Miracle at Midway Review

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(More customer reviews)Just how fortunate the United States was in winning the closely contested navy engagement at Midway in the central Pacific in mid 1942 is evident to any reader ofthis very well documented and quite balanced account of one of the largest and most famous exchanges between the US navy and their Japanese counterparts during the course of World War Two. By using extensive inputs from both Japanese and American participants and observers of the sea battle, the authors thread together a memorable and engaging narrative of the events leading up to and involving both sides during the summer months of that fateful year. It was one for the record books, and one that demonstrated conclusively that the rules of war at sea had changed forever from one dominated by capital ships like battleships and cruisers to one dominated by aircraft carriers and attack airplanes.
In the devastating aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the American Navy was looking for an opportunity to engage the Japanese in a "mano-a-mano" confrontation, hoping to even the odds and shorten the war by using what we felt would be surprise and tactics to overcome the numerical advantage the Japanese enjoyed in numbers of both ships (especially in terms of aircraft carriers) and launchable aircraft. Even though the Japanese had blundered badly at the battle of the Coral Sea, they left the scene believing the fracas had been won, and that they had further damaged the American fleet by sinking three carriers. And though the U.S. Navy did in fact limp away having lost some of its few carriers either through sinking or damage, in actuality they had inflicted more damage than they had incurred. Furthermore, soon one of the badly damaged U. S. Navy carriers (the Yorktown) would be repaired and ready to sail in support of the Midway engagement.
Also, by cracking certain aspects of the Japanese Navy's wireless communication codes, the Americans were able to determine not only what the Japanese were ostensibly planning in terms of a strategy to take Midway, but also what the specific positioning and disposition of the various aspects of the Japanese naval force would be. Obviously, this information added to the element of surprise gave the Americans a huge tactical advantage, and made victory much more possible. Yet it did not guarantee anything. It was the tactical brilliance and contemporaneous innovation of the on-site commanders in the American force that won the day. In a series of engagements that did not change the course of the battle until the last few remaining waves of American aircraft suddenly sank or damaged the majority of the Japanese carriers, the Americans succeeded both through their own daring and a few fatal tactical errors on the part of the Japanese commanders.
The results were devastating for the Japanese, who never again could muster the kind of raw carrier power, or just as importantly, ever replace the huge number of experienced carrier-based aircraft pilots needed to successfully engage and threaten the expanding American task forces that within another 12 to 18 months would virtually transform the character of the war in the Pacific, leading the Japanese into waging an almost suicidal war of attrition which they had no chance to win. This is a well-written, well-documented, and entertaining book that helps the reader to understand just how critical to both the Americans and the Japanese the fateful naval engagement at Midway was, and how the results determined the course of the rest of the war in the Pacific. Enjoy!

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Here is the definitive history of the battle of Midway, an American victory that marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific during World War II. Told with the same stylistic flair and attention to detail as the bestselling At Dawn We Slept, Miracle at Midway brings together eyewitness accounts from the men who commanded and fought on both sides. The sweeping narrative takes readers into the thick of the action and shows exactly how American strategies and decisions led to the triumphant victory that paved the way for the defeat of Japan. "A stirring, even suspenseful narrative . . . The clearest and most complete account so far." (Newsday) "Something special among war histories . . . No other gives both sides of the battle in as detailed and telling a manner."(Chicago Sun-Times) "A gripping and convincing account." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

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Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage Review

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Intelligence professionals will be very disappointed by this book, citizens interested in Presidential approaches to intelligence, somewhat less so. The author's brilliant biography of William Casey, OSS Veteran and Director of Central Intelligence under President Ronald Reagan, was a much more satisfying book. What we have here is by and large a mish-mash of the works of others, together with an original composition on FDR's involvement in intelligence that is uneven--partly because the subject did not put much in writing, and partly because the author chose to rely primarily on secondary published sources.
From the perspective of one interested in "Presidential intelligence," that is, how does a President manage various means of keeping informed, the book is a must read but also a shallow read. We learn that FDR was a master of deception and of running many parallel efforts, balancing them against one another. We learn that FDR was remarkably tolerant of amateurism and incompetence, while good at finding the gems these same loose but prolific intelligence endeavors could offer.
Perhaps most importantly, we gain some insights into how Presidents, even when properly informed by intelligence (e.g. of Pearl Harbor in advance, or of the lack of threat from domestic Americans of Japanese descent) must yet "go along" and provide either inaction pending the public's "getting it", or unnecessary action (the internments) to assuage public concern.
There are enough tid-bits to warrant a full reading of the book, but only for those who have not read widely in the literature of intelligence and/or presidential history. The British lied to the President and grossly exaggerated their intelligence capabilities, in one instance presenting a man "just back from behind the lines" when in fact he was simply on staff and lying for effect. We learn that the Department of State was twice offered, and twice declined, the lead on a global structure for collecting and processing intelligence. We learn that FDR himself concluded that Croatia and Serbia would never ever get along and should be separate countries.
On the NATO side, we learn that Eisenhower went with bad weather and the invasion succeeded in part because of a successful deception and in part because of Ike's courage in going forward in the face of bad weather--fast forward to how weather incapacitates our high-technology today. Most interestingly, we learn that FDR finally approved Eisenhower as leader of Overload, in lieu of his favorite, General Marshall, in part because he recognized that the allied joint environment required a general and a politician in one man.
This book is a hybrid, attempting to mesh presidential history with intelligence history, and perhaps this should gain the author some margin of tolerance. Unfortunately, in focusing on the relationships among the various intelligence principals and the president, he seriously passes over the enormous contributions of military as well as civilian and allied intelligence to the larger undertaking, and one is left with the narrow impression that American intelligence consisted largely of a number of self-serving clowns vying for Presidential favor.
The flaws inherent in a Federal Bureau of Investigation dominated by J. Edgar Hoover, and the lack of cooperation between the FBI and other major intelligence activities that continues today, are noted throughout the book.
Bottom line: worth buying and reading to gain insight into the challenges facing a President who can become isolated from reality by a corporate staff, but nowhere near the quality of Christopher Andrew's For the President's Eyes Only, or any of many good histories of espionage in World War II.



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The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players that Won the War Review

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(More customer reviews)Hopkins has assembled a commendable work that links the most important battles of the Pacific with the US strategy, the politics, and the personalities that shaped the Pacific theater. He provides the backgrounds for each major step and takes you through the events at a level sufficient to put it into the broader perspective.
You won't find content regarding technology or the tactics of specific battles. Hopkins puts a timeline to these seemingly disparate events of this theater to give the reader appreciation for the decisions of MacArthur, Nimitz, Halsey, Marshall, and Roosevelt. But he does it in a very readable way. The many maps help as well. I also enjoyed the brief descriptions of the smaller battles which haven't yet warranted their own books (which made me feel sorry for the many who perished fighting these battles without any real historical recognition).
Having read individual personal recounts of individual battles or campaigns in the Pacific, I was pleased that Hopkins has delivered a very readable history that brings it all together. I'm not a historian who remembers each fact, so I can't comment on Hopkin's accuracy. But its sufficient for a reader to "get" the US Pacific strategy and timeline, and to enjoy doing so.
I've avoided other books spanning the Pacific theater that are tomes with small print and too much detail, or those which seem to have the authors political slant. "Retribution" comes to mind. If you've enjoyed reading books about Tarawa, Guadacanal, Peleliu, Okinawa, Iwo, then you'll appreciate what Hopkins has accomplished.

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Once the stories have been told of battles won and lost, most of what happens in a war remains a mystery. So it has been with accounts of World War II in the Pacific, a conflict whose nature is only obscured by the linear narrative. In this book, a veteran and respected military author opens the story of the Pacific War to a broader and deeper view.

Going beyond the usual accounting, William B. Hopkins investigates the strategies, politics, and personalities that shaped the conduct of the war. His regional approach to this complex war conducted on land, sea (and significantly by America, undersea), and air offers a more realistic perspective on how this multifaceted conflict unfolded--in many ways, and on many fronts. As expansive as the immense reaches of the Pacific, and as focused as the most intensive pinpoint attack on a strategic island, this account offers a whole new way of understanding the hows--and more significantly, the whys, of the Pacific War.

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The Seventh Carrier Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is the first in a very interesting twist on both history and a speculative view on what could have happened. A second strike on Pearl Harbor forty years after the first one by a group of determined Japanese holdouts from the Second World War. Altogether an interesting look at the mindset of the Japanese prior to and during the war. Also an eye-opening look at the arrogant attitude that still prevails in alot of the current military establishment.

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Pearls Before Swine Volume 1: Predicting the Past Review

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(More customer reviews)The author presents an excellent, word-by-word interpretation of Nostradamus' quatrains translated from the original Old French. I am one who knew little about Nostradamus before reading this book; I appreciated the author's presentation of him as an educated, devote man who was a true prophet. Pearls Before Swine explains the detailed embedded systems of punctuation and word placement Nostradamus used, which other authors have overlooked. Using the sytems of Nostradamus, the author reveals the first part of an epic poem foretelling the same future events as are described by John in Revelations. I especially liked the author's main theme: that prophecy is written so that those who understand can do something to change this future. This book is Vol.1, and discusses only the first part Nostradamus' much longer work. The book is packed with information, 740 pages of it. I look forward to Vol. II!

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This book is a must read for everyone.Those with any previous knowledge of Nostradamus will be amazed at how clarity now comes from what was confusing.Those with no prior knowledge will find a logical and meaningful understanding of one of history's most renown prophets.No longer will critics be able to attack the interpretations of others, as this book reveals the true words, and defines their meaning.Hidden within the words of Nostradamus from centuries, a system to understand has emerged.By understanding this system, even the novice can make sense of what was purposefully cloaked.The result is a powerful revelation of where mankind now stands, and how he got to this point.

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A Cruising Guide to New Jersey Waters: Revised Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)Captain Donald Launer is one of the more knowlegeable sailors along the New Jersey shore. He lives there and is devoted to marine arts and sciences as they effect boaters.
His book is scrupulously accurate, unusually readable, and more than interesting for sailor, motorboater or just an interested reader.
Although the book is sequential in form, in that it presents a travalogue from New Jersey's dramatic Palisades to rather scruffy Trenton Falls, it is equally useful as a reference book; the organiztion is outstanding.
Captain Launer has also kindly provided a fairly complete reference section.
This is a "must book" for any skipper who wishes to cruise New Jersey Waters. A great gift for any Garden State boater.

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One Square Mile of Hell: The Battle for Tarawa Review

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Most of us live 76 hours with little thoughts of danger, but as readers of this book will quickly find out, the 3 days the U.S. Marine 2nd Division spent on Tarawa atol, and especially Betio, was just about the most dangerous place a person could ever be.
Several people have said, including the two commanding generals of this operation, that next to Iwo Jima, Betio was the most fortified war zone they had ever seen. In fact General Smith said he had never experienced anything in WWI to compare to how the Japanese had fortified the island. The commanding Japanese Admiral Shibasaki, later killed in the battle, expressed his opinion just prior to the battle that "A million men cannot take Tarawa in a hundred years." Several thousand Marines from the 2nd Division at great cost would soon prove the Japanese admiral wrong.
The U.S. Navy bombarded the island prior to the landings, but not as much as the Marine generals would have liked. However, after the battle, it would be seen that no amount of shelling would have been able to destroy the defending Japanese troops, they were just too well fortified. In the end, it took the combined efforts of the U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, and the air force to take and hold, as Robert Sherrod said, an island no larger than 1 square mile.
I served with the Navy & USMC so this book immediately caught my attention, though I have two others on the subject, also. My opinion after reading this heart rending book is that it very well may be the best of recent times, and may be the best of any future books on the subject. The author has written a very readable book, whereas some books of military subjects are not; and he has built his book not only on individuals that were there, but also on their statements today, 60 plus years after the battle. And as anyone who has read this book can testify, two of the main characters in the drama: the activities of Gene Seng and Charles Montague may never be forgotten. Along with Stanley Bowen, Norman Hatch, William Hawkins, and William Chamberlin, among many others, their heroics will be forever burned into one's mind.
Out of the thousands of Japanese who defended Tarawa, only 17 lived past the battle; while the American losses were 1,027 killed, 2,292 wounded, and 88 recorded as missing. On Tarawa's D-Day the losses of the Marines were close to the 30% range, out of 5000 landed, the losses were 1500.
This Central Pacific island saw much hand-to-hand fighting with bayonet, KaBar knife, and close in shooting. The only way to dislodge the Japanese from their spider webs and pill boxes was with explosives and flame throwers. Snipers existed all thoughout the battle, and even after the island was considered 'secure' fatalities from snipers still occurred by the burial details. The Marines were at times very surprised to see Japanese standing well over 6 feet in height, for these Japanese were special naval landing forces much on a par with our Marines. There was no where to run, no where to hide, and for a large part of the battle we were at times close to being thrown back into the sea. It got so bad that towards the end no prisoners were taken.
Much went right by training and luck, and more went wrong; with both the Navy and Marines learning from this battle. Since it differed from the earlier Guadalcanal fighting both USN/USMC were surprised at it ferocity and casualties. One of the main issues during the critical hours of the battle was logistics: supplies, especially ammo could not reach the Marines due to tides and reef. Later when such a necessary item as water made it ashore in 55 gallon drums, it was discovered that the drums, used prior for gasoline storage, were not properly cleansed so the water both tasted and smelled of gasoline.
This is such a fact filled book that a reviewer could almost seemingly go on forever, but this review is long enough. I give this book a high rating where military and line of departure books are concerned. One doesn't have to have served to read this book and come away with a feeling what it was like to be on Tarawa for three days in November, 1943. And sadly the American public of that time was kept in the dark about the battle and did not find out what WWII island fighting would be like until weeks after the battle.
Semper Fi.

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The Control of Nature Review

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(More customer reviews)A fairly detailed investigation and explanation of three locations where Man is attempting to prevent the course of Nature. The first, the attempt, so far successful, to prevent the Mississippi from changing its exit to the Gulf (it wants to go through the Atchafalaya River, substantially shorter and more attractive to the water), which change would utterly negate the entire economic geography of lower Louisiana. The second, the use of seawater pumped by the hundreds of thousands of gallons onto fresh, hot lava, to prevent said lava from overrunning and destroying the harbour and town of Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland. The third, the ongoing attempt to preserve Los Angeles from the self-destruction of the San Gabriel Mountains. All three goals are fully understandable in economic terms; what is not so clear, at least with the first and third, is how long the effort can be kept up. McPhee makes a good case that in human times, not geologic, Nature will win in both cases. One leaves the book with a feeling of excitement and pleasure in the Icelandic battle, a wonder at the power of the Mississippi and the stubbornness of the Army Corps of Engineers, and a sense of amazement at the futility and blindness of people who continue to live under the San Gabriels and hold the City liable for their foolish choices.

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Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Lecture on American Civilization) Review

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(More customer reviews)The surprise attack of September 11 brought about, in the eyes of many learned observers, a radical shift in American national security policy. Since World War II and up until the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a policy of containment and deterrence. During the 1990s, in the wake of the collapse, there was a feeling that democracy and capitalism would eventually triumph everywhere; the Clinton administration reasoned that the US "only needed to engage and the rest of the world would enlarge the process."
In response the 9/11 attack the Bush administration formulated a new strategy, outlined in the national security speech at West Point on June 1, 2002. This speech called for a new strategy which looked like a departure from American tradition. The key elements of this new strategy were preemption, unilateralism, and hegemony. In the beginning, it was little noticed; however, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, people began to examine this strategy more closely.
Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis, in this short and well-written little book, argues that this was not a new policy, in fact it had deep roots in American history that go back to the earliest days of the republic. Gaddis demonstrates that after the British attack on Washington DC during the War of 1812, the then secretary of state, John Quincy Adams asserted the same three principles. Preemption was the rationale for Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida, the "failed state" of its day being a haven for marauding Seminoles, runaway slaves and profiteering pirates. With the diminishing authority of the Spanish in Latin America, the US sought to restrict the influence of other European powers in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was a unilateralist declaration even though the US did not have the means to enforce it without the backing of the British navy. And in the end, the policy of John Quincy Adams was to be the predominant power in the Western Hemisphere, or at least on the North American continent - a hegemon in all but name.
Preemption, unilateralism, and hegemony was indeed a US strategy up until World War II. The US was seeking merely to assure its security by keeping the European powers out of the hemisphere. Most Americans believed it was a mistake to seek an oversees empire as the brief foray into the Phillipines proved in the early part of the 20th century.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was forced the build alliances with the Soviet Union and other great powers in order to defeat Germany and Japan. It was thus necessary to forgo preemption and unilateralism in deference to the alliance. During and after World War II, the US took the lead in building multilateralism institutions - a multilateral system that not only ensured American hegemony, but made it desirable at the same time. Forgoing preemption gave the US the moral high ground, which it maintained until the invasion of Iraq.
The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq had all the elements of a grand strategy: preemption, unilateralsim - when multilateralism failed - and American hegemony. There was also an innovation to this strategy: there would be an active promotion of democracy in the Middle East. This idea swayed many liberals to the cause, including members of the media and the academic community.
The problems with this strategy became apparent after the invasion. They are too numerous to go into and obvious to anyone following the news. The mistakes made during the occupation leaves the Bush Doctine with only a few remaining supporters. The failure to enlist the great powers, not to mention many of the smaller powers, destroyed our status as a benign hegemon and jepardizes our moral high ground.
Gaddis does an excellent job of explaining the grand strategy and showing that it has precedents in history, better than Bush or anyone in his administration. However, he does not show that this strategy is justified, morally or legally, and he does not seem to fully appreciate that many of our friends and allies find this strategy frightening and repugnant. They do not call us arrogant for nothing.
Nevertheless, the jury is still out. Immediately after the invasion, it looked as though one regime after another would fall in the region, along the lines of the dominoes of Eastern Europe. At the present writing, with the Iraqi elections approaching, a decent outcome seems remote and a civil war possible. Yet, there are stirrings of hope and change elsewhere in the Middle East, such as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The upheaval in Iraq is also creating debate that did not exist before in Egypt and the Gulf States. The pendulum may again swing the other way and the grand strategy may be working inspite of itself.

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Battlefield Angels: Saving Lives Under Enemy Fire From Valley Forge to Afghanistan (General Military) Review

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(More customer reviews)A fascinating blend of courageous corpsmen & medic profiles from the Revolutionary War to the Middle East. I had no idea how much of civilian healthcare has been pioneered or validated by military medicine: anesthesia, blood banks, plasma transfusions, air medevacs, etc.
But the strength of this book is the riveting stories of corpsmen who volunteer to become WWII POWs in order to treat wounded soldiers; who race TOWARD the enemy when the fighting erupts; or who find ways to conduct an appendectomy in a WWII submarine while on enemy patrol. This book will surprise, inspire, and move you to tears. You'll never watch a war movie or combat news report the same way again.

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"The night air chilled Caspar Wistar as he walked alongside a wagon filled with medical supplies, part of an eleven-thousand-man army creeping toward a small Pennsylvania hamlet. He wondered if General George Washington's medical corps would again run short of wound dressings when battle met the sunrise."Thus opens the magisterial new book from Scott McGaugh, author of Midway Magic. In Battlefield Angels, McGaugh pays homage to the cadre of medics, corpsmen, nurses, doctors, surgeons, and medical technicians who have provided succor and healing to the more than 40 million warriors who have served in America's armed forces since the nation's founding.Scott McGaugh tells the story of Jonathan Letterman, a Union surgeon during the Civil War who is considered the father of American combat medicine. Letterman designed the first battlefield evacuation system after an unprepared medical corps at Bull Run left thousands of soldiers to die in the place where they were wounded. We also learn about Wheeler Lipes, a young navy corpsman and submariner with minimal medical training who on September 11, 1942, conducted the first-ever appendectomy at sea. And, we hear the story of Pfc. Monica Brown, the young army medic who was awarded the Silver Star for rescuing fellow soldiers from a disabled Humvee during an ambush in the Paktika province of Eastern Afghanistan in 2007. Brown is only the second woman in sixty years to receive the prestigious award. Through these stories and many others, McGaugh traces the captivating evolution of battlefield care, from the Revolutionary War to today's battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.In Battlefield Angels, McGaugh captures the in-the-trenches moments during which medics and corpsmen fought to save the lives of their comrades. Along the way, readers will learn the fascinating history of battlefield medicine and how it has benefited both military and civilian medical practice throughout American history. McGaugh also looks ahead to the future, where telemedicine and robotic surgery promise to transform the battlefield once again. In the end, Battlefield Angels both chronicles and pays homage to the men and women in arms who fight every day to save the lives of their fellow soldiers, sailors, and Marines.

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics) Review

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(More customer reviews)Decades after the fact, this collection of essays is a bit of a period piece, but some of it holds up quite well. The subject of the famous title story -- which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1967 -- is about the Haight Street scene and, more to the point, the breakdown of human connection that Didion believed that scene represented. She is similarly gloomy about New York in "Goodbye to All That," and about California in "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream." Though she was in her late 20s and early 30s when she wrote this material, she clearly saw much of what was going on in the 1960s as the activities of a different generation from her own. In any case it's these pieces, along with one about John Wayne, that stand out here, and remain, after all these years, pretty close to extraordinary. Some of the other material (a piece about Joan Baez, etc.) is less memorable. I bought this in the hardback Modern Library edition with a useless introductory essay by Elizabeth Hardwick (but a great photo of Didion on the front cover). Should've gone with paper.

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The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, forty years after its first publication, the essential portrait of America— particularly California—in the sixties. It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.

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Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy Review

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(More customer reviews)Few eras of American history are more misunderstood than the naval history of early America after the Revolutionary War. Former financial analyst and political aide Ian Toll sheds new light on this era in his richly detailed and comprehensive first book, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy. The saga of the original six frigates, the Constitution, Constellation, Congress, President, United States, and the Chesapeake, is one of naval necessity, partisan politics, and the ungainly steps of a young country attempting to defend and assert itself in a dangerous world.
A common misconception in American history is that the original six frigates were begun during the Revolution. As Toll describes in excellent detail, it was in fact under the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams that the decision to form a standing navy was made. With America's merchant fleet under predation from North African pirates, French privateers, and British warships, ships to protect and fly the flag were necessary. An already contentious and partisan Congress argued endlessly over the formation of a American navy to deal with the problem, and finally the Naval Act of 1794 approved funding for the construction of six ships: four 44-gun and two 36-gun frigates. Designed by Joshua Humphreys, the ships were to be the strongest and most effective frigates afloat, a tough job in a world where the Royal Navy dominated. The frigates would play key roles in the quasi-war with France, the Barbary wars, and the War of 1812, and Toll chronicles the personalities, the politics, and the world situation that shaped both the ships and the campaigns in which they took part.
What these ships are best known for, and what is most familiar with the laymen are the battles. Toll describes every major ship-to-ship engagement fought by the original six with a vividness rarely seen in naval histories, rich enough to hear the thunder of the guns and smell the cordite from the gunpowder. The major actions described are: Constellation v. L'Insurgente, Constellation v. La Vengeance, United States v. Macedonian, Constitution v. Guerriere, Constitution v. Java, Shannon v. Chesapeake, and President v. Endymion. Also well addressed are the actions against the Barbary states, including a well-written chapter on the loss of the subscription frigate Philadelphia, and the daring exploits of Stephen Decatur to destroy the captured frigate. The major naval figures of the era like Truxton, Bainbridge, Hull, Decatur, Rodgers, and Barron are all examined by Toll with an observer's eye that fleshes out the caricatures as most histories portray them into real life men.
The end of the War of 1812 saw the launch of the first American ships-of-the-line, but it was the frigate navy that paved the way. Toll's book is an important addition that clears the mythology away from the early US Navy and incorporates all the naval, economic, political, and social elements that contributed to its founding and formation. Toll occasionally strays out of his lane, and the postscript loses a bit of focus delving into the post Civil War navy, but as a whole, this is an excellent book that will satisfy naval buffs and students of history alike. Toll's elegant and rich writing and exhaustive research marks him as an author to watch, and I eagerly await his next work. The original six frigates played a large part in the prestige of early America. Their successes, and their failures, demonstrated that the young United States was a blossoming world power worthy of respect and regard. Highly Recommended. A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO

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The American People in World War II: Freedom from Fear, Part Two (Oxford History of the United States) (Pt. 2) Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm old enough to have live through the eventful 16-years (1929-1945)covered by Prof. David Kennedy's 2-volume history of that period of modern American history; for about half of that time, I was intellectually aware of what was happening; and I have read widely about the New Deal and WW-II. However, nothing I had been exposed to prior to reading "Freedom from Fear" gave me the context and an over-all understanding of the issues and obstacles that decision-makers faced during the Great Depression, the lead-up to WW-II, and the conduct of that war as have these wonderful two volumes. Even though I know full well how these matters played out, it was fascinating to learn how they came to be, and to realize that their outcomes were by no means foreordained nor inevitable. It is said about travel: "Getting there is half the fun;" in that sense, Kennedy is a marvelous tourguide to history.
One minor quibble: In true scholarly fashion, Kennedy
identifies sources for his many assertions and quotations in
footnotes; only a few footnotes contain additional explanatory
material that adds to the story. I would have preferred that the
many footnotes that merely give sources had been made into end
notes, available to those who want to check them but not
taking space on the pages of the narrative.


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Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a new menace was developing abroad. Exploiting Germany's own economic burdens, Hitler reached out to the disaffected, turning their aimless discontent into loyal support for his Nazi Party. In Asia, Japan harbored imperial ambitions of its own. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression eventually had to shoulder arms in another conflict that wreaked worldwide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age, and forever changed their way of life and their country's relationship to the rest of the world.The American People in World War II--the second installment of Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear--explains how the nation agonized over its role in the conflict, how it fought the war, why the United States emerged victorious, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could. The American People in World War II is a gripping narrative and an invaluable analysis of the trials and victories through which modern America was formed.

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The Last Aloha Review

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(More customer reviews)I live in two worlds, one I know and one that leaves me baffled. I was raised by my native Hawaiian grandmother who was born in 1887. She was 6 years old at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. I was 5 when we became the 50th State of America and on that day I learned the most important lesson of my life. I went to my white grandparents home in Kahala for a 4th of July like picnic celebration and was dropped off later that day at my Hawaiian grandmother's home and witnessed the other truth, the mourning.
24 years after the overthow Liliuokalani wrote, " I could not turn back the time for the political change, but there is still time to save our heritage. You must remember never to cease to act because you fear you may fail. The way to lose any earthly kingdom is to be inflexible, intolerant and prejudicial. Another way is to be too flexible, tolerant of too many wrongs and without judgment at all. It is a razor¹s edge. It is the width of a blade of pili grass. To gain the kingdom of heaven is to hear what is not said, to see what can not be seen, and to know the unknowable, that is Aloha. All things in this world are two; in heaven there is but one." (Liliuokalani 1917)
On that day in 1959 I saw two truths and I have spent a life time trying to tell the other side, but with each side bunkered down behind their truth it is too painful to hear the other. The subject of the overthrow has been obscured by a hundred fifteen years maybe heaven will open up and Queen Liliuokalani's truth will be heard through a historical novel called, "The Last Aloha". E waiho `ia me ka ha'aha'a a me ke aloha palena `ole.

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2010 BAIPA Award Winner: Best Historical Fiction.How did Hawaii become part of America? This story, inspired by true events suppressed for nearly 100 years, is the one James Michener never wrote. In 1886, Laura Jennings travels to Hawaii to live with missionary relatives. She imagines she'll live in a grass hut, ministering to savages. When she arrives in Honolulu, she's surprised to find her relatives are among the wealthy elite plotting to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy. And, far from being savages, the Hawaiians have developed a charming and prosperous Victorian kingdom. To avoid her conniving uncle's control, Laura leaves to work for the royal family and learns her family's prejudices against them are false. The last Queen, Lili-uokalani, wages a tragic struggle to save the Kingdom. Through choices she makes when every avenue is blocked, Laura sees the power that can restore the spirit of a people caught in a turbulent world and discovers how long-hidden secrets of her own family lead the way to reunion.

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1,000 Places to See in the United States and Canada Before You Die, updated ed. Review

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(More customer reviews)Let me get my chief complaints out of the way first: this author loves to eat. It sometimes seems that every other entry is a restaurant or local culinary hot-spot, from "Cheese Country" to "Big Pig Jig." These are not destinations, they're cuisines. Subtract those, and you probably have a book better titled 900 Places to See Before You Die. (Assuming all the eating doesn't kill you at number 600.)
Another minor quibble: some of the "places" are actually events, like Burning Man and the Indianapolis 500. I'll overlook it...
She also likes to go in style, and apparently hasn't met a spa she didn't like. Subtract all the ultra-ritzy exclusive hotel/spas, sculpture gardens, resorts, dude ranches and expensive art galleries, which are likely either of out reach financially or simply not of interest to a large base of the potential audience, and you're down to 500 Places to See.
So, then, if you can get it for half price, you've got a bargain.
Now, onto the good things. There are many, despite my protestations above. First is the very idea of the book. It's fun and interesting to see such a list compiled; invariably something important gets left out, but what is created by the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts compilation is a true sense of America as a destination in its own right, worth of as much attention as any other in the world.
Also, I was made aware of many places I wouldn't have found otherwise, like the Yoder Popcorn Shoppe in Topeka, Indiana. There are many hidden treasures in these pages.
Finally, despite being top-heavy with attractions for the chic looky-loo set as mentioned above, the book is saved from being completely out of touch by its inclusion of attractions that appeal to a broad section of people (as would befit a book about America). Burning Man Festival is here, as is the State Fair of Texas, the Civil Rights Trail, and others.
My strong recommendation is that a second book be created called "1000 Places to Dine Before You Die," (though the publisher may not want to have the words "dine" and "die" so close together), and all the restaurant entries removed from this and placed there. Then the gap filled with what got left out of this book and should have been in in the first place.

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The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (Liberation Trilogy) Review

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(More customer reviews)When it comes to writing military history, Rick Atkinson's narratives, in my view, are as good as it gets. I have an entire bookcase devoted to books about World War II and I would argue that very few, if any of them, meet the standard set now by Atkinson as far as depth of research, a flair for the truly visual and personal, and where an easy and readable prose-style is of concern. So I would not hesitate to nominate Atkinson as the best living author of books about World War II, if not of history in general. This current effort is the second volume of a proposed three-volume set of works about that devastating war. The first book in the series was "An Army at Dawn" -- a winner of the Pulitzer Prize -- which dealt with the North African campaign. Now, in "The Day of Battle," Atkinson takes on the campaign in Sicily and Italy in 1943 and 1944. And does he ever!

I have a large collection of videos dealing with WWII and, of course, one can get "up front and close" to the action when watching them. The images, combined with the narration and the accompanying music in the background, provide the viewer with a true "you are there" experience. I felt almost the same experience while reading this book. Atkinson's ability to linguistically describe a situation so that the reader feels he or she is right there within the phenomenal frame of a battle is awesome. And I don't use the word "awesome" very often. But in this case it is genuinely applicable. I could actually visualize all the action as it was occurring; such is an excellent writer's ability to translate words into mental pictures.

There is one other thing I found absolutely compelling about this book. Over the past few years, I have been studying (revisiting again for the umpteenth time, but more in-depth) the history of ancient Greece and Rome. Sicily and Italy, of course, played a significant role in the history of that era. One of the things that Atkinson does in "The Day of Battle" is correlate the geography of the exploits during the Sicilian and Italian military campaigns to activities that occurred and places that were important during the period when the Greeks and the Romans were active there.

For instance, in the first chapter in a section titled "Calypso's Island," he relates the following information: "Over the millennia, a great deal had happened on the tiny island [Malta] the Allies now code-named FINANCE. St. Paul had been shipwrecked on the north coast of Malta in A.D. 60 while..."; in the second chapter we read: "Few Sicilian towns claimed greater antiquity than Gela, where the center of the American assault was to fall. Founded on a limestone hillock by Greek colonists from Rhodes and Crete in 688 B.C. ..."; and in the tenth chapter we read: "Not far from here, in 217 B.C., Hannibal had found himself hemmed in by the mountains and Roman troops."

And the above are just three of the numerous references that Atkinson gives us as a classical background to what is going on during the 20th-century conflict. I love it, of course, because it makes the narrative so much more meaningful. One can say, "Well, men were there a couple of thousands years ago, basically doing the same thing and in the same places where the action was occurring in 1943-44." This goes a long way toward placing the whole narrative within a sweeping historical context.

And who can resist being impressed when, on page 573, Atkinson relates to us, when describing the entry into Rome of the American commander, General Mark Clark, that "In classical Rome, a triumphant general returning from his latest conquest made for the Capitoline, ... His face painted with vermilion, his head crowned with laurel ..." and so on; unfortunately this paragraph is too long to be quoted here, but it should be noted that Clark was not the first military commander to enter Rome triumphantly, although in this case with less pizzazz than did the ancient Roman generals.

I really think what separates Atkinson from other military historians I have read is the way in which he puts a "human face" on the whole subject. He provides us with the thoughts and feelings of the individual soldiers on both sides in the heat of the battles. He quotes from letters sent home to loved ones from both the men on the front line as well as from the officers in charge. He informs us intimately of the sufferings endured, the human toll incurred, the grand strategies and tactics planned, the successes achieved and, of course, of the fatuity displayed and the foibles exposed. No battle plan is ever perfectly executed and Atkinson does not shrink from critically evaluating those that took place in Sicily and Italy during World War II.

Now, I do not want to give the impression that "The Day of Battle" ignores the "big" events and personalities of the Italian theater during this conflict and is nothing more than a somewhat "soap-opera" presentation or a "made-for-TV tear-jerker." Atkinson writes serious military history. The Allied and Axis commanders, the presidents and prime ministers, the major military conflicts, the politics involved, and so forth -- all the things that one would expect to be covered in any scholarly work in military history -- are discussed and analyzed. What I am saying is that the author goes beyond the usual, to include the "bricks and mortar" of the wartime experience as well as the grand issues and characters involved. It is truly comprehensive in its scope. It is military history at its best.

Furthermore, the book is more than generous with its aids and references. There are twenty maps, including a two-page spread of the entire Mediterranean and European theaters on the endpapers, two 16-page sections of relevant photographs, 140 pages of reference notes, a selected bibliography that runs to thirty pages, and an extensive topical index to top it all off. What more could a World War II history buff ask for? Well, to be honest, one thing right now. And that is the third volume of Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy" which will cover the final struggle for Western Europe, from the dawn of the Normandy invasion to the final victory in Berlin. I definitely look forward to reading it.

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V for Victory Collectibles Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is remarkably full of errors. Multiple prices for the same item are listed in different locations. Items are completely mislabelled with regard to what they are made of or what they are. When comparing prices in this guide with his other homefront guide the prices for many items are completely different reflecting this authors failure to be consistent and to proofread his work. Were it not for the pics sent by the collectors, this book would have zero utility. The pics are good thanks to his contributors but the rest of the guide for accuracy and integrity is sorely lacking. Give it a one star because of the pics. I'd pass on this sloppy work...

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Show your patriotism by displaying this nostalgic volume on your bookshelf! Hundreds of superb black & white photographs recall the patriotism of the 1940s through dynamic images of Pearl Harbor, vintage postcards, war bonds, banners, banks, and Victory Garden items. This wonderful new volume highlights the heady days of WWII by featuring yesteryear's toys, advertisements, posters, stamps and more! This classic book of collectibles is just what Uncle Sam ordered!

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