The ballots have been cast, the votes have been counted, and we are delighted to announce the winners of the MHM Book Awards.
Books
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 – Leadership in War: lessons from those who made history
Roberts begins with a personal hero, Napoleon Bonaparte. There seemed to be an array of qualities that made the general great, including meticulous planning, steady nerves, superb timing, good speeches, and respect for the men who served under him.
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 – Retreat from Moscow: a new history of Germany’s winter campaign, 1941 – 1942
David Stahel’s latest book, Retreat from Moscow: a new history of Germany’s winter campaign, 1941-1942, is here to add vital nuance to discussion of the German Army in this crucial phase of the war. Over the last decade, his works on the Eastern Front have led the way in scholarly reassessment of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, demonstrating how Germany’s failure to decisively defeat the Red Army was a disaster, and left them in a highly vulnerable position for the winter of 1941-1942.
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 hidden places of WWII
Like a sort of Second World War smorgasbord, you can take a look and pull tasty morsels out of Hidden Places of World War II. After digesting these, you look for some more titbits. The wartime stories are all linked to places that can be visited.
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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