Fighting Back- Stan Andrews And The Birth Of The Israeli Air Force. by Jeffrey Weiss and Craig Weiss

“Fighting Back” is the martial biogrreadersaphy of Stan Andrews, a pilot who risked his life that the Star Spangled Banner wave above the land of the free and gave his life to see the Star of David in the sky, imbedded in a history of the birth of the Israeli Air Force.  Born Stanley Anekstein in New York in 1923, Stan chose to change his name to the less Semitic sounding Andrews on a friend’s suggestion in 1942.  Drawn to the romantic calling of fighter pilot, Stan enlisted in the U. Army in…

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The First World War in the Baltic Sea, Volume 1: Essen's Triumph, 1914 to February 1915.

Some War History Network members are familiar with the theatres and lore of World War I, but The First World War in the Baltic Sea: Volume 1: Essen’s triumph, 1914 to February 1915 is likely to expand the ken of even the most seasoned.   Contrary to the customary focus on ground combat in the Eastern and Western Fronts or the Dardanelles campaign, it chronicles naval action in waters that seemed to hold significance in the early months of the War, but became, literally and figuratively, a…

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Russia In Revolution by S. A. Smith

The Russian Revolution is one of—and arguably the most significant—sequels of the World War I. Russia In Revolution is the 38-year story of an empire whose chronic state of crisis led to a series of revolutions that transformed its country and shook the world. From the 1860s and especially the 1890s Russia's aristocracy strove to maintain its nation's status among European powers by industrialization, development of agriculture, expansion of railroads, and modernization of the military. While…

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Environmental Histories of the First World War Edited by Richard P. Tucker, Tait Keller, J. R. McNeill and Martin Schmid

Attention directed toward the environment in recent decades has motivated scholars to examine how earlier history has impacted the environment.  War History Network readers will appreciate the fourteen essays of “Environmental Histories of the First World War” focus on several ways that World War I changed the environment and economy of the world. The influences chronicled in this collection are more indirect than are frequently thought of.  Part I, “Europe and North America: Battle Zones and…

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Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis

Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy is a biographical account of the Josephine Baker, entertainer, spy and activist.  Born to poverty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906 and escaped its racial and economic constraints when she emigrated to France in 1925.  In France she gained fame and fortune as a singer and dancer in some of Paris’ leading showplaces.  The spotlight of this tome shines on the World War II years during which Josephine served as a spy for the British, Free…

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Book Review: "The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed" by W. Henry Sledge, author

I really wanted to like this new book but did not--I loved it. For those who have read and reread Eugene Sledge’s classic With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, published in 1981, W. Henry Sledge’s The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed is a treasure trove of additional material that was left out of Eugene Sledge’s original 1981 memoir, With the Old Breed. This added content is what elevates Henry’s book, offering readers a richer, more nuanced understanding of the experiences and…

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Book Review: The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai with Contrasts to the 2025 Film Adaptation, Nuremberg

Book Review: The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai with Contrasts to the 2025 Film Adaptation, Nuremberg In theaters in late 2025 and recently released to streaming  platforms is Nuremburg, starring Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon. Based on the 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El_Hai, the movie engages in a slightly different take on the author’s work, with a couple of changes that are critical and omit key details. If you’ve not seen the movie yet, and…

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Red Arrow Across The Pacific: The Thirty-Second Infantry Division During World War II

“Red Arrow Across The Pacific” is a detailed, but engaging account of the Thirty-Second Division’s World War II service, featuring training in the United States and Australia followed by intense combat in New Guinea and the Philippines and occupation duty in Japan.   Consisting of National Guard units from Wisconsin and Michigan, the Thirty-Second could be considered the spiritual successor of the Iron Brigade of Civil War fame.  Its Red Arrow name and insignia, a vertical red arrow pointing…

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Blue Helmet: My Year As A UN Peacekeeper In South Sudan by Edward H. Carpenter

War history’s tales include not only those of the warriors, but also those of the peacemakers.  “Blue Helmet: My Year As A UN Peacekeeper in South Sudan” is cuch a tale. The scene is South Sudan, a country torn by civil war, ethnic violence and crushed by poverty.  The main character is the author, Edwar H. Carpenter, a career USMC officer.    The format can be described as a day-by-day journal, a diary directed to the reader, not for introspective reflection.  The first of 72 entries is 10…

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Ski Climb Fight

 Watching the 1968 film Where Eagles Dare, with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, stoked my interest as a young boy in a subset of World War II that has seldom seen inclusion as a part of popular culture…mountain warfare. For those who have seen Where Eagles Dare, it would be difficult to forget the daring fight scenes atop cable cars with breathtaking shots of snow-covered peaks in the background. My palms get sweaty just recalling those scenes.While it is not a fictional account of Special…

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SELECT BOOK REVIEWS


18TH AND 19TH CENTURY WAR AND CONFLICT
· The Dawn of Guerrilla Warfare
· The Pirates’ Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship 
· War Along The Wabash

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
· Appomattox: The Last Days of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia
· Civil War on The Western Border: 1854-1865
· Guerrilla Hunters In Civil War Missouri
· The Last Confederate General: John C. Vaughn and His East Tennessee Cavalry
· A Soldier to the Last: Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler in Blue and Gray
· The Last Confederate General: John C. Vaughn and His East Tennessee Cavalry
· Lost Civil War: The Disappearing Legacy of America's Greatest Conflict
· Make Way For Liberty: Wisconsin African Americans In The Civil War
· The Presidents' War
· This Wicked Rebellion: Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers Write Home
· Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War
· Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862
· War In The Mountains: The Macbeth Light Artillery At Asheville, NC 1864-1865
· Wisconsin Women In The War Between The States

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
· Crisis At The Chesapeake: The Royal Navy and the Struggle for America 1775-1783
· George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved The American Revolution
· John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot
· Morristown: The Darkest Winter of the Revolutionary War and the Plot to Kidnap George Washington
· The Philadelphia Campaign
· Pierre Gibault, Missionary 1737-1802
· Revolutionary War Forts: New York
· Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth
· A Very Fine Regiment: The 47th Foot during the American War of Independence, 1773-1783

ANCIENT, CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL WAR
· King John: Treachery and Tyranny in Medieval England; Road to Magna Carta
· Warfare in the Age of Crusades

THE HOLOCAUST
· The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation
· Elie Wiesel’s Night: One Writer’s Voice from the Holocaust
· The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
·
Tot De Dood Ons Scheidt (Till Death Do Us Part)

MODERN WAR & CONFLICT
· Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
· Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, And The Rush To War
· The Fighters: Americans In Combat In Afghanistan and Iraq
· The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History

VIETNAM WAR
· Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music by John Fogerty
· SOG Kontum: Top Secret Missions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, 1968–1969

WAR OF 1812
· Black Redcoats: The Corps of Colonial Marines 1814-1816
· A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South
· Don't Give Up The Ship: Myths of the War of 1812
· Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-15 with an Atlas
· Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812

WORLD WAR I
· 14-18: Understanding The Great War
· American Journalists In The Great War: Rewriting The Rules Of Reporting
· American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
· Asleep in the Deep; Nursing Sister Anna Stamers and the First World War
· Botha, Smuts And The Great War
· Curse of the Narrows
· Faith in Conflict: The Impact of the Great War on the faith of the people of Britain
· General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914–1917: Incorporating His German South West and East Africa Campaigns
· The Great Halifax Explosion
· Letters from the Front: 1898-1945
· The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel

WORLD WAR II
· All Behind You, Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition 1940-45
· The Americans on D-Day: A Photographic History of the Normandy Invasion
· The Bedford Boys: One American Town’s Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice
· Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich's Enduring Mystery
· Colditz: The Full Story
· Devil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan
· Generals and Admirals of the Third Reich for Country or Fuehrer: Volume 1: A–G
· Hitlerland: American Eyewitness to the Nazi Rise to Power
· How Ike Led
· The Improbable Wendell Willkie: The Businessman Who Saved The Republican Party And His Country, And Conceived A New World Order
· The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
· The Longest Winter
· Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission
· Nightstalkers: The Wright Project and the 868th Bomb Squadron in World War II
· Red Arrow Across The Pacific: The Thirty-Second Infantry Division During World War II
· Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II
· The Splendid And The Vile
· Three Days At The Brink: FDR's Daring Gamble To Win World War II
· Uniting America: How FDR and Henry Stimson Brought Democrats and Republicans Together to Win World War II
· Warbird Factory: North American Aviation in World War II
· We Band of Angels
· Winning French Minds, Radio Propaganda in Occupied France 1940-42
· Women Remember The War 1941-1945

UNCATEGORIZED
· Commanders In Chief: Presidential Leadership In Modern Wars
· French Republic's Fighting Men: 1880-1914
· The General and the Jaguar
· From Ushant To Gibraltar: The Channel Fleet 1778-1783