No comments about Silent Heroes Among Us: Final Flights of the Mighty 8th.

1 comments about Waddling to War on LST 834: The Ventures and Adventures of a Skylarking Sailor in World War II.

1. Mr. Shannon is a veteran and served his country and I thank him for that fact. I'm sure it would be nice to have a cup of coffee with this man and shoot the breeze, he seems to have sense of humor for sure and an intelligent writing style. I'll read just about anything, and believe the LST has been a neglected topic. Although not a technical treatment of the LST or of battle strategy, this book is an honest chronology of a young man's journey to war in the Pacific. However, this is a thin read, low on facts and mostly sticks to the lived reality of an eighteen year-old in Naval service during WW II.
   
   One of the refreshing aspects of the book and something I congratulate Mr. Shannon for is his non-conformist and anti-authoritarian attitude. As an enlisted man, he details the hypocrisy of the officer class during wartime military service and illustrates many fine examples of elitism, discrimination, and incompetence, many of us will recognize. There is also NO self referential patriotic flag waving at all in the read, which so many times get in the way of a good story. Also there are some interesting stories of post war occupation life in Japan immediately after the war and the human side of the Japanese civilians.
   
   All and all an OK book and relevant to the time period with many true anecdotal stories not found elsewhere. If you're interested in operational exploits try another of the LST books listed on Amazon. For an equally honest and more in-depth World War II biography. Try: Boy soldier: Coming of age during World War II. Available at Amazon.

5 comments about Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth.

1. 
   This is a great little history, and I hope the publishing industry gives us more of them.
   
   It's amazing how much of history was created by teens and twentysomethings. Alexander and his army were like a punk rock band gone wild. He drinks and debauches his way through half a continent. He must have had extraordinary health given the punishing environment and the many battle wounds. He is a master builder and does have a command of battle strategy (if not his army).
   
   I found the comparisons to Ceasar and the speculation of how Alexander would have done against the Roman army thought provoking. Not mentioned is that Ceasar earned the support of his army, Alexander just expected it and was unable to keep it.
   
   There is an interesting the analysis of his "greatness" at the end and a description of the other major biographical works.



2. This book is a gem, in large because the analysis of the "greatness" of Alexander in the fifth and closing chapter is designed to generate thought, debate and ideas for every student of history.
   
   "The impact of Alexander on the Mediterranean world has always been a subject for debate," Cantor notes, and proceeds to add provocatively to that debate. Alexander, like Achilles, Caesar, King Arthur, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, embodies the spirit of the times and the people of their eras. Alexander and Achilles were heroic; Caesar and Arthur were innovators; Lincoln and Churchill gave words to enhance the decency of great nations.
   
   Lincoln, to cite an example, did not invent democracy in America. However, when he defined democracy as government "of the people, by the people, for the people", he greatly sharpened and enhanced already existing attitudes. Alexander did the same in his time; he did not invent war, but he set an ideal seldom matched and thus established the warrior ideal for much of the Mediterannean. King Arthur does the same with his round table; Churchill gives credit to the British people for stopping Hitler.
   
   Now, consider George Bush with his Texas swagger and flight suit while strutting across the deck of an aircraft carrier to announce "Mission Accomplished" as if he were a warrior. Alexander, in contrast to the coddled and well-protected life of Bush, survived numerous serious wounds acquired while leading his troops from the front. Whether it's Bush or Clinton or Reagan, there's a vast difference between Alexander and the perspiration and spin of today's leaders. As Canton aptly shows, it's why "the Great" title is retired.
   
   Intended or not, there are numerous subtle parallels between ancient and modern events in the Near and Middle Easts. Alexander was successful because he responded immediately and brilliantly to local events rather than try to rule from afar; instead of being an ideologue, he worshipped every God he met along the route of his conquests.
   
   Because he was handicapped by "faulty intelligence," when he reached Afghanistan and India he realized it was time to listen to his troops, then "cut and run". Why? To quote Cantor, "One of the old soldiers, a man named Coenis . . . . gave the speech of his life, ending with these words: 'Sir, if there is one thing above all others a successful man should know, it is when to stop'. Instead of trying to stay the course, Cantor says "Alexander sulked for two days but then tried to find a way to make this defeat appear to be a victory."
   
   Cantor offers an intriguing psychological assessment of Alexander; not only was he "the supreme exemplar of that old pagan world" but he also knew how to sulk and then accept the will of his troops. Perhaps that is why there are no modern Alexanders; today we tend to look at his heroism, courage, strength and vision but overlook his ability to sulk.
   
   It's a masterful biography, not merely because of what it says about Alexander but also for what it teaches us about ourselves.



3. Is it possible to make the life one of the most compelling men who ever lived into an incredibly boring biography? Cantor does it somehow. I barely made it through half the book, it was so tediously written. Worse, much of the facts were oversimplified to the point of being wrong. It's not even smart enough to be a children's book, although it's written at that level of diction. Please don't make it your choice.



4. This is the worst book ever written on Alexander. There are historical inaccuracies on nearly every page. Heresay and universally discounted legend are presented uncritically alongside historically accepted fact.



5. I bought two copies of this book so that my grandson and I could read and discuss it. My two purposes were 1) teach him about Alexander the Great and 2) show him how scholarly history books, as opposed to history text books, are written.
   
   This book has served as a good example of a bad example.
   
   To be charitable, I see that the copyright belongs to the Estate of Norman Cantor and was published after his death. I will assume that his illness led to the low quality of this book. Otherwise, I must assume he was a piss-poor professor.
   
   For the sakes of New York University, Tel Aviv University, and the Rhodes and Fulbright organizations, besides Mr. Cantor's reputation, the Estate should never have published this book in its present form.
   
   I am very disinclined to read any other works of Mr. Cantor's.

No comments about The Military Order of World Wars.

5 comments about Renaissance Man of Cannery Row: The Life and Letters of Edward F. Ricketts.

1. Renaissance Man of Cannery Row finally puts flesh on a real person who has been perceived as a caricature for too many years. In this book Edward Ricketts, a father, a marine biologist, a hard-working figure found for two decades along Cannery Row in Monterey in California (shades of Steinbeck?), and the persona found in at least six of Steinbeck's novels and short stories comes to life. Katharine A. Rodger has done a masterful job of editing that allows a wonderful insight into Ricketts personality and philosophies. The letters include Ed's correspondence with such figures as John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Joseph Campbell and Paul De Kruif.

   The book is a must read for any student of Steinbeck, Cannery Row or the Monterey area and is beautifully done. As professor Richard Astro stated "to know Steinbeck one must know Ricketts." How true.




2. Renaissance Man of Cannery Row finally puts flesh on a real person who has been perceived as a caricature for too many years. In this book Edward Ricketts, a father, a marine biologist, a hard-working figure found for two decades along Cannery Row in Monterey in California (shades of Steinbeck?), and the persona found in at least six of Steinbeck's novels and short stories comes to life. Katharine A. Rodger has done a masterful job of editing that allows a wonderful insight into Ricketts personality and philosophies. The letters include Ed's correspondence with such figures as John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Joseph Campbell and Paul De Kruif.

   The book is a must read for any student of Steinbeck, Cannery Row or the Monterey area and is beautifully done. As professor Richard Astro stated "to know Steinbeck one must know Ricketts." How true.




3. Ed Ricketts had an important influence on the developing science of marine ecology during the 1930s and 40s. Even if John Steinbeck had never met or written about Ricketts, his work Between Pacific Tides (co-written with the forgotten Jack Calvin) would stand as a significant contribution to biology. But Ricketts also was a close friend of Steinbeck's, and so Ricketts himself (as he appears in the Log from the Sea of Cortez) and the caraciture "Doc" (Cannery Row) overshadow his written accomplishments. For better or worse, Ricketts now is remembered mainly as Steinbeck's friend. Besides reading and thinking about his scientific work, we want to know what it was like to hang around Pacific Biological Labs and drink with Ricketts, listen to music, and talk about big or small things.

   Ricketts was a hard-working and prductive biologist (without a college degree), a struggling small businessman, a father separated from his two daughters and wife, but close to his son, a serial monogomist, a drinker, a reader, a music fan, and by all reports a very appealing guy. Someone who almost anyone would enjoy spending a few hours talking to.

   Ricketts important previously unpublished writings were collected in The Outer Shores (2 vols.), edited and with biographical notes by Joel Hedgepeth. Hedgepeth knew Ricketts and wrote in an entertaining iconoclastic style. It's long out of print and hard to find, but provides greater insight into Ricketts than this collection of letters can. Readers willing to wait should be encouraged from an NPR news report a few months ago that Ricketts son, Ed Jr., is editing a collection of writings which presumably will include much of the same material.

   Ricketts wasn't a great philosopher, but he wrote 3 essays of philosophy that he was proud of. He was interested in music and poetry and felt he knew what characterized really good work. His ideas wouldn't fit into today's postmodern world, where a basketball in an aquarium can pass for art. Fans of Robert Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance might find Ricketts philosophy appealing.

   Katharine Rodger has collected about 100 letters, written to various friends, family members, professional contacts, and John Steinbeck. She also has written a bare bones outline of Ricketts life, with little insight into his thoughts. We can fill these in ourselves from the letters, assembled mainly from Ricketts own papers (he kept carbons of his correspondence). Sadly, they cover only his later career, because his lab and its contents burned down in 1936. There are no letters addressing Ricketts marriage and how he came to spend both his nights and days at the lab instead of home with his family. Further, after Ricketts was killed, Steinbeck went through Ricketts files and destroyed most of their correspondence.

   I found most of the letters here unsurprising. Most of the really revealing letters are the ones to Steinbeck, but there aren't many of them. I wasn't rivited to the book until the last few pages, when Ricketts (near) step-daughter dies, his long-time partner Toni Jackson leaves, and he suddenly takes up with 25 year old Alice. The emotional impact of these changes all within a short time must have been immense, but we get only a hint of it in the last letters to Steinbeck and Jackson.

   A worthwhile read, but it doesn't leave you feeling like you know him any better than you did before. I hope for a more comprehensive biography some day.




4. ...and that's it.
   There is little penetrating biographical detail in the short essay that begins the book, and the failures of action and inconsistencies of thought are shrugged off. Everyone has failings and Ricketts's were substantial; but they are also what make us interesting, and are what often create the context in which greater aspects of character can be realized. There is little critical analysis of Ricketts's thought and work (which is probably not a bad thing), but we are left thinking, "Wow, what a nice clever guy; wish we could have shared a beer." Which is about right.
   The letters are about as engaging as such collections go, and do sort-of flesh out the evolution of the man and his thoughts. But Ricketts was careful, as we all are, about the manner in which he projects and portrays his character. He is at a distance, more often than not, and somewhat armored.
   Not a bad read at all, mind you, and I am grateful the editor has pursued the project. Pull up to a tidepool, have a beer, and do some non-tele(ological) thinkin'.



5. This collection of Ed " Doc " Ricketts letters rates 5 stars if for nothing else the glimpse it gives into a man that is all too rare. For the non-biologist reader considering reading Ricketts book, Between Pacific Tides, The Life and Letters of Edward Ricketts is a good place to start. If any reader is interested in exploring what John Steinbeck called " a mind without horizons", this is a very valuable resource as well. What we find in this collection of letters is really what his friend Steinbeck saw, a man with unlimited understanding of the human condition and a man who still, almost 60 years after his death, has much to teach.

1 comments about Lone Star Confederate: A Gallant and Good Soldier of the 5th Texas Infantry (Texas a & M University Military History Series).

1. The collaborative effort of civil war enthusiasts George Skoch and Mark W. Perkins, Lone Star Confederate: A Gallant And Good Soldier Of The Fifth Texas Infantry is a collection of letters penned by a Confederate solider. Eyewitness accounts of bloodshed, aftermath, long marches, starvation and much worse fill the pages of this riveting firsthand testimony of the front lines of America's deadliest war. Lone Star Confederate is a welcome and strongly recommended addition to Civil War collections and reading lists.

1 comments about The Sky Suspended: A Fighter Pilot's Story.

1. The Sky Suspended: A Fighter Pilot's Story is the remarkable and memorable autobiography of Jim Bailey, who in the summer of 1939 while a 19-year old student at Oxford University felt strongly that war between England and Germany was inevitable. That was when he signed up to become a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. Baily flew British fighter planes in aerial combat missions that ranged from the Battle of Britain, through the action at Gibraltar, and the Anzio beach-heads, to the landing in the South of France. One of the true heroes for which Winston Churchill was to acknowledge with his famous declaration that never had "so many owed so much to so few", The Sky Suspended is the true life story of heroism, survival against the odds, and a remembering of so many that did not make it through -- but to whom so much is owed to that generation of young men by all of the generations that follow. This special large printed edition of The Sky Suspended is a great read, and a welcome addition to the growing library of World War II memoirs and biographies.

2 comments about Donitz: The Last Fuhrer.

1. Karl Donitz began his career as a Naval officer at about the age of twenty, being commissioned just prior to the outbreak of World War I, where he quickly earned an Iron Cross Second Class and his own command. He finished the war a British POW. Unlike other senior Nazis (Goring for example) Donitz never played socialite; he was a naval officer at heart and in deed from the age of twenty until the last days of World War II when he was appointed by Hitler just prior to his suicide to take his position as Chancellor of the Third Reich. He is best known as the commander of the German U-Boat forces during the entirety of the war and later (beginning in January, 1943) as Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy.
   Padfield's biography is excellently researched. It is a detailed portrayal of Donitz as both man and officer and also presents a throrough review of naval (especially U-boat) strategy during the second world war. What's more, Padfield illustrates a strong link between the personal Donitz and the often fatal strategic decisions he made. There is evidence of Donitz's complicity in Nazi war crimes not seen in many other sources describing him.
   Read this book if you are interested in the facts behind one of the deadliest aspects of the war in Europe (30000 of 40000 U-boat officers and men lost their lives) or if you'd like to know more about a key figure in the Third Reich not often remembered alongside more prominent names like Goebbels or Himmler. If you are hoping for a book that portrays Donitz as he was seen during his life, an officer who did his military duty and kept his hands clean of the atrocities of the Nazis, try another. Padfield is very harsh in his judgement of Donitz. If you dislike lots of statistics and are looking for nothing more than biographical data, I would try Donitz's memoirs.
   In all, it is a vivid portrayal of Karl Donitz and a good read for Naval Enthusiasts.



2. Do not read this book if you have any interest in German naval strategy or tactics during World War II, nor indeed if you have any interest in an objective appraisal of the life and work of Karl Donitz as a man. This book is undoubtedly well researched, with the co-operation of some people close to Donitz, including his family, but that research is utterly wasted by the author's own cultural prejudices.
   
   There are precious few times when objectivity is allowed a rear its head by the author. These are to be found in the acknowledgements where the author states that he knows that this book will hurt member's of Donitz's family who helped him; in the introduction where the author acknowledges the difficulties that the cultural divide has caused him and in the postscript where the author truthfully reports that other reviews found he displayed "distaste" for Donitz, even "torturing" the evidence against him.... a total want of charity."
   
   The few good words that are said about Donitz almost all come from other Naval personalities, especially his superiors during his rise up the ranks and his contemporaries in the Allied navies. The author even acknowledges that the official histories of the Allied navies are generous towards Donitz, but that does not alter his perspective.
   
   Throughout the book, the author refers to the German struggle against `England' in both World Wars rather than against the British Empire or even Britain. That is central to the author's flaws. The American and Canadian navies are barely mentioned in the book, unless there is an opportunity for criticising them as well! The Empire navies don't seem to exist. Every alleged or real atrocity by U-boats crews is rehearsed with scarcely an acknowledgement that atrocities were also carried out by Allied navies. That the German's may sometimes have been reacting to British or Allied acts, is never conceded.
   
   There is a complete absence of analysis of the actual battles in the Atlantic. These are mentioned at the most superficial, strategic level. Even this level of analysis is corrupted. Unlike Winston Churchill, the author does not allow for a second, that had Donitz managed to have greater influence on German military and naval strategy at the start of the war, then Germany might have won the Battle of the Atlantic.
   
   There is barely a paragraph that isn't laced with a very amateur psychologist's attempt to interpret Donitz's actions, usually as pejoratively as possible, regardless of lack of evidence. For example `photographs of him from the period convey an impression of a man peering out suspiciously from inside his skull as if haunted by the past and wondering whether it was going to blow up beneath him' The author strongly believes Donitz should have received the death penalty at Nuremburg. Many readers will find that this book may be more deserving of the death penalty.

No comments about Black American Military Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary.

4 comments about Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution (Studies in Maritime History).

1. This is a major revisionist interpretation of British naval policy as conceived and carried out by Admiral Sir John Fisher as First Sea Lord between late 1904 and early 1910. In fact, there appears to be hardly a single conventional assumption about Fisher's policies, and the policies and technical flexibility of the Admiralty during this period that is not subject to reconsideration in the book.

   What I found most interesting was the startling - to me - degree to which senior British naval officers readily accepted the potential for torpedo-armed submarine and destroyer flotillas to change naval warfare, and the amount of effort they were willing to put into devising ways to use this revolutionary potential to reinforce British naval supremacy. The book is filled with descriptions of British investment in submarine technology and the ongoing discussions between naval officers of ways to adapt that technology to British needs.

   According to the book, Fisher's planned great revolution in naval warfare was not intended to be the Dreadnought battleship that his name is still commonly associated with. Instead it was to be a British fleet made up of a combination of battlecruisers with Dreadnought-scale heavy armament, great speed, and excellent gun laying based on analogue computers, designed for overseas force projection; and a submarines and destroyer flotillas designed and deployed for protection of Great Britain and such other narrow seas where they could be used to bottle up potential enemy forces. This assertion is thoroughly backed up with detailed quotes from personal letters and Admiralty memos and position papers, plus the evidence of how Fisher spent funds available to him.

   The plans of Admiral Fisher and others in the British Admiralty were developed in largely hostile political environment. The British government during this period, and the opposition political parties, were intent on reducing British naval expenditures, and not at all interested in developing the ability to expand British ability to project naval force overseas. Therefore, Fisher and his allies had to act largely in secret, while disguising their true goals from most of their political masters.

   This book has a lot of trees in its forest. I did not find it easy reading, and I would not recommend it to someone with only casual interest in British naval history or the history of naval technology. To fully understand appreciate the book's thesis and scope, the reader must be willing to delve along with the book's author into British domestic politics, British foreign policy, and a host of technical issues beyond those mentioned above. I personally found it difficult at first to fully understand why, given that Fisher had much of the Admiralty behind him, and that Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty from 1910 up to 1915, also had great faith in submarine and destroyer flotillas to control narrow seas, the Royal Navy didn't manage to make the changeover desired by Admiral Fisher. The way I finally understood it, it comes down to one basic fact, Fisher, Churchill and their allies in the Admiralty simply did not have enough time. Not enough time to educate and prepare the politicians and the British public, not enough time to nurture the necessary submarine building industry in Britain or in one of the Dominions, and not enough time to guarantee a completely united front in the Admiralty needed to quickly push through such radical change in naval policy. Given that it was less than a decade between Fisher's appointment as First Sea Lord and the outbreak of WWI, that is probably reason enough.




2. An interesting book on the politics of defense spending and its relationship with grand strategy and domestic politics. Tedious at times, and often unbalanced as to proving the grand point and instead focusing on partisan minutae, this book is still interesting to consider; you have to commend Lambert for his exaustive research behind the common assumptions. He did major work in the primary sources.

   The point is that much of the arms race theory before WWI is not genuinely correct. The motivations for the growth and posturing of the British Navy prior to WWI had less to do with fear of Germany -although using that fear was an effective tool- than with a naval revolution by the Admiralty's First Lord, Sir John Fisher. It is an intersting foray into the dynamics of defense spending politics, and how that ultimately impacts capabilities and strategy.




3. This is a superby researched book, though it falls flat on its major premise, that Fisher and the Royal Navy were ahead of the times in terms of naval strategy, armaments or hwat not.
   
   Also the book is a misnomer, as it's more on the rivalries amongst the Board of Amiralty than on Fisher, and its dubious claim that Fisher pioneered the so called "flotilla defense" by submarines and torpedo boats stretches credulity, as Fisher is notorious for NOT beleving in a Naval War Staff, or any war plans at all.
   
   The author also neglects, being a fan of Fisher, to point out that the latter's morbid fascination with "battle cruiser" led to the fiasco in Jutland, though all British historians and apologist will claim that they may have lost a battle there, but ultimately won the war!



4. In Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution Nicholas Lambert has provided a comprehensive analysis of the policies of Admiral Sir John Fisher and the Royal Navy in the ten years before the outbreak of World War One. Displaying a remarkable command of the source documents Lambert examines grand strategy, tactical concepts, national financial policy and politics with great skill and fluidly moves between these seemingly disparate subjects with ease. It becomes apparent as Lambert dissects events that much of the research that has went on before on this subject and which forms the basis for many people's ideas about era is superficial and incomplete.
   
   This is a complicated subject but Lambert's grasp of narrative and clean clear prose makes it easy for the interested reader to follow the string through the maze that was British naval policy in the Fisher era. Lambert makes it clear that Fisher was not appointed First Sea Lord in 1904 to introduce the dreadnought battleship/battlecruiser but to cut naval spending. This fact spurred Fisher to introduce new technologies to maintain Britain's naval supremacy when that supremacy was increasingly under threat from a number of quarters. Lambert puts emphasis on Fisher's ideas about the use of flotilla craft. These were small submersible boats and surface craft armed with torpedoes that could close the narrow seas around the British Isles to enemy battle fleets thus freeing the British fleet to roam the high seas, bringing battle to the enemy and protecting her own huge ocean trade. Lambert shows how on the eve of the war, the Royal Navy was on the verge of stopping battleship construction altogether on favor of flotilla craft. This is new ground.
   
   Fisher was faced with four other areas of crisis which this book delves into: financial constraints, manpower limitations, ship deployment policies and forging new tactics that would take advantage of the developing technology that was changing the face of naval warfare. Lambert also makes clear that the senior officers of the Royal Navy in the decade before the war were not operating in an intellectual vacuum, countering the unfortunate impression that many historians have fostered that the navy was resistant to new technology, unable to think critically, and too lazy for deep analysis and staff work. While a number of hidebound ignoramuses had managed to reach high command, most senior officers were energetically working to exploit the emergent technologies to the full extent.
   
   Lambert's story of the Royal Navy before 1914 presents a picture completely different from the accepted one. It is one that is wholly convincing and presents a more satisfying explanation of what happened, and why, than we have had before. I recommend this book to those who are familiar with the subject and have a desire to go deeper into it. You won't be sorry.