Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2017/Book reviews
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Die in Battle Do Not Despair - Peter Stanley |
- By Nick-D
Die in Battle Do Not Despair is prolific Australian historian
The Indian forces comprised the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, two batteries of mountain guns and a large number of mule transport units, and Stanley's achievement in piecing together their part in the campaign from at times sketchy sources is impressive. I found the strongest element of the book to be its first chapters, which explained the unusual structure and purpose of the British Indian Army, and how the units of what was designated "Force G" ended up on Gallipoli. Stanley highlights the contradictory attitudes to the Indian troops by the British, Australian and New Zealand forces: while on one hand the Indians were widely regarded as racially inferior, the white troops had been indoctrinated by the British Empire's propaganda to have very considerable respect for the Indian Army's fighting prowess and traditions. The latter attitude was rightly the case, and Stanley convincingly demonstrates that the well-trained long-service regulars of the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade typically out-soldiered the semi-trained white units.
The book's greatest weakness is that, due to the lack of accessible records to draw on, Stanley wasn't able to provide his usual in-depth social history of the Indian soldiers. While he makes good use of the recollections left behind by their (generally white) officers and from other records, what the soldiers thought of the campaign and the white soldiers they fought alongside is never really clear. This lack of records also seems to have constrained the coverage of the mule transport units - Stanley notes that they made a huge contribution to the campaign, with the mule drivers frequently displaying incredible bravery, yet they're only a side note to the book's focus on the infantry and artillery units.
Overall, Die in Battle Do Not Despair is an extremely important contribution to the literature on the Gallipoli Campaign, and is likely to be a key reference for articles covering it and the Indian Army's campaigns of World War I more generally.
Publishing details: Stanley, Peter (2015). Die in Battle, Do Not Despair: The Indians on Gallipoli, 1915. Solihull, United Kingdom: Helion & Company.
The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945 |
- By Hawkeye7
In 1945, the
In the post-war era, the Royal Navy's carriers were constantly active, most notably seeing action in the
David Hobbs, the author of this 600-page opus really knows his stuff, having served in the Royal Navy as a fixed- and rotary-wing pilot from 1964 to 1997, and as curator of the Fleet Air Arm Museum for eight years. Many of the photographs in the book are from his own collection. Sometimes he supposes more knowledge than the reader has. It would have been better to introduce the different aircraft carriers at the beginning of the book; I had to turn to Wikipedia to get them straight. Also the glossary seems comprehensive, but never seems to have the entry you're looking for. What was the 2SL? A SOO? A DLG? Not found in the glossary is the short answer.
These are minor blemishes though. The book is very comprehensive. It contains details about the ships, the aircraft, the equipment and the operations. For any navy type who is looking for arguments as to why aircraft carriers are a good idea, this has hundreds of pages of pointed examples, some you may not think about. For example, in a crisis in the Persian Gulf, how can airlift bring troops from Europe if they don't have permission to overfly the countries of the Middle East? Nonetheless, he tries to be fair to the
Highly recommended for anyone interested in aircraft carriers.
Publishing details: Hobbs, David (2015). The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
The Spy Catchers. Volume Three: The Secret Cold War 1975–1989 |
- By Hawkeye7
The official history of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) concludes in this volume, written by John Blaxland and Rhys Crawley. Crawley has been working at the War Memorial on the official history of Australian operations in Afghanistan.
This volume covers the period from
In the particular case of ASIO, Whitlam had initiated a far-ranging inquiry into the organisation under Justice
Perhaps because the period is more recent, the book generally lacks the sense of strangeness and desperate need for background that was so evident in the previous volumes. Nonetheless, it still reads like it was written by
The book has to grapple with the fact the the Cold War, although in its final throes, was a very active period so far as the intelligence services were concerned. Unfortunately, during the slack 1960s and early 1970s, ASIO was penetrated by the KGB, resulting in a loss of cooperation with the United States - precisely the circumstance that organisation had originally been set up to avoid.
If you read the other other two volumes, you know what you're in for. In many ways though, this volume is the most readable but also, given the period it covers, likely to be the least read.
Publishing details: Blaxland, John; Crawley, Rhys (2016). Volume Three: The Secret Cold War 1975–1989. The Official History of ASIO. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin.
Recent external reviews |
Davies, J.D. (2008). Pepy's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1649-1688. Barnsley, United Kingdom: Seaforth Publishing.
- Johnston, John (17 December 2016). "Pepys's navy: ships, men, and warfare". Reviews. Australian Naval Institute.
Silverman, David J. (2016). Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
- Sanchez, Casey (23 December 2016). "When Native Americans were arms dealers: A history revealed in 'Thundersticks'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
Gerwarth, Robert (2016). The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- MacMillan, Margaret (9 December 2016). "Neither War Nor Peace: A New Look at the Aftermath of World War I". The New York Times.
Twomey, Steve (2016). Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack. New York City: Simon & Schuster.
Nelson, Crain (2016). Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness. New York City: Scribner.
Best, Nicholas (2016). Seven Days of Infamy: Pearl Harbor Across the World. New York City: Thomas Dunne Books.
- Donoghue, Steve (1 December 2016). "3 excellent new books on Pearl Harbor". The Christian Science Monitor.
Richie, Alexandra (2013). Warsaw 1944 : Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw uprising. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Beall, Jonathan (December 2016). "Alexandra Richie. Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising". H-Net reviews. H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences Online.
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