I had set aside Mussolini’s Italy for the better part of a year after writing about the first third of it, and then I picked it up again just a few weeks ago. Zeitgeist, I suppose.
Tag: World War II
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Feb 03 2015
Premature Evaluation: Mussolini’s Italy by R.J.B. Bosworth
I suppose it would be smart to wait until I got to the part where Italy can properly be said to be Mussolini’s before writing about a book called Mussolini’s Italy, but my progress through this volume has been so slow — “deliberate” would be a kinder word, if less accurate — that I might …
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Dec 23 2014
Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski
Adam Zamoyski began Poland: A History as an update and revision to his 1987 book, The Polish Way. He found that history had gotten in the way, and that just revising the older work would not be enough. In the early modern period, the Poles failed spectacularly to build an efficient centralised state structure and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/12/23/poland-a-history-by-adam-zamoyski/
Dec 08 2014
Finding Poland by Matthew Kelly
Did you know there was an Association of Poles in India? Did you even have the faintest idea that there had been Poles by the thousand in India during the Second World War and in the first few years afterward? I certainly didn’t, and I know a thing or two about Poles and Poland. Which …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/12/08/finding-poland-by-matthew-kelly/
Nov 26 2014
Premature Evaluation: Finding Poland by Matthew Kelly
The first chapters of this book are giving me a case of the Yabbuts. Finding Poland is mostly a family chronicle, concerning Matthew Kelly’s great-grandmother and her two daughters, and how they went from pre-WWII eastern Poland to later life in the United Kingdom. By way of Kazakhstan, Iran and India. To get to why …
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Nov 09 2014
History of the Second World War by B.H. Liddell Hart
J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart are considered the two prime British military historians of the old school, and both have written well regarded books on World War II. But I found Fuller’s book rather dull, while this one was quite enjoyable. It is primarily a strategic analysis of the war that leaves out the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/11/09/history-of-the-second-world-war-by-b-h-liddell-hart/
Oct 18 2014
The Second World War by J.F.C. Fuller
This is a tactical and strategic analysis of World War II, a purely military history without much in the way of human dimension. It makes some interesting arguments. Fuller believes air power is wasteful, immoral, and ineffective at deciding military conflict, and that the best use of it is in cargo transport rather than aerial …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/18/the-second-world-war-by-j-f-c-fuller/
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Oct 02 2014
The Origins of the Second World War by A.J.P. Taylor
The author has done his homework. He marshals volumes of diplomatic correspondence and documentation in support of his argument. But what he ends up with is clearly a reductio ad absurdum. As Tony Judt has pointed out, the conclusion that Hitler was not the primary agent responsible for starting World War II simply defies common …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/02/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-by-a-j-p-taylor/
Sep 20 2014
A World at Arms by Gerhard Weinberg
The author’s name suggests that he is of German descent, but he is one of the most anti-German WWII historians I have ever read. He does not accept that the Versailles treaty was an injustice to Germany, nor does he buy into the claim that Hitler admired the British and would have rather allied with …
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