Tag: World War II

Mussolini’s Italy by R.J.B. Bosworth

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.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/03/23/mussolinis-italy-by-r-j-b-bosworth/

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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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/03/premature-evaluation-mussolinis-italy-by-r-j-b-bosworth/

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/12/23/poland-a-history-by-adam-zamoyski/

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/12/08/finding-poland-by-matthew-kelly/

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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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/11/26/premature-evaluation-finding-poland-by-matthew-kelly/

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/11/09/history-of-the-second-world-war-by-b-h-liddell-hart/

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/18/the-second-world-war-by-j-f-c-fuller/

Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes

From the Preface to Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag, by Orlando Figes: Three old trunks had just been delivered. They were sitting in a doorway, blocking people’s way into the busy room where members of the public and historical researchers were received in the Moscow offices …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/03/just-send-me-word-by-orlando-figes/

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/02/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-by-a-j-p-taylor/

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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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/09/20/a-world-at-arms-by-gerhard-weinberg/