[pavancs]

Tried by War - James M. McPherson

Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief



Given the importance of Lincoln's role as commander-in-chief to the nation's very survival, says McPherson, this role has been underexamined. McPherson (_Battle Cry of Freedom_), the doyen of Civil War historians, offers firm evidence of Lincoln's military effectiveness in this typically well-reasoned, well-presented analysis. Lincoln exercised the right to take any necessary measures to preserve the union and majority rule, including violating longstanding civil liberties (though McPherson considers the infringements milder than those adopted by later presidents). As McPherson shows, Lincoln understood the synergy of political and military decision-making; the Emancipation Proclamation, for instance, harmonized the principles of union and freedom with a strategy of attacking the crucial Confederate resource of slave labor. Lincoln's commitment to linking policy and strategy made him the most hands-on American commander-in-chief; he oversaw strategy and offered operational advice, much of it shrewd and perceptive. Lincoln may have been an amateur of war, but McPherson successfully establishes him as America's greatest war leader.

Mobi format




Jeb Stuart, The Last Cavalier - Burke Davis



From the author of They Called Him Stonewall. Here is a full and definitive biography of the dashing and enigmatic Confederate hero of the Civil War, General J E B Stuart. This life-size portrait surveys his life from childhood to his training at West Point, his years on the Western frontier, and his decision to stand with Virginia when war arrived. His brilliant Civil War career is covered in detail, from the raid on Chambersberg to his final, fatal clash at Yellow tavern. 7 maps. 8 pages of photos. 470 pages.

Mobi format




The First World War - Hew Strachan



One of the leading historians of WWI offers this superior one-volume version of his massive projected three-volume work, the first volume of which, To Arms, clocked in at 1250-plus pages last year. Strachan strenuously avoids the traditional focus on the Western Front (and the British) and the conventional assumptions of generals' stupidity and soldiers' valor. The war as he sees it was a race among generals on all sides to create new weapons and tactics faster than their opponents, a race that the Triple Entente won. It was also a race among soldiers to fight with these new weapons and tactics instead of raw courage and numbers wherever possible. Yet Russia and the Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were totally unfit for a large modern war (one reason the czar and his empire fell in 1917) and were a source of fatal weakness to Germany's alliance even before Italy changed sides. The political background (including the rising consciousness of colonial nationalities conscripted for the war), social consequences and diplomatic finagling all face an equal amount of revision, leaving the book organized more thematically than chronologically. Readers already familiar with the sequence of events in strict order will benefit most. But all readers will eventually be gripped, and even the most seasoned ones will praise the insights and the original choice of illustrations. This is likely to be the most indispensable one-volume work on the subject since John Keegan's First World War, and will draw serious readers to the larger work.

Mobi format





The Marne - Holger Herwig




It is one of the essential events of military history, a cataclysmic encounter that prevented a quick German victory in World War I and changed the course of two wars and the world. Now, for the first time in a generation, here is a bold new account of the Battle of the Marne. A landmark work by a distinguished scholar, The Marne, 1914 gives, for the first time, all sides of the story. In remarkable detail, and with exclusive information based on newly unearthed documents, Holger H. Herwig superbly re-creates the dramatic battle, revealing how the German force was foiled and years of brutal trench warfare were made inevitable.Herwig brilliantly reinterprets Germany’s aggressive “Schlieffen Plan”–commonly considered militarism run amok–as a carefully crafted, years-in-the-making design to avoid a protracted war against superior coalitions. He also paints a new portrait of the run-up to the Marne: the Battle of the Frontiers, long thought a coherent assault but really a series of haphazard engagements that left “heaps of corpses,” France demoralized, Belgium in ruins, and Germany emboldened to take Paris.Finally, Herwig puts in dazzling relief the Battle of the Marne itself: the French resolve to win, which included the exodus of 100,000 people from Paris (where even pigeons were placed under state control in case radio communications broke down), the crucial lack of coordination between Germany’s First and Second Armies, and the fateful “day of rest” taken by the Third Army. He provides revelatory new facts about the all-important order of retreat by Germany’s Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch, previously an event hardly documented and here freshly reconstructed from diary excerpts.Herwig also provides stunning cameos of all the important players: Germany’s Chief of General Staff Helmuth von Moltke, progressively despairing and self-pitying as his plans go awry; his rival, France’s Joseph Joffre, seemingly weak but secretly unflappable and steely; and Commander of the British Expeditionary Force John French, arrogant, combative, and mercurial.The Marne, 1914 puts into context the battle’s rich historical significance: how it turned the war into a four-year-long fiasco that taught Europe to accept a new form of barbarism and stoked the furnace for the fires of World War II. Revelatory and riveting, this will be the new source on this seminal event.

Mobi format




The White War - Mark Thompson



Hundreds of thousands of men are fed into a meat grinder in futile charges against entrenched positions; opposing armies are forging a weird sense of camaraderie as they fraternize during lulls in the slaughter; and rows of rotting corpses are scattered over a bleak, pockmarked landscape. But this isn’t the familiar western front in France. Rather, these stark images are part of a stunning and emotionally wrenching account of war between Austria and Italy over the disputed terrain they both claimed. Although the struggle was recounted in the writings of Ernest Hemingway, the Italian front was regarded as a sideshow by many European journalists as well as Allied war planners. Whatever the strategic value of the campaign, Thompson illustrates that this was a massive, epic struggle that may have cost a million lives. He crafts a narrative rich in detail and which does not shrink from describing the horrors of a war that began, on the Italian side, in a spasm of wild nationalistic fervor but quickly degenerated into resigned cynicism. This is a masterful and moving chronicle.




Target Patton - Robert K. Wilcox
The Plot to Assassinate General George S. Patton



The death of General George S. Patton is shrouded in mystery. While officially the result of an unfortunate car accident, the evidence points to a far more malevolent plot: murder. So says investigative and military journalist Robert K. Wilcox in his book: Target: Patton: The Plot to Assassinate General George S. Patton. Written like a WWII spy thriller and meticulously researched, Target: Patton leads you through that fateful December day in 1945, revealing a chilling plan to assassinate General Patton. Backing up this shocking story with facts, photos, and eyewitness statements, Wilcox reveals long-hidden documents and accounts that explain how secrets Patton knew—and his strong anti-Soviet views—may have cost him his life. Not only does Wilcox reveal how, why, and when, he also names names—exposing little-known stories and secrets of such key players as General "Wild Bill" Donovan, the storied head of the OSS (the predecessor to the CIA); an OSS assassin; an Army intelligence agent; and even Josef Stalin himself. Target: Patton challenges readers to look at the evidence and question the conventional wisdom. After reading it, few will think of General Patton—or the circumstances surrounding his death—in the same way again.




Thames: The Biography - Peter Ackroyd



In this perfect companion to London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd once again delves into the hidden byways of history, describing the river's endless allure in a journey overflowing with characters, incidents, and wry observations. Thames: The Biography meanders gloriously, rather like the river itself. In short, lively chapters Ackroyd writes about connections between the Thames and such historical figures as Julius Caesar and Henry VIII, and offers memorable portraits of the ordinary men and women who depend upon the river for their livelihoods. The Thames as a source of artistic inspiration comes brilliantly to life as Ackroyd invokes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Turner, Shelley, and other writers, poets, and painters who have been enchanted by its many moods and colors.

[pavancs]

American Caesar - William Manchester



I have read everything William Manchester wrote. I never went wrong choosing his books. This was an excellently written book about MacArthur and was quite balanced, letting the facts speak for themselves. He adopted a fairly neutral approach but the story he told left me with a very, very unfavorable view of MacArthur. Everyone knows he had an ego, but I had no idea how vindictive, petty and callous he could be. He was a very wayward soul in my view. Powerful, confident, yes, but he was as vain glorious as it has ever come. Far more than even Patton, I think

[pavancs]

Dreadnought - Robert K Massie




Britain created and maintained its empire throughout the 19th century at the point of a gun--its Navy--and through the spread of anti-industry ``free trade'' policies to halt the growth of rival nations. However, this policy began to fail by the second half of the century as Germany, France, Russia, and the United States made remarkable strides toward industrialization by their application of American System programs of rapid scientific and technological progress, coupled with protectionist trade policies. This growing threat to British global domination caused the empire to jettison its time-honored ``Splendid Isolation'' from affairs on the European continent, and to launch a full-blown encirclement of its major rival, Germany. This gambit was accomplished by the successful manipulation of bitter enemies France, Russia, Japan and the United States into an anti-German, anti-Austro-Hungarian entente.

Massie details quite well what Britain looked like from the inside and highlights the little-acknowledged French surrender at Fashoda in Sudan in 1898 as crucial to the process. He also provides excellent quotes from the treacherous French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé on his surrender to British superiority. When Delcassé took over as foreign minister at Quai d'Orsay, Massie reports, ``he had a personal goal. `I do not wish to leave this desk,' he told a friend, `without having established an entente with England.'|''

Following the Fashoda surrender, France--Britain's enemy for centuries--became an ally. Massie then documents the manipulation of another British rival--Russia--into the British camp. In the process, he also exposes the fact that England had deep-seated fears that Russia and China would come together around Russian Foreign Minister Count Sergei Witte's ambitious rail and infrastructure program, and that Russia's eastward expansion might sever England's link to India, the ``Jewel in the Crown.'' ``In private, Queen Victoria described Tsar Alexander III as `barbaric, Asiatic, and tyrannical.' Conservatives feared Russia thrusting towards the Dardanelles, into the Far East, against the frontiers of India, through Persia towards the Gulf. Liberals rejected the Russian autocracy as anti-democratic. Britain's first step away from Splendid Isolation had been the alliance with Japan, a treaty specifically aimed at containing Imperial Russia.''

The entente with Russia that was consolidated was hardly a ``community of principle.''

Massie also depicts events and personalities inside the degenerate court of Kaiser Wilhelm II that facilitated the British encirclement. He unmasks key advisers such as First Counselor Friedrich von Holstein, Count Paul Wolff Metternich and Prince Karl Lichnowsky as likely agents or at least pawns in the British Great Game. For example, Massie describes Holstein's maneuverings, which led Germany away from renewing its Reinsurance Treaty alliance with Russia in the late 1880s. This stratagem paved the way for Russia's unlikely embrace of previous enemies France and England, a move that would have been inconceivable for Holstein's previous master, Otto von Bismarck.



Homicide a Year on the Killing Streets - David Simon



"The scene is Baltimore. Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death. At the centre of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit. a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world." "David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and his book is both a compelling account of casework and an investigation into our culture of violence." The TV show "Homicide Life on the Streets" was based on this book.

[pavancs]

Last Call - Daniel Okrent

The Rise and Fall of Prohibition




Okrent, who has rescued an important, relevant, and colorful chapter of American history, explores Americans' relationship with the bottle dating back to the colonial era and analyzes the long-term effects of Prohibition on everything--from the rise of the Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan to language, art, and literature. Fast-paced and fascinating, his narrative assembles a wide collection of comical stories and outrageous personalities, such as the hatchet-wielding Carrie Nation. He explodes clichés and bypasses widely known tales of bootlegging and bathtub gin in favor of more unfamiliar accounts. Critics praised Okrent's elegant writing and careful research--even in all its details--and agreed with the New York Times Book Review that this remarkably fresh take on a forgotten era is "a narrative delight."

[bittybat]

Thank you, Pavancs! I was hoping for a thread like this! Great share!

[pavancs]

The Diary Of A U-boat Commander




I didn't expect much for a buck. Even more, twenty pages into this read, I hated Herr Schenk with a passion-- his diary revealed him to be the very image of a stereotypical arrogant Prussian nobleman, who constantly referred to even his own captain as an "inferior" because of his lack of a blue-blooded family lineage. And yet, this work ended up being one of the greatest reads I've experienced in years. It wasn't the grand military adventure I was led to expect-- far from it! Instead, the iron-spined Herr Schenk fell head-over-heels in love with someone he really rather should not have. And, in so-doing, he was compelled to face the moral failings of his society and his nation. For the first time, I ran into a German officer who finally "gets it".

I've read dozens if not hundreds of German officers' memoirs over several decades. In fact, I've read so many of them that I'm sick to death of empty platitudes like "patriotism" and "national honor" and "the legitimate needs of the German people". Yet never, ever before have I come across the story of a man who came to such a profound understanding of the evil nature of the war machine and social order he served. You'll find no weasel-words here; in the end Schenk, the most unlikely of penitents, _understood_. Over a period of a handful of months, he went from arrogant pride at being singled out for a few words from the Kaiser to faking his attacks on Allied ships so that his crew might believe that they were actually fighting. He ended the war disgraced in the eyes of his peers, but at last a whole man in every other regard.

Of all the German memoirs I've read, this one _quite_ unexpectedly turned out to be the most powerful and memorable. Halfway through, I'd have dismissed it (and Schenk) as eminently forgettable. I'd have been wrong, too!

[pavancs]

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

The Fates of Human Societies




A global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race. Until around 11,000 b.c., all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide. The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography.

But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers.

Jared Diamond, professor of physiology at the UCLA Medical School, is the author of The Third Chimpanzee, awarded the 1992 Los Angeles Times Science Book Award. He is a regular contributor to Natural History and Discover magazines and lives in Los Angeles.




How the Scots Invented the Modern World - Arthur Herman



"I am a Scotsman," Sir Walter Scott famously wrote, "therefore I had to fight my way into the world." So did any number of his compatriots over a period of just a few centuries, leaving their native country and traveling to every continent, carving out livelihoods and bringing ideas of freedom, self-reliance, moral discipline, and technological mastery with them, among other key assumptions of what historian Arthur Herman calls the "Scottish mentality."

It is only natural, Herman suggests, that a country that once ranked among Europe's poorest, if most literate, would prize the ideal of progress, measured "by how far we have come from where we once were." Forged in the Scottish Enlightenment, that ideal would inform the political theories of Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume, and other Scottish thinkers who viewed "man as a product of history," and whose collective enterprise involved "nothing less than a massive reordering of human knowledge" (yielding, among other things, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, first published in Edinburgh in 1768, and the Declaration of Independence, published in Philadelphia just a few years later).

On a more immediately practical front, but no less bound to that notion of progress, Scotland also fielded inventors, warriors, administrators, and diplomats such as Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, Simon MacTavish, and Charles James Napier, who created empires and great fortunes, extending Scotland's reach into every corner of the world.




Last Call - Daniel Okrent

The Rise and Fall of Prohibition




Okrent, who has rescued an important, relevant, and colorful chapter of American history, explores Americans' relationship with the bottle dating back to the colonial era and analyzes the long-term effects of Prohibition on everything--from the rise of the Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan to language, art, and literature. Fast-paced and fascinating, his narrative assembles a wide collection of comical stories and outrageous personalities, such as the hatchet-wielding Carrie Nation. He explodes clichés and bypasses widely known tales of bootlegging and bathtub gin in favor of more unfamiliar accounts. Critics praised Okrent's elegant writing and careful research--even in all its details--and agreed with the New York Times Book Review that this remarkably fresh take on a forgotten era is "a narrative delight."

[handske]

Thanks! Many interesting reads!

[pavancs]

The Great American Steamboat Race - Benton Rain Patterson




Running from New Orleans to St. Louis in the summer of 1870, the race between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez remains the world's most famous steamboat race. This book tells the story of the dramatic contest, which was won by the stripped-down, cargoless Robert E. Lee after three days, 18 hours, and 14 minutes of steaming through day, night and fog. The Natchez finished the race only hours later, having been delayed by carrying her normal load and tying up overnight because of the intense fog. Providing details on not only the race narrative but also on the boats themselves, the book gives an intimate look at the majestic vessels that conquered the country's greatest waterway and defined the bravado of 19th-century America.





Trial by Ice - Richard Parry



Although Denmark, England, France, and Norway had already tried and failed, in 1871 the United States decided to finance an expedition to find the North Pole and the Northwest Passage. Charles Francis Hall of Ohio, who was neither a seafarer nor an explorer, convinced President Grant and Congress to send out a vessel and was given a ship, the Polaris, and a crew of 25. The ship was not suitable for ice navigation, and the crew, a mixture of Germans and Americans, was selected by politicians and did not include the men Hall wanted. The expedition was doomed from the start. Beset by jealousies, intrigues, and weak leadership, the crew suffered from exposure, hunger, and the bleak Arctic. Captain Hall was poisoned (it was probably murder), and the ship was lost. The crew split into two parties, one surviving nine months on an ice floe until it was finally rescued by a whaler. Despite an exhaustive inquiry by the U.S. Navy and Congress, no conclusion was reached.

[pavancs]

Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick


Ordinary Lives in North Korea




A fascinating and deeply personal look at the lives of six defectors from the repressive totalitarian regime of the Republic of North Korea, in which Demick, an L.A. Times staffer and former Seoul bureau chief, draws out details of daily life that would not otherwise be known to Western eyes because of the near-complete media censorship north of the arbitrary border drawn after Japan's surrender ending WWII. As she reveals, ordinary life in North Korea by the 1990s became a parade of horrors, where famine killed millions, manufacturing and trade virtually ceased, salaries went unpaid, medical care failed, and people became accustomed to stepping over dead bodies lying in the streets. Her terrifying depiction of North Korea from the night sky, where the entire area is blacked out from failure of the electrical grid, contrasts vividly with the propaganda on the ground below urging the country's worker-citizens to believe that they are the envy of the world. Thorough interviews recall the tremendous difficulty of daily life under the regime, as these six characters reveal the emotional and cultural turmoil that finally caused each to make the dangerous choice to leave. As Demick weaves their stories together with the hidden history of the country's descent into chaos, she skillfully re-creates these captivating and moving personal journeys




Endurance - Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - Alfred Lansing



One of the most remarkable tales of human courage and determination. The story is gripping and the book is a classic of its kind' Sir Ranulph Fiennes Endurance is the story of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded. In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set sail for the South Atlantic on board a ship called the Endurance. The object of the expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. In October 1915, still half a continent away from their intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in ice. For five months Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways on one of the most savage regions of the world. This utterly gripping book, based on first-hand accounts of crew members and interviews with survivors, describes how the men survived, how they lived together in camps on the ice for 17 months until they reached land, how they were attacked by sea leopards, the diseases which they developed, and the indefatigability of the men and their lasting civility towards one another in the most adverse conditions conceivable.

[pavancs]

Mass Casualties - Michael Anthony



When SPC Anthony joined the Army at 18, he went in with high hopes and sterling ideals; coming from a family with a proud military background, Anthony expected to meet mentors, heroes and lifelong friends while earning money for college and becoming a man. What he discovered was a disenchanting web of mundane corruption and self-serving lies. Unlike accounts exposing the military's most shameful iniquities, Anthony's memoir focuses on an endless parade of petty offenses-the cowardice, drug addiction, thievery, adultery and rampant hypocrisy-he found while working in a base hospital. Relentlessly honest and reflective, Anthony's record communicates perfectly the stranglehold of sadness, fear and disappointment that came with his lost innocence; just as worse is his eventual acceptance of the pointless, dysfunctional bureaucracy maintaining the status quo. Avoiding the intensity of the battlefield and the OR itself, Anthony's frustrations resonate with the feelings of any young man learning about the nature of authority and his helplessness before it. Readers curious about the human side of the ongoing Iraqi conflict will be struck by Anthony's strong voice, direct storytelling and stark honesty.

[pavancs]

Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics - David Smith



Updated with a filling course on the credit crunch, this digestible guide to economics, organized like a convivial meal with friends, will lead you through many of the mysteries of the economy.The economy has never been so relevant to so many people as it is now, and it's vital that we understand how it affects our lives.

'There's no such thing as a free lunch' is the one phrase everyone has heard from economics - not even for bankers. But why not? What does economics tell us about the price of lunch - and everything else? "Free Lunch" makes the economics pages of the newspaper intelligible and addresses the concerns that worry us all. Set out like a good lunch-time conversation, the book will guide you through the mysteries of the economy.

Your guides will be some of the greatest names in the field, including Smith, Marx and Keynes. This clever and witty introduction costs less than even the cheapest meal.

It is essential reading in these times of economic uncertainty, and is far more satisfying than even the most gourmet banquet.




The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot




The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory.

Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio.

Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion.

For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories

[Catdad]

I tried downloading the Patton book and received the message that the file was missing.

You had one too many "r" at the end. It should be:

[pavancs]

thanks for noticing and telling catdad! Link has been fixed :)