Sinclair McKay’s well-researched, detailed, and all-embracing book is the first major study of the bombing of Dresden to be published for 15 years, and covers equally the pre-war history of the city – ‘The Florence of Germany’ – the horrors of the RAF and USAAF attacks, and the mainly Stalinist-style rebuilding prior to German reunification.
Book Reviews
REVIEW – MI6: British secret intelligence service operations, 1909 – 1945
Nigel West, a renowned expert who writes extensively about British intelligence, reveals in this book the operations of Britain’s overseas intelligence gathering organisation, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)/MI6, from its origins in 1909 to the end of the Second World War.
REVIEW – The Elite: the story of special forces – from Ancient Sparta to the War on Terror
Fiennes had picked his moment well. Ever since the dramatic Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980, the press, and to some degree the public, have been obsessed by the idea of special forces.
REVIEW – Keenie Meenie: the British mercenaries who got away with war crimes
But there is a clear difference between soldiers who fight for their own national army – or, it may be, their own tribe or religion or ideology – and those prepared to fight for anyone willing to pay.
REVIEW – A short history of the American Civil War
Anderson, an American history professor who has taught about the war for 20 years – ‘a Southerner teaching in South Carolina’, he tells us – has written a different sort of book.
REVIEW – The Long Shadow of Waterloo: myths, memories, and debates
The Battle of Waterloo is intrinsically linked to the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, the towering military figures of the early 19th century.
REVIEW – Chastise: the Dambusters story, 1943
Max Hastings, noted historian and journalist, is a titanic force in British history, with 27 books to his name – many of which cover conflict. In Chastise, he brings his expertise on warfare to bear on this critical episode in WWII history.
REVIEW – The song of Simon de Montfort: England’s first revolution and the death of chivalry
Simon de Montfort was a colossus in English affairs during the 13th century, as this biography skilfully explains. What is revealed is a man who was shaped by the mores of his times.
REVIEW – Aerial Warfare: the battle for the skies
This book is written rather in the style of an excellent set of lecture notes produced by a diligent tutor. Frank Ledwidge, a Fellow of Law and Strategy at the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell, leaves very few stones unturned as he leads the reader through the complete history of manned and unmanned flight, quoting liberally from a wide range of authoritative sources.
REVIEW – The King over the Water: a complete history of the Jacobites
Few today can recall much about the Jacobites, other than Bonnie Prince Charlie, ‘the Young Chevalier’, and his noble defeat at Culloden in 1746. The better read might be able to talk about the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the arrival in 1688 of King William III.
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