The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington by Gregg Herken
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this volume on a post-war Washington riddled with former military men and spies and current diplomats and newspaper owners and journalists, but what I ended up...
View ArticleThe Soviet Occupation of Germany: Hunger, Mass Violence and the Struggle for...
In many ways "The Soviet Occupation of Germany" is a very interesting study into the Red Army's advance into Nazi Germany in 1945 and the ensuing occupation through 1947. The first section of the book...
View ArticleVerdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War by Paul Jankowski
Many of the reviews on amazon for this book seem to have missed the forest for the trees. Most were expecting a detailed history of the battle of Verdun. That is, as per the usual military history of...
View ArticleStalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin
In 'Stalin', historian Stephen Kotkin tries his best to balance a biography of Stalin with the environment Stalin found himself living in. Kotkin details the politics of the Russian Empire and her...
View ArticleGeneralissimo Stalin: The Myth of Stalin as a Great Military Strategist by...
Boris Gorbachevsky's "Generalissimo Stalin" offers a bit of a mixed bag for readers. The author, a veteran who went through the war and wrote his memoirs (translated under the title "Through the...
View ArticleMarshal of Victory: The Autobiography of General Georgy Zhukov by Georgy...
Those interested in a semi-censored look at the Great Patriotic War through the eyes of one of the leading commanders to come out of the Red Army would do well to invest in Zhukov's memoirs, which are...
View ArticleA German General on the Eastern Front: The Letters and Diaries of Gotthard...
I have regularly come across Heinrici's name when reading on the Eastern Front and I know he is considered one of the better commanders to come out of the Wehrmacht (where today pretty much every...
View ArticleSurvivors of Stalingrad: Eyewitness Accounts from the 6th Army, 1942-1943 by...
I'm not new to Second World War literature, and definitely familiar with the Eastern Front. I've read countless books and reviewed dozens if not hundreds. I've read Red Army, Wehrmacht, US Army,...
View ArticleIsrael Since the Six-Day War: Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow by Leslie Stein
Leslie Stein presents a synthesis of source material that highlights the evolution of the state of Israel from the Six-Day War to the present. There is a quick overview of the creation of Israel and...
View ArticleAfter Hitler: The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe by Michael Jones
I have to admit that sometimes I ask myself, 'How much of the Second World War continues to remain mired in myths and legends?' Each time I get tired of reading monographs on this time period I find a...
View ArticleHi Hitler!: How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture by...
"Hi Hitler" offers a fascinating look at contemporary culture and the various forms the memory of the Holocaust and Hitler have taken in today's society. The text features six chapters with the most...
View ArticleWhen the Facts Change: Essays, 1995-2010 by Tony Judt, Jennifer Homans
Tony Judt is a name Europeanists (historians of Europe) regularly encounter. "Postwar" has almost become a standard text in many ways. As with many historians in their own right, Judt has opinions on...
View ArticleTomb of the Panzerwaffe: The Defeat of the Sixth SS Panzer Army in Hungary...
"Tomb of the Panzwerwaffe" covers the actions of the last large-scale German offensive on the Eastern Front from January through March of 1945. The majority of this work is concentrated on the Soviet...
View ArticleThe Battle for Moscow by David Stahel
David Stahel's latest work, 'The Battle for Moscow', is somewhat removed from his previous volumes on this topic. This is his fourth book and it becomes evident that what was clearly visible on a...
View ArticleThe End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution by Dominic...
This topic, in many respects, is my bread and butter. I'm a student of Soviet/Russian history and while I specialize in the Second World War, I've also done a fair amount of research on the First World...
View ArticleStalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich by Jochen Hellbeck
Jochen Hellbeck's "Stalingrad" is a testament to how much we still don't know about the Eastern Front over 70 years after the war has ended. Within the Soviet Union a historical commission was created...
View ArticleBlack Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder’s “Black Earth” offers a mixed bag for readers. Those familiar with the topic will undoubtedly find themselves making notes in the margins of practically every other page, while those...
View ArticleMarshal K.K. Rokossovsky: The Red Army's Gentleman Commander by Boris...
Boris Sokolov’s biography of Marshal of the Soviet Union K. K. Rokossovsky is a noble effort to document the life and history of one of the most accomplished Soviet commanders to come out of the Second...
View ArticleThe New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers
"The New Tsar" is a good account of Putin's "Rise" and "Reign." Steven Lee Myers is a journalist and in many ways it shows throughout the text that what you're reading are almost extended journalistic...
View ArticleThe Battle of Moscow 1941-1942: The Red Army's Defensive Operations and...
The Soviet General Staff's study "The Battle of Moscow, 1941-1942" is in some ways essential reading. For those familiar with David Glantz's operational histories, much of this study reads similarly....
View Article