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Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement.
A powerful, groundbreaking new book on the ordinary Russian soldier’s experience of the worst war in history.
They died in their millions, shattered by German shells and tanks, freezing behind the wire of prison camps, driven forward in suicidal charges by the secret police. Yet in all the books about the war on the eastern front, there is very little about how the Russian soldier lived, dreamed and died. Catherine Merridale found archives of letters, diaries and police reports that have allowed her to write a major history of a figure too often treated as part of a vast mechanical horde. Here are moving and terrible stories of men and women in appalling conditions, many not far from death. They allow us to understand the strange mixture of courage, patriotism, anger and fear that made it possible for these badly fed, dreadfully-governed soldiers to defeat the Nazi army that would otherwise have enslaved the whole of Europe. The experience of the soldiers is set against a masterly narrative of the war in Russia. Merridale also shows how the veterans were treated with chilling ingratitude and brutality by Stalin, and later exploited as icons of the Great Patriotic War before being sidelined once more in Putin’s new capitalist Russia.
“It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. “Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,” he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. “Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. “What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.”
In 2010, Kirkus Review called author Richard Snow “an accomplished historian with a welcome personal touch,” and said this about the book:
“Innumerable soldiers were stranded behind enemy lines in World War I some injured, some lost, some sole survivors of decimated regiments. Macintyre, author of Agent Zigzag and The Napoleon of Crime, has uncovered the story of a small band of English soldiers who, in 1914, were found and sheltered by the peasants of Villeret, a small French village near the Somme River. When the German occupiers became more intrusive in local life, billeting their troops in private homes and confiscating supplies, the French took a more collective approach to hiding the Brits sharing their food and housing among a network of families. One soldier was hidden in an armoire, another dressed as a girl; somehow, most did their best and eventually passed themselves off as locals. Private Robert Digby, the hero of this tale, blended in so successfully “It’s almost like he was running for mayor,” said one villager that he fell in love with the local belle, Claire Dessenne. At first, hiding the British was a unifying act of resistance, but by 1916, after years of hunger and occupation, solidarity broke. The four remaining British soldiers including Digby, now a father,were rounded up and executed. Who turned them in? Claire’s spurned rival? A spy turned informer? While Macintyre is satisfyingly thorough in his attempt to solve this long-buried mystery, he is even better at recreating the texture of day-to-day life in rural, occupied France. As readers grope with understanding our present war, they may find this more remote one oddly instructive. Weapons may change, but it’s the people some treacherous, some brave, but most of them in between who count.” (Publishers Weekly) The Military Book Group meets on the first Thursday of every month at 6:30 PM, and newcomers are always welcome. The only requirement is an interest in any and all things military. Call us today, or stop in, to reserve your copy of The Englishman’s Daughter.
Thursday, May 5th, 6:30 PM, in the New Hampshire Room The Military Book Group meets on the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 PM. Newcomers are always welcome. Please call or drop by to reserve your copy today. From Publishers Weekly: “Brought to life by best-selling historian Ambrose (author of more than 20 books), here is one of America’s forgotten workhorse weapons of WWII the B-24 bomber. Carrying a heavier payload than the glamorous B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24, nicknamed the Liberator, also filled the skies over Germany, bombing troops, oil refineries, factories and other strategic targets. South Dakota-born George S. McGovern was 22 when he became a B-24 pilot in the 741st Bomb Squadron, based in Cerignola, Italy. Though basing the book largely on McGovern’s 35 missions, for which he won the Distinguished Flying Cross, Ambrose includes many other stories about the men who flew over Germany and eastern Europe. As Ambrose makes abundantly clear, the planes were not fun to fly. The crew faced inside temperatures of 50 below zero, sat in cramped seats and suffered high casualty rates. Ambrose follows pilots and crews from start to finish where they were from, their backgrounds, training, bravery and heroism as they did their part to help win the war. Today there are only four B-24s left of the 18,300 that once made up the force. While this book leans largely toward hagiography of the everymen it depicts, it also clearly refutes lies spread about McGovern’s service during the 1972 presidential campaign. ” ~ Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
The Military Book Group meets at the Library on the first Thursday of every month at 6:30 PM, and is open to any and all who are interested in all things military. Past selections have included: 1776, by David McCullough; Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain; Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant; Is Paris Burning? by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins; and The Good War, by Studs Terkel.
Stop in on Wednesday, April 13th or Thursday, April 14th between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM to record a video message, or come in to record an audio message any time during the week. We may use your message in our video birthday card to debut during our Centennial Celebration in June 2011! |
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Rye Public Library, 581 Washington Road, Rye, New Hampshire 03870 |
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The Military Book Group has chosen The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel, for their 
The Military Book Group has chosen A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II, by Richard Snow, for its 
The Military Book Group selection for 
In April the Military Book Group will be reading and discussing All Quiet On the Western Front, the classic World War I (or, The Great War, as it was known then) novel by Erich Maria Remarque. 