary western Historians I noticed, Dave Glantz is discussed primarily in the context of Operation Mars, and Catherine Meridale is the only other modern historian metioned by name. And a mention of  "Order of Battle" and "Rivet Counter" hobbyists..... (Which one am I?)

The final, "Epilogue" chapter could have been usefully expanded.  I undersand the goal of a brief, non-scholarly popular account (The metion of Adolf in the title ought to boost sales somewhat);  But suggestions for wider reading would have been appropriate, and a fuller discussion of the cold war historiography issues so brilliantly analyzed by Dave Glantz in his Voprosy Istorii article.  (Note: When you enter "Glantz Voprosy Istorii" in the search Box, it will pop right up).

But recommended for bright eighteen year olds interested in the subject, I'll be sending it on to my nephew, er, eventually.  I got my $6.99 worth.

Because....

Yesterday I told the volunteer ladies at our communtity center library to just take the stack of Nazi Glorification coffee table books (Walmart donations?) and put them in the forthcoming book sale.  This morning I wander in, and another person has "cataloged" them (It's not a real catalog, but that's another issue) and hands them to a different volunteer, saying we don't have room on the shelves, so "we" will store these until we do (there never will be room on the shelves, it is a fixed space).

At least there is a convenient brick wall for me to beat my head against.  Oh, that feels so good.

The Battle of Algiers

That Movie has become a cult (?) requirement (Available from Netflix!) among officers deploying to Iraq, the first Muslim Urban Insurgency. Well, every now and then my local Public Library buys something interesting, todays book is:

My Battle of Algiers by Ted Morgan. (Smithsonian Books, 2005); Cool stuff, he was a French Officer in Algeria in 1957.

(Got to love these unhelpful blog stuff; The Text editior won't let me underline a book title; I guess I am supposed to provide a link to Amazon or something; But only If I can get paid)

For the audience this blog is aimed at, it doesn't get much better than this, trust me. A "Street Level" westerern Journalist's memoir of the campaign. (After a brief stint of troop duty, he was working PSYOPS/Propaganda). Very well written (He is a journalist), an account of events from a different world, with background information to illuminate events for the non-specialist interested in the subject.