Book Reviews
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
Simon Schama – Viking, 1989 – xx + 948 pages
Schama is an excellent writer, and his command of the historiography and primary sources is absolute.
Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor
Robert B. Stinnett – The Free Press, 2000 – xiv + 386 pages
Stinnett’s argument is simple: Franklin Delano Roosevelt followed eight, pre-arranged, steps to provoke an attack from the Japanese.
Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy
Christopher Duggan – Vintage Books, 2013 – xxiii + 501 page
Professor Duggan has opened a window into the past that has been closed to the English reader.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
Michael Scheuer – Brassey’s Inc., 2004 – xxi + 309 page
Muslim terrorists do not hate the West because it is free. They hate the United States and its allies because they see Uncle Sam as an imperial meddler, warmonger and exploiter.
Jerusalem: The Biography
Simon Sebag Montefiore – Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2011 – xxxiii + 638 pages
Montefiore writes a biographical labour of love.
Mussolini
R.J.B. Bosworth – Arnold, 2002 – xv + 584 pages
Empty chameleon? Sell out? Conflicted man? Bloodthirsty cynic?
Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram – Harper Perennial, 2019 – xix + 282 pages
I was just following orders, so I am not responsible. Such a defence, often used by those who have committed some horrible war crime, has a long history.
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Christopher R. Browning – Harper Collins, 2017 (Revised Edition) – xxii + 349 pages
Men murder because the “authorities” tell them to.
The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, Book I
Gar Alperovitz – Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995 – xiv + 847 pages
Most Americans believe the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified. Professor Alperovitz obliterates this long-cherished fantasy.
The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, Book II
Gar Alperovitz – Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995 – xiv + 847 pages
“The conventional wisdom that the atomic bomb saved hundreds of thousands – perhaps a million – lives persists.”
The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception and Infiltration
Paul Kengor – Tan Books, 2020 – xxiv + 461 pages
I had no idea how much of a scoundrel Marx was.
The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History
David Hackett Fischer – Oxford University Press, 1996 – xvi + 536 pages
Professor Fischer has done us a great service.
The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies could not have saved more Jews from the Nazis
William D. Rubenstein – Routledge, 2000 – xxx + 267 page
The more you dig into history, the more you become aware of historiographical debates. The Holocaust is no different.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
William L. Shirer – Pan Books Ltd., 1964 – 1436 pages
Shirer was one of the first historians to tackle the entire National Socialist period.
The Transformation of War
Martin van Creveld – The Free Press, 1991 – x + 254 pages
Professor van Creveld obliterates the dictum that war is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
