5 comments about The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II.

1. Jeff Shaara is no stranger to readers of historical fiction. The son of famed author Michael Shaara who wrote "The Killer Angels" about Gettysburg has done a good job in this new book. Shaara begins his story by looking at the war in North Africa. We meet the legendary German general Erwin Rommel "The Desert Fox". We meet his nemesis the acerbic and rude British General Bernard Law Montgomery. We witness tank warfare in the desert seen through the eyes of an American tanker. We see the horrific battle of the Kasserine Pass in which the Amereicans suffered a defeat.
   Shaara tells the story of these early stages of American participation through the eyes and thoughts of
   Dwight David Eisenhower the commander of American troops in Operation Torch (North Africa). Eisenhower would, of course, be the allied commander of D-Day in June, 1944. Eisenhower was a genius in working among contentious leaders such as the brilliant and complex thorn in the flesh George S. Patton who along with Monty won Sicily for the Allies.
   Eisenhower was also adept at getting along with President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
   Shaara's book ends with the conquest of Italy under the American commander General Mark Clark. Volume II will probably begin with plans being discussed for D-Day the invasion of mainline Europe beginning in France.
   Shaara is a man who does his historical research and writes with an adept hand at what it felt like to be at war whether we are a general or a paratrooper. Well done.



2. Jeffrey Shaara's "The Rising Tide" serves as the opening salvo in a planned trilogy about World War II. Shaara brings the same intense research and straightforward prose to "TRT" as he did to his enjoyable novels, such as "Rise to Rebellion," "The Glorious Cause," and "To the Last Man." In many places, "TRT" reads like a slightly fictionalized history textbook rather than a novel, which is both a good and a bad thing.
   
   First, the positives. Shaara once again writes each chapter from the perspective of a single character, rotating the perspective among a handful of players. On the Allied side, Shaara puts the reader in the mind of Generals Eisenhower and Patton as well as a front-line tanker named Logan and a paratrooper sergeant named Adams. On the Axis side, the only key player is the Desert Fox, Rommell. Shaara has painstakingly recreated these characters from his personal analysis of their correspondence, and Shaara admits that many of the passages in his book come directly from the real people.
   
   This practice gives "TRT" a huge amount of historical credibility and can be entertaining. The chapters with Rommell, Patton, and Eisenhower are the most interesting in this regard because Shaara lets us feel the actual soul-crushing headaches these guys went through in addition to merely commanding troops in battle - Rommell struggling with his illness and the knowledge that he serves a madman; Eisenhower struggling to keep the Trans-Atlantic Alliance intact, and Patton struggling with the notion that he might not lead every single battle. Rommell's chapters are particularly poignant, as he serves the "noble enemy" role that has thrilled audiences since Hector fought at Troy.
   
   But Shaara's tactics also make the book a bit flat, which is a problem for such a mammoth book - over 550 dense pages, with maps. Much of the dialogue in "TRT" has the same measured distance that one only gets when writing a letter after the event. As a result, even though there is a fair amount of action in "TRT," Shaara rarely gets the reader's pulse pounding. I almost felt that I was reading the book for college credit after a while.
   
   Historical fiction continues to grow in popularity and esteem, and the field is packed with wonderful writers. Patrick O'Brian, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Bartle Bull have all written historical fiction with a military bent, and while Shaara's research stands up to them easily, his writing style is by far the dullest of the lot. If O'Brian offers up an exotic cioppino, Cornwell a sumptuous ratatouille, and Pressfield a delectable lamb shwarma, Shaara offers the reader plain boiled chicken . . . nutritious, to be sure, but definitely bland.
   
   Here's hoping Shaara finds his way to the spice cupboard for the next two novels in this series, which I am definitely going to read.



3. While I enjoyed his last book, To The Last Man, immensely, The Rising Tide further raises the bar as far as Shaara's writing is concerned.
   
   This book tackles characters we have read and heard about in history classes and seen in documentaries but hardly know aside from what they have accomplished during the WWII. In this book, Shaara gives us the fly-on-the wall view of how situations developed as America gradually saw its' indoctrination to the war in Europe.
   
   We are given a very human view of The Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, one of Germany's most brilliant generals at that time. While historical and scholastic texts gloss on his achievements, they have not delved deeper into the man's psyche as Shaara does in the book. One almost forgets that he fought for Nazi Germany as he stands out as one of the more noble generals on either side.
   
   It was also enjoyable to see Eisenhower in pre-Overlord times and go through his experiences as a commander unused to running a show given to him by George Marshall. His progression as someone whose confidence continues to grow with each misstep the unblooded American army makes is quite compelling. This makes for a wonderful backdrop considering just how big a role he will play as the war goes on for another 3 years.
   
   Almost as enjoyable is reading about the flamboyant and tough-as-nails George Patton. One gets a wonderful sense of just how confident the man was but at the same time, someone who was out-of-control in certain situations.
   
   Those looking for an alternative to history books in learning about World War II and America's early involvement in it can do themselves a favor by reading The Rising Tide. This book is engrossing and follows the mantra, "leave them asking for more."
   
   This is certainly what Jeff Shaara has done with his latest opus.
   
   I'm looking forward to next book, The Steel Wave.



4. I enjoyed this book so much that I gave it as a gift to my friend for Christmas. Jeff Shaara has a unique ability to take history and make it a very personal experience. I have enjoyed many of his books and look forward to his next with much anticipation.



5. We have come to expect the best from Jeff Shaara and with THE RISING TIDE we are not let down. This is an epic work on an equal level with his former works on the revolutionary and civil wars. But now, Shaara has stepped onto the biggest of all war time stages and he does so in typical grand fashion. From inside the minds of Rommel, Montgomery and Patton and down into the trenches with American tanker Jack Logan and Airborne trooper, Jesse Adams, we see the war from all angles in a truly compelling story. I did not have the opportunity to read this extraordinary book until just recently but I will not wait to pick up the next in the series. RISING TIDE has forced me to revise my list of favorite WW2 novels. Here's the revised list:
   War and Remembrance
   Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II
   Eye of the Needle
   The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II
   The Winds of War

5 comments about No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.

1. THIS BOOK WAS INFORMATIVE AS WELL AS FASINATING. ANY HISTORY BUFF SHOULD READ. TO REALIZE HOW UNPREPARED OUR COUNTRY WAS, AND ULTIMATELY VICTORIOUS, WHEN WE WERE COMPELLED TO ENTER THE WAR, SHOULD GIVE US COURAGE IN THESE TRYING TIMES.



2. There are only a couple of prominent historical authors that I would put in the same class as our native Pittsburgh author, David McCullough. Goodwin is most definitely in this class as an author. Not only is the research of her topic concerning FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt during 1939 to the death of FDR in 1944 impecable, her writing is so riveting, that I found it near impossible to put the book down. I certainly didn't read anything else until I finished this book.
   
   I never could understand why my parents who grew up during this time period kind of bad mouthed FDR. I suspect it was from hearing their own parents, who were conservative. AFter reading this book, I understand their attitude even less...I'd ask them, but try hard to avoid things that may bring on a fight at their age. Anyway, even though it's obvious that both these people had their very large problems (especially in dealing with each other and personal relationships), given the type of presidents I've experienced during my lifetime...I sincerely doubt two other people could have handled so many issues correctly during this time of war. I am beginning to understand why this was called the Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw, in fact, reading this book makes me want to read that one. I am awed by the overwhelming personal sacrifice that so many young men (and their parents and their spouses) made to serve in the military when the chance of coming home at all was slim. I am also awed by the effort of the entire U.S. workforce to enable Roosevelt to create and supply the Lend-Lease program that allowed our Allies to fight until the U.S. became involved in the war against the Nazis. If they hadn't been able to carry on, the chances of crushing Hitler and cronies with their armed might was slim.
   
   Roosevelt was an enigma. I don't understand his apparent need to be surrounded by pretty women who listened to him talk, while at the same time admiring his wife and wanting her by his side. However, his oversight of all the parts of the U.S. during the war seems to be exactly what was needed. Whatever else he did wrong, no one can possibly state that he did not enable us to win the war. If they do say that, they are wrong. The weak presidents we have now would never have been able to accomplish what he did back then. His political ability and personal charm allowed him to hold all the reins of the economy, military, deal with Congress, continue to promote social change and programs is beyond the powers of modern men. Not since Lincoln had a strong president been able to control so much during a time of war, and succeed so spectacularly. Add to this the fact that he was disabled by polio and the effort of all this was taking a toll on his body, that in this day and age would have been controlled by diet and medicine. However, the medical care as demonstrated by the author was so bad that it led to his early demise at age 63. If he had lived now, so much more could have been done to save him...but at that time, so little was known about the heart and its care that even his personal physician was incapable of reading the signs Roosevelt showed of decline due to stress among other things.
   
   Goodwin wrote so lovingly of Eleanor, that I want to read more. A woman who cared so strongly about other people, and who was such a strong advocate for social equity and change...I would have loved to met her as I am an advocate for disabled rights. We could not possibly have made the changes in society towards the disabled without the changes made in civil rights for African-Americans. This is another reason to respect that generation, both those who needed to learn to put aside their prejudice and many did, and those who advocated for that social change...and many did, including an elderly white woman who could have sat back in wealth and totally ignore the needs of others. She couldn't do that. Wow...she was impressive.
   
   I loved this book. I was sorry it ended, and I am probably going to read her other stuff as soon as possible.
   
   Karen L. Sadler



3. I ordered this book with the understanding that there was sufficient time for it to be received before we left on vacation. No quarrel with the book selection, but the mailing date mysteriously changed when the order was confirmed. Unfortunately, the "new" mailing date was just about two weeks later than what was advertised.



4. Are there many Roosevelt lovers out there who are under 70? I'm one of them, but I can't for the life of me understand why. It is perhaps because of the low esteem in which I hold the Presidents of my life time: Kennedy, Johnson and so on. God, how low we have come. It is surely a period of unprecedented mediocrity in national leadership. Can one honestly compare Bush, Clinton, Carter, or Ford to the likes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Why is this? That FDR was hated in his time is now more understandable to me, as I hadn't before understood how radical his policies were. Of course, none of his experiments has lasted and this may explain why he is so easily loved. Only Social Security survives. I love the personal anecdotes the author has assembled to tell the story of the President's ordeal. We see again how much he suffered. Those four terms really were too much for him. The author of this work is a "petticoat historian," part of the feminist movement in history to tell the grand historical stories from the point of view of the bathroom and bedroom. If it were not deemed to personal and in bad taste, Goodwin would describe the President's bowel movements. One might very well say "why not?" but the point that bothers me is why such things are of such great interest to the author. Surely, the Battle of Stalingrad is a wee bit more important than Roosevelt's breakfast menu. Nonetheless, Goodwin is discreet and tasteful and, therefore, the anecdotes she shares are personal but never vulgar. She possesses an entrancing style, which makes this a quick and delightful read. That we have had such a sorry group of Presidents since FDR is a sad thing but, who knows?, with new crises approaching, the country may yet produce another great man.



5. Doris Kearns Goodwin did a remarkable job of not only recounting the hietorical events which took place from 1940 to 1945 but especially of giving us - the readers - an insight into the feelings and behavior of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanot Roosevelt and all the people surrounding them during this particularly trying period of time in our history. I was really impressed by the way she gained the insignts she did and by her skill as a writer in presnting them to us. All too often we learn about history as if it is merely a series of events which can be presented to us in a chronological chart denoting what happened and the date that it took place. Here, in this book, Goodwin filled in the "spaces" among the events by revealing to us how people felt not only about the events but also about one another as they tried to use their roles in life to move what was taking place in a direction which they felt was desireable.
   
   Franklin Roosevelt is portrayed as the consummate politician - practicing politics as "the art of the possible" ususually with a sense of what it was desireable to do, but always attending to the matter of how far he could go in the pursuit of what he felt should be done without loswing the powere which his position enabled him to exercise. Eleanor Roosevelt is portrayed both as a heroine - if you agree with her ideals and admire her peristent desire to bring about the changes she thinks should occur in our society - and as a very insensitive person blinded to her own egotism bu what she thought were her ideals. A complicated person, she seems ofte toplace her own needs ahead of every thing else because she is utterly convinced of the worthiness of the causes she espouses and the impotance of the role she must play in bringing them about. The relationship between Frnklin and Eleanor forms a great part of this story and leaves the reader with many questions to ponder, particularly with the effect that they both had on their children as they, themselves, played the role of mother and father.
   
   As the story is unfolded about this "no ordinary time" Goodwin does not spare us the painful exposure to the shortocomings of our society, particularly with reference to the treatment of Blacks and Jews which was so evident during this time. Over and over again we are reminded of the all too prevalent himan disosition to place nationality and culture and race ahead of humanity in defining our relationships with one another.
   
   She is an excellent historian and writer and I reccomend this book enthusiastically to any one.

5 comments about The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.

1. Reading Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking", it staggers the mind to think that the brutality she describes is even imaginable. Yet, as countless records and testimonies have shown, the cruelty of the Japanese forces in Nanking (Nanjing) was real and should not be overlooked or ignored by history. By the end of the Japanese occupation, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were murdered in cold blood, many after being raped and tortured. This book tells the harrowing story of those who died, those who did the killing, and those who bravely worked to save Nanjing and it's inhabitants from certain death.
   
   This is not an easy book to read. Iris Chang provides grisly details about the most inhuman acts of violence documented during the occupation. The accounts she gives are both shocking and unforgetable - yet, that is the point. We should understand just how evil human beings can become and strive for something better.
   
   Of course, many will no doubt fault Iris Chang for her lack of objectivity (her family narrowly escaped the city before the Rape began). But this is not meant to be a dispassionate analysis of military movements or statistics related to population decline. Instead, this is a passionate work which is meant to call attention to one of the worse war-time atrocities in modern history. Published almost 10 years ago, the author begins her work by saying that the Rape of Nanking is largely unknown outside of Asia. Over the past decade however, I think this book has changed that, and has lead to an increased awareness of this tragedy in the West. But, as world understanding of this event has grown, the Japanese government still insists on minimizing the true scope of the Rape. It seems the only people who were influenced by the pro-Japanese propoganda which circulated in Asia during World War Two, were the Japanese themselves.
   
   This is one of the most influential popular history books ever written. It deserves to be read by everyone, especially in an age where the brutality of war is becoming more common and more destructive.



2. .....is condemned to repeat it. I remember the storm of controversy over this book when it came out ten years ago, and the torrent of abuse that Miss Chang had to take. Some, like G. Gordon Liddy, openly supported her, but too many did not. While no reasonable person today denies the German murder of Jews, many highly placed people still deny that over a six week period begining December 13, 1937, the Japanese army murdered upwards of 400,000 Chinese in Nanking...they did, and Miss Chang has the evidence to prove it.....
   
   When WWII ended, German war criminals were made to pay the price, or to become hunted fugitives. Some Japanese leaders, did, indeed, hang for their crimes, but many, of high rank and low, lived openly while proclaiming their deeds. You see, we needed Japan as a trading partner, and, besides, China had gone over to the Dark Side. Is that so strange to us? Phil Sheridan and David Hunter lived out their days with "respect", and if Beast Butler was held in contempt by his own troops, he was still able to hold political office. And no Union soldier ever paid for his war crimes, which I admit are nothing in comparison with the story told here. Miss Chang was right; the capacity for atrocity exists in EVERY nation, and race.
   
   In the midst of great evil, there was still great good...the International Safety Zone, organized and run by Nazi businessman John Rabe, saved around 200,000 lives. Oskar Schindler is renown, as he should be, but John Rabe is known to but few. [The parallels between Schindler and Rabe are uncanny, and , ultimately, sad].
   
   I think Miss Chang missed the boat on one or two points; she accepts religion as a motivation for murder in China, but dismisses it in Germany; it is true that Germany was Christianized, but the Lutheran Church had embraced Augustinian Amillenialism, which ultimately makes the Jew an unperson, then makes it OK to kill him. Read Martin Luther...a truly vile anti-Semite....
   
   This is one of the most profound books I have ever read...you NEED to read it, though, be warned, it will make you sick. The documented detail is too great to refute, and those who deny the Nanking massacre need to be marginalized with the Nazi Holocaust deniers. God rest Iris Chang's soul...in the end, it was too much for her to live with...may it be too much for all of us to tolerate....Never Again....



3. Iris Chang does not spare any details in this brutal narrative of the Japanese brutalization of the city of Nanking. This book can be hard to read at times due to the way in which Chang wrote it. I have never been moved by a book before, but there were times when I had to put this book down and do something else due to the graphic nature of Chang's account. No matter how disturbing it may have been, in the end it was worth it, because Chang portrayed the events in their true light, not glossed over or reduced in intensity, and this is what makes her work so great. This is one of the best historical works that I have ever read, and I read history for a living.



4. I could not believe what I was reading, a horrific story of just how bad the human race can be. I honestly had never heard of Nanking and I've read several books on WWII. This book is graphic in its detail of just how badly the Chinese people, women in particular, we treated. I found it difficult to put the book down and would certainly recommend it.



5. I have read other accounts of Japan's barbaric behaviour in China but this one is as nightmarish as the accounts of Germanys' entry into Poland and Russia in WW2 . .Japan still does not acknowledge its culpability for the atrocities it committed,whereas Germany has compensated those most affected by their action.Whereas Germany has exhibiter remorse Japan's history books do not acknowledge their involvement.The author serves to remind us those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it.

5 comments about Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II.

1. If you are looking for a thrilling and captivating mystery that just happens to also be a true story, this is an excellent book to read. Shadow Divers gives the story of a group of divers who decide to investigate a report of a potential sunken ship off the coast of New Jersey. The divers assume that it will be a pile of rubble or a pipe barge, but are astounded to discover a sunken German U-Boat. There were no reports of a U-Boat sunk in New Jersey waters, so the divers embark on a dangerous mission to identify the sunken wreck.
   
   The book reads like a thriller, complete with drama and danger. I was truly hooked from the start and found it to be a wonderful account of the danders of deep diving and wreck diving, German naval history and World War II. If you even have a passing interest in any of these subjects, this is a great book to pick up and read.
   
   I've seen other reviews that have stated that book dragged a bit through some descriptions of submarines, etc, but I found ever bit of it entertaining and interesting. Perhaps parts of the book were a little over-dramatic, but with the danger that these divers put themselves through in order to identify the wreck, drama seems justified.



2. More than a book about finding a Uboat, it is a story about wreck diving and the interesting personal stories of the divers. A throughly enjoyable read, I regretted finishing the book.



3. the book was shipped and recieved in a very short time and in excellant condition



4. Well worth the money. A riveting read: you won't be able to put it down.



5. This is an excellent book. I love John Chatterton and Richie Kohler and have watched all their Deep Sea Detectives shows. This book not only was telling the story of the lost U Boat, it delves into the lives and feelings of John and Richie and their friends. I also purchased Hitler's Lost U Boat on DVD at the same time. Good documentary tying in with book, in fact plan on getting both.

4 comments about Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II.

1. This is as close to a perfect book as I have recently read on WWII history, particularly on the infrequently covered closing days of the European war.
   Seldom do historians write about the immediate repercussions and events that ran concurrent with the disintegration of the Third Reich.
   In Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II, author David Stafford carefully chronicles these events through the eyes of various personalities involved. Their anecdotes complete an image of Europe in such disarray that paint a picture of near hopelessness.
   Stafford captures the emotion of the allied race to Berlin, the ominous possibility of a Nazi Alpine Redoubt and the anticlimactic sigh the war weary world breathed before the loose ends were truly tied off.
   Reading this book, one realizes how unfortunate it is that those lessons and tales of World War II so often go forgotten. Everyone has heard, read, or seen in movies the horrors that concentration camps wrought, few writers though re-capture the horror in mental Technicolor like Stafford.
   Reading this book validates the cause of freedom worldwide, the sacrifice of so many and appropriately was released on the American observance of Veteran's Day.
   Everyone should read this book, but more importantly, everyone should take their time and understand the horrors we both faced and have since overcome.
   But a great solid read about the cataclysmic last days of war and hesitant first days peace in Europe.



2. ENDGAME 1945 is a wide-ranging history of the final days of WW II in that part of Europe liberated by the Western allies along with the immediate post-VE Day period. Populated by a myriad of individuals of various nationalities and depicting events in a variety of locales, David Stafford's impressive chronicle illuminates a period of history poorly served by previous historians.
   
   Much more than a simple battle-by-battle history, Stafford's book interweaves the stories of civilians and servicemen struggling to survive in the chaotic last days of the Third Reich with the larger political developments transpiring in Europe and America along with military developments in the Pacific. The cast of characters in this 581-page book includes well known historical figures (Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini, Himmler), lesser political and military luminaries along with U. S., Canadian and New Zealand soldiers as well as Third Reich prisoners, refugee workers, etc. The picture created by these interwoven narratives is not one of glorious triumph but of chaos, muddied victories, pointless death and destruction, endless political maneuvering, senseless brutality and suffering on a mammoth scale. By VE Day, a needed victory had been won but the resulting peace was problematic with millions of people facing an uncertain future.
   
   Though ENDGAME 1945 jumps back and forth betwen various individuals, the narrative moves along at a fairly steady pace. Stafford's depth of research is reflected in the detailed descriptions of various people, places and events that abound in the book.
   
   ENDGAME 1945 is not pleasant reading at times. Up until the final surrender, various German units, mostly SS, continued to murder and brutalize concentration camp inmates. Reading of the slaughter of so many helpless men, women and children is both sickening and heartbreaking. It makes one hope there is a Heaven and a Hell...and that all such Nazi monsters are residents of the latter!
   
   Given the depth of Stafford's research and the skillful job he does in presenting such a large historical canvas, ENDGAME 1945 may be THE definitive book on the subject! Highly recommended.



3. Excellent historical study of the closing days of WWII in Europe that superbly interweaves the personal experiences of people involved in the chaos. Few Second World War histories have moved me so deeply and made the horror felt by the combatants and civilians who encountered the Holocaust so real. Highly recommended to those with a general interest in the subject and to the scholar also. The author is a fine writer and brings sensitivity and insight to his work.



4. As the author notes, many know the war in Europe ended with the surrender of Germany on 7 May, but in reality the shear inertia of the war meant the dying and some of the fighting continued. On top of that, the problems created by the war only began. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of displaced persons, former concentration camp survivors, and the administration of a collapsed nation had to be dealt with in the final days of the war. And, in the area of Trieste, Italy, the Cold War could be claimed to have begun as allied divisions and naval forces deployed to prevent Tito's army from grabbing Italian territory and to force it back into Yugoslavia.
   
   The book is also written well. The method Stafford uses to tell this history is to weave into the historical narrative the lives of several people -- allies and others. This leads to an almost novel-like quality as you follow their lives through the last weeks of the war, while at the same time maintaining historical context.

5 comments about Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West.

1. The problems with writing a book about the 2,500-year struggle between East and West are manifold: What is East? What is West? What is the essential struggle? And since it has lasted so long, how do you get it all in one volume? UCLA historian Anthony Pagden has made an audacious effort doing just that. In Pagden's view - echoing Kipling - East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.
   
   According to the author, the struggle between East and West can be characterized as a contest between secular, liberal democracies in the West and religious, despotic societies in the East (the East referred to being primarily the Middle East). Pagden's story begins with the Greeks and the Persians. The Greeks in the 5th century AD were a democracy and the Persians under Darius and Xerxes were a classic oriental despotism. This marked the beginning of the struggle known variously as East vs West, Europe vs Asia, secular vs the sacred, etc. The book ends with America in Iraq basically fighting the same battle that has been fought for the last 2,500 years. In this history there is no progress, there is only eternal struggle.
   
   Most people would disagree with this thesis and rightly so. This Manichean worldview seems a gross oversimplification at first glance. Greece, as well as the West as a whole, was not always liberal and secular; it had a long struggle with despotism itself and Christianity did not always see itself as separate from the state. Likewise, the East was not always illiberal and monolithically religious. Islam, for example, during its golden age in Spain was very tolerant of Christianity and Judaism. There is also much diversity within Islam today.
   
   Even though one may not agree with the author's view of the endless struggle between East and West, this book is very informative and very engaging. It tells more about the myths of East and West that inform the historical actors down through history. The so-called civilizing missions of Alexander in India, Napoleon in Egypt, Mehmed the Great in Constantinople, and Americans in Iraq are instances of one civilization trying to convince another of its superior values.
   
   Therein lies the dilemma of Pagden's project. He does not see moral equivalence, for he comes down squarely on the side of secularism and liberal values, as he should. The West, unfortunately, is not always about those things alone; it is, in the eyes of the East, also about imperialism and military conquest. The East, for its part, does not reject Western values; it rejects the West imposing those values, or rather, it wants its own version of those values. In the end we have something much more complex than a standoff between two sets of universal values. There are grey areas on both sides and their boundaries were always shifting.
   
   That being said, Worlds at War is still very good at explaining how these competing worldviews inevitably and inexorably lead to war.



2. This study of the combative relationship between the West (secular, individualistic, progressive) and the East (intolerant and hidebound) might seem to be yet another entry into the triumphalist school of history: The West Beat The Rest Because Its The Best. However, those who actually read the book will recognize that Anthony Pagden has produced a remarkable work which traces and reassesses anew a centuries long struggle.
   
   By the East Pagden means what most now call the Middle East and Central Asia. Beginning with the struggle between the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, Pagden then covers the empires of Alexander and of Rome, the rise of Christianity and Islam, and the resultant struggles between the two monotheistic religions. Some of Pagden's most ascerbic comments come at the expense of monotheism, whose adherents' tendencies to see the world in black and white he considers to be the root of most of our troubles. Fortunately he resists the temptation to sneer at the followers of those religions, reserving his scorn for those popes, caliphs, and other religious "leaders" who abused their power and wasted the lives of their communicants. Inevitably Pagden must finish his work with an examination of the troubles between the West and the Islamic Middle East in the twentieth century, and he provides an excellent history of that ongoing dispute, ending with some penetrating analyses of the mistakes both East and West have made over the years.
   
   Pagden writes well, with a good eye for an illuminating anecdote. I wish a few more maps had been included to help locate some of the more obscure locales he mentions, but overall this is a fine work which I really enjoyed.



3. This is an excellent work of history. Correction: it is not so much a history - though it is historical through and through - as it is a particular interpretation of one very important aspect of world history: namely, the seemingly endless and seemingly inexplicable antagonism between West (the cultural region where individual and group rights, liberty and liberties, and specific "modern"/modernity-inflected social formations arose) and the East (the cultural region, roughly equivalent to the Arab world, where rights and democracy, let alone the individual, have been largely ignored). As Pagden tells this story, he touches on the important and nodal episodes, but he also adds his view of some of the incidental episodes. He provides an excellent historical overview, supplemented by a clever and diligent scholar's look at key moments, of both of these regions, and of their interrelationships. Obviously a lot has to be left out given the sheer number of centuries in question, but Pagden is hugely learned and so packs in all kinds of salient details. (His academic expertise is on the rise of modern Europe, and its "collision" with other parts of the globe.)
   
   The book is long but thankfully he writes very clearly. He moves fluidly from Aeschylus and Alexander the Great, through the legacy of the "citizen" empire (Rome) and the rise of Muhammad, to the medieval Popes, through to Quesnay, Voltaire and Montesquieu and the Enlightenment, and finally on to the complex recent past and the present (Qutb, etc). He doesn't pull any punches: yes, the "orient" actually has been largely despotic, and yes, the West has often been -- for all of its successes and both its authentic good intentions as well as its exploitative acquisitiveness -- hypocritical and inept even when it has been well-meaning. Re: the latter, he discusses the question of liberal interventions, which he treats almost in a Burkean fashion: these are overly optimistic social engineering efforts, which often naively assume that the conditions for a genuinely valuable and important Western form of government (democracy) can be transplanted to places where the conditions that might nourish it are sadly foreign. He is also tough on Islam's apologists, past and present, rightly noting their own hypocrisy and almost perennial cruelty and anti-democratic impulses. He rightly chastises the leftists who celebrated the rise of Khomeini, pointing out that none had bothered to read his writings before celebrating his accession. And no less a figure than Edward Said -- author of a well regarded but simplistic (if not downright mendacious) tome on a part of the history of West and East -- comes in for some curt but devastating criticism. All in all, this is a grand, sweeping read. It's very much worth acquiring, especially if one is interested in the present and how we got here, but it's also a book one can give to a high school student or university student, e.g., one's nephew and niece, just so they can sample a work that does a fine job of making sense of a vastly complicated relationship. If they get through it, as one would hope, they'll be as shocked and disappointed as I am, and as Pagden is, to learn that in Turkey, Winnie-the-Pooh is no longer televised because the "Piglet" character is deemed offensive to Muslims. Don't laugh. Try to get a piggy-bank for your grandchild in a UK bank these days.
   
   (I must add: reading the review of this book by a top 1000 reviewer - above - I came away thinking that he hasn't even read it. Pagden does in fact credit the Islamic world for many advances, and early on in his preface, he makes it very clear that when he speaks of "East" and "West", he's not talking about "unstable" "relative" geographical categories but cultural, social and political dispositions. Is that the sign of a "book maven": one says some banal and inaccurate things about a book?)



4. Excellent and easy to read historical review. Helps us understand the predicament we're in because many of our leaders are history-oblivious. History (and this book)shows that we continue to pursue policies that are counter productive because we ignore the lessons of history and repeat the same mistakes.



5. This book goes back to the beginning of European civilisation and its main feature: individualism of free people, compared with the oriental collectivism and slavery.
   Very readable.

No comments about Easy Company Soldier: The Legendary Battles of a Sergeant from World War II's "Band of Brothers".

5 comments about Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

1. This is a book that stays with me. There were so many things I didn't know: How the Emancipation Proclamation didn't really end slavery, the cruelty that continued. How could a coal mine be operated with 150 "slaves"? It had no toilets and only 3 half-buckets of water a day for all the men to wash the coal dust off. How the states profited by leasing or selling their prisoners to companies needing workers. It just went on and on. This is a page in our history we need to know and be ashamed of.



2. Great Book. Will there be a book following this one entitled The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the 1980's to this present day under the War On Drugs?



3. Slavery By Another Name is painful to read. It is cleanly written, for the most part, but the continuation of virtual slavery in the US South that only began to recede with the advent of WW2 makes it grim slogging. But slog away, dear reader, because you need to know what is in this book, which , in my opinion, deserves and will receive a number of literary and historical awards this year.



4. This book is both profoundly factual, and at times, partially "un-factual," -- that is, reconstructed history. In instances where the ex-slaves could not speak for themselves, which were many, Mr. Blackmon deigns to speak for them himself. It is what can only be called "necessary historical extrapolation, in defense of the defenseless." Yet, somehow these noble stretches beyond the data do indeed conform to and confirm the same stories and results researched equally well by William B. Taylor in his "Down on Parchman Farm: The Great Prison in the Mississippi Delta," which covers the same period as this book does, but primarily from the Mississippi point of view rather than from Alabama's.
   
   Altogether Blackmon taps into another important, under-reported yet very dark part of American history: The period of the Southern White "Redemption," after the freedman's Bureau had closed its tents down (literally) and moved back North, leaving the ex-slaves to fend for themselves for the next 100 years.
   
   The most cold-blooded of the truths that he reveals is that the shaky white farms and plantations that managed to revive themselves in the aftermath of the Civil War, simply could not make it without black expertise. And here he does not mean just black manual labor, but more importantly, black farming and household management skills. As a result, of this white deficiency, and as is usual for the U.S. when it comes to race relations, the Southerners sought to re-enslave and re-colonize blacks by more novel and more interesting but equally brutal means: that is by legal and social fiat.
   
   In almost every instance, these tactics had a patina of legalisms pasted over them (and the author spends too much examining them and churning them trying it seems to treat them as if they were legitimate defenses of all but indefensible practices) the overall effect was the same: that "Blacks had no legal protections whatsoever." Going through the legal motions was only a pretext for whites to continue doing what they had done during slavery and had planned to continue doing by any means necessary anyway, in order to continue "keeping blacks down" and re-enslaved.
   
   While the book makes it seem that these tactic and stratagems for re-enslavement occurred only due to Southern industrial and domestic exigencies, hatred and mean-spirited chicanery, the author must be reminded that the brutal "Black Code Laws" upon which many of these pernicious Southern practices were patterned, began in the North before the Civil War, and were simply grafted on to the "redeemed southern way of life" as the new "Jim Crow" laws and practices.
   
   I would have been much happier if the author had made an attempt to show the "all but linear (and very stable) connection" across time between the arrest and incarceration rates then -- which in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and Florida, constantly hovered around 25% -- and the almost exact NATIONAL rates today. This in my view (as well as that of a handful of sociologists) could not be only a mere coincident, but more likely due to deep structure social reasons and causes that did indeed grow out of America's culture of "structural racism," which inevitably, one way or another, gets mapped back to slavery.
   
   The reasons for incarcerations then and now, are, of course different: Then, as the author so carefully elaborates, blacks were picked up and thrown in jail on almost any pretext whatsoever - from vagrancy to stealing a can of beans. Then, it was a conscious case of "coerced labor," pure and simple. Today it is due mostly to the Draconian and unfair 100 to 1 cocaine laws, and a host of other, mostly unconscious "race related social causes." The utter stability of these percentages in themselves, represents an untold story laying dormant in the subtext of American culture, all to itself.
   
   Any excavation of American history this good, even with some limitations, cannot get less than five stars.



5. Excellent update to history that is rarely known. Should be in every school and public library.

5 comments about Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization.

1. He used Wikipedia to check facts and yet he wants to be taken seriously as an author of non-fiction? Oh my!



2. The title of Baker's book comes from one of Hitler's "restive but compliant generals," Franz Halder. Imprisoned at Auschwitz at the end of the war, Halder saw "flakes of smoke blow into his cell. Human smoke, he called it."
   
   And therein lies the problem and the challenge for Baker, who dedicates his book to the war's hardworking pacifists. "They failed, but they were right," says Baker. But how does he illustrate that this "good war" was no such thing? That there is never any such thing as a good war?
   
   The book is a massive project, though less than 500 pages long. Working from newspaper accounts, speeches, memoirs, letters, diaries and some secondary sources like the books of Martin Gilbert, a British-Jewish historian and official biographer of Churchill, Baker has organized a chronological assemblage of events and reactions leading up to WWII and ending in December 1941 after the US entered the war. There are 70 pages of source notes.
   
   Some entries are only a paragraph or two; others are several pages. A kaleidoscope of viewpoints, the book creates strong impressions of those behind the war, especially Churchill, Hitler and FDR, and those (unlike its leaders) who suffered.
   
   Readers will be familiar with much - casual, widespread anti-Semitism, Roosevelt's desire to get the US into the war, Churchill's determination to win at all costs, Japanese atrocities in China, Hitler's rabid racism. But the building detail and the personal context of many of the pieces creates a strong emotional involvement and a grim, suspense-like tension.
   
   The overall feeling is one of growing momentum but all along the way there are moments when, maybe, things could have been different. Sparks of resistance, reluctant armies, voices counseling reason. The leaders' pronouncements, in contrast, are designed to inflame.
   
   But as Baker creates a feeling of sadness and sympathy for all those civilians Churchill ruthlessly, passionately, consigned to bombs or starvation (he believed civilian suffering would hasten the war's end) the quotes from Hitler and his henchmen are so awful it is difficult to see how even Gandhi could prescribe nonviolence.
   
   From the earliest days Hitler makes it clear his intention is world domination. " `There should be only three major powers in the world' Hitler said. ` the British Empire, the Americas, and the German Empire of the future.' " This was 1934.
   
   Hitler's intent to rid Germany of Jews - through fantasy euphemisms of deportation to Africa, Palestine, Madagascar and the Dominican Republic - gave rise to a constant foment of increasing hatred, culminating in "the final solution."
   
   In 1938 Gandhi wrote, " `My sympathies are all with the Jews. If ever there could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.' " But there could never be a justifiable war. Gandhi counseled Germany's Jews to passive resistance, unto death.
   
   In 1941 the commander of Auschwitz calmly describes the first gassing of 900 naked Russian prisoners who thought they were to be deloused. Later, he wrote, " `I must even admit that this gassing set my mind at rest,' he said, `for the mass extermination of the Jews was to start soon, and at the time neither Eichmann nor I was certain as to how these mass killings were to be carried out.' "
   
   Churchill's bloodthirsty ruthlessness is scary - from the first glory is a more important concept to him than human life. Reflecting on Britain at the brink of war: " `There was a white glow, overpowering, sublime, which ran through our island from end to end.' " No wonder the Brits got rid of him the minute the war was over.
   
   But none of the leaders, dispassionately disposing of civilian and military lives, can hold a candle to Hitler's monstrousness. In the end, Baker convinces this reader that war is always horrible and never moral and the people should guard themselves against emotional manipulation and hold their leaders to account. However, some wars, however horrible, are necessary.



3. This telling of the story of the buildup to our involvement in World War Two is unique and opens up the mind to an understanding of the men and ideas behind World War II. It also reveals the utter hypocrisy that underlies most wars. There were no good guys. Just the bad guys fighting each other. As one historian has put it, "World War Two was a lie versus a half truth", and I think he was being generous. Most importantly, it did not have to happen. This book is a must. I've dog eared and written so many notes in mine I need to buy another one to loan out.



4. I am a tremendous fan of Nicholson Baker. I find him to be one of the best prose stylists in America today. I find his work to be eminently readable--absorbing, subtly subversive, sometimes irritating, certainly entertaining. Even when I disagree with him, whether that be the conclusions he draws in his non-fiction or some outrageousness in his fiction, I love to read him.
   
   Human Smoke joins Baker's oeuvre as one of his best pieces of non-fiction. In it, he gives us a different perspective on the lead-up and first years of World War II. Essentially, it is his desire to show us how the Allies, Churchill and Roosevelt, in particular, brought on the war, committed atrocities and enabled the Nazis and Japanese to commit their atrocities. For example, the British engaged in haphazard bombing in Europe forcing the Luftwaffe to start the Battle of Britain while Roosevelt gave the Chinese planes and crews and positioned the Pacific fleet to egg on the Japanese, knowing in advance Pearl Harbor would be attacked, drawing us into the war just as he wished.
   
   In point of fact, almost no one in this book comes off well. The pacifists look rather pathetic as they are dragged off to jail while Gandhi encourages people to stand and be slaughtered rather than defend themselves. Jews and non-Jews alike seem in denial about what is going on in Nazi-controlled territories. The only people who come off half-way decent are ones you wouldn't expect: people like Herbert Hoover who works to relieve the suffering of children in Europe, and Hitler who constantly seems to be pushing for peace treaties, responding to provocation and pushing Jews to emigrate.
   
   Now, though much of what Baker is reporting is true, he is, of course, rather selective in his reporting. And I didn't walk away from this book changing my feelings about Churchill, Roosevelt, or Hitler, for that matter. Much of what Baker talks about in this book are things with which I was already familiar. Still, it is good to be reminded of the fact that in big historical events like this, there is always more going on than meets the eye. Politicians, no matter how decent, are playing deep, complex games that even they can probably not fully articulate.
   
   And when it comes right down to it, Baker writes so well. I love the structure of this book. It reads and in some ways appears on the page as a series of telegrams. Each "message" is dated and comes across as pure reportage based, as it is, on sources from the time. As we all know, primary sources such as newspapers and letters can be as deceiving and self-serving as any other form of media but it still makes for wonderful reading.
   
   Baker takes a series risk with this book. The Allies in World War II were the "Greatest Generation" and taking them to task does not seem like a wise road to popularity. On the other hand, those people not automatically turned off by Baker's premise will find a lot of interest here. My respect for people is rarely swayed by knowing that they are flawed, human, and products of their time. If you are the same, I recommend this book to you.



5. First of all, I agree with the point of view that war is the most horrendous, not to say bizarre, human activity and that as time goes on it is getting worse not better, more bestial. Apart from some differences in technology, our war making most resembles war making in the insect world. So I think it's simply normal to hate war, especially as conducted now: against civilians, indifferently, as if you were playing a video game.
   
   Having said that, I found this book, which is pacifist in intent, pretty annoying. By joining together news clippings and descriptions of minor events in a chronological order with brief commentary, he builds his case by implication, rather than just stating it. I suppose this would be all right. I don't dispute the facts nor the obvious inferences, but obviously if you just went through every newspaper and picked out the items that fit your "agenda", you could build a case that World War II never happened at all.
   
   The fact that Roosevelt and Churchill were looking for a way to get the U.S. involved in the war regardless of how many innocent lives were lost is I guess incontestable. Churchill not warning the people of Coventry that a huge attack was expected is unforgivable. There's a lot that reflects badly on Churchill. It needs to be remembered that his rhetorical magic helped a great many miserable people get through miserable times, insubstantial as rhetoric is and this is because it was pugnacious and aggressive. If someone attacks you or your family, your instinct is to fight back. The extensive quotes from Gandhi that generally suggest that you should lie down and let them trample you come across as naive, at best. Anyway, it wasn't going to happen. There's going to have to be a fundamental change in human beings, not simply political - policy changes if war is going to end. And I don't think it's impossible, I just think it's highly improbable. Our country's mythology and the historical mythologies of most countries is based on winning wars, defeating evil, and, as I say, our natural instinct is: if pushed to push back.
   
   Personally, I don't think the leaders were or are as responsible for what they do as is generally thought. After all, Hitler and Stalin were insane, Churchill was drunk all the time. It seems to me that all these people were swept along by the cyclone of events and all the victims swept along too.
   
   I think it's good that the view of World War II is being revised. All the triumphalism needs to be muted and the deplorable nature of these events needs to be confronted, as much as we can at this distance. The fire bombing of Germany was no more to be celebrated than the bombing of Rotterdam or London or Stalingrad were. Let's not think modern warfare represents a positive evolution, it only shows us that the end is near.
   
   Anyway, this is obviously a provocative book, and I think you should read it if you're interested in the run-up to World War II, but read other books on the subject too. You need to develop a historical context. As an example, all the items about the United States' attempts to build a Chinese air force so that it could bomb Japan make it seem as though Japan was unjustly provoked. I don't recall that he even mentioned the "Rape of Nanking".

No comments about The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II.