Although the title says ‘written at the time’, this is not a collection of personal memoirs or diaries. Nor is it the recollections of ordinary people or those on the front line of action.
Book Reviews
REVIEW – two new histories of the English Civil Wars
There are numerous histories of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (to give the ‘English’ Civil Wars their more-accurate title), as such, any new book, unless based on ground-breaking research, needs something unique to attract readers.
REVIEW – SAS: Band of Brothers
Yet, from the outset, this is a history with a difference. Set in the aftermath of D-Day, it concerns SABU-70, a 12-man SAS raiding party.
REVIEW – Sicily ’43: the assault on Fortress Europe
Holland has written a series of nine excellent campaign histories over the last few years, looking at fighting World War II in a new light.
REVIEW – Lancaster: the forging of a very British legend
Penned by former RAF Navigator and Gulf War veteran John Nichol, Lancaster is one of the most enthralling aviation history books I have read. But its succinct title does not do it justice. Its pages narrate not only the history of the legendary bomber but also of those who flew her.
REVIEW – Allenby: making the modern Middle East
Edward Henry Hynman Allenby was born in 1861 in Brackenhurst, Nottinghamshire in comfortable circumstances – a Victorian squire perhaps destined to help govern the British Empire on behalf of the Queen-Empress.
REVIEW – Crucible of Hell: Okinawa: the last great battle of the Second World War
In Crucible of Hell, David once again demonstrates his commanding power to hold the reader’s attention.
REVIEW – The Glamour Boys: the secret story of the rebels who fought for Britain to defeat Hitler
Consisting of figures such as Rob Bernays, Jack Macnamara, Harold Nicolson, and Ronnie Cartland (brother of Barbara), the ‘Glamour Boys’ came of sexual and political age in the 1920s, when homosexuality was outlawed but enjoyed a thriving underground existence, often in unusual places.
REVIEW – Scholars of Mayhem: my father’s secret war in Nazi-occupied France
In early 1943, while at Harvard, Jean Claude was drafted into the Army. He was surprised to find life there more to his taste than he had anticipated, and that his fluent French marked him out for special service.
REVIEW – Lawrence of Arabia on War: the campaign in the desert, 1916-18
Rob Johnson’s achievement in this book is to take Colonel T E Lawrence seriously as a theoretician and practitioner of war, and to produce the most comprehensive assessment of his contribution ever published.
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