REVIEWS

We Band of Angels by Elizabeth M. Norman

 War History Network members are familiar many War II tales but one that is frequently overlooked is told in We Band Of Angels.  It contains the story of 99 American nurses trapped on Bataan and Corregidor during the Japanese conquest of 1942. Theirs is a fairy tale gone bad.  Some were young women, others matronly veterans.  Dreaming of moonlit beaches, dinner and dancing with officers in a tropical paradise, they volunteered for service in the Philippines.  Their world was shattered on…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 4

Crisis At The Chesapeake: The Royal Navy and the Struggle for America 1775-1783 by Quintin Barry

 To War History Network members familiar with George Washington and a few Revolutionary War battles, the introductory, theme setting statement: “There was in the end no way in which the Americans could have ultimately been denied their independence; but the war that was fought to achieve it was substantially a naval war, and it was at sea that it would be decided” can be stunning.  Follow that with the quote from Washington: “Whatever efforts are made by the land armies, the navy must have the…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 10

Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862 by Dwight Sturtevant Hughes

Unlike Anything That Ever Floated approaches the classic Battle of Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Virginia from two perspectives. It goes into extensive detail about the engineering and mechanical features of each vessel as well as the occurrences during the battle itself. Although not the world’s first ironclad vessels, their iconic battle is widely considered to be a turning part in the history of naval warfare. There development is a classic example of an underdog attempting to…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 8

Three Days At The Brink: FDR's Daring Gamble To Win World War II by Bret Baier

War History is not solely made on the battlefields.  The meetings that lay the plans for victory are as much a part of the story as the shot and shell.  Allied plans for World War II and its sequalae were formulated in a series of conferences involving some or all of President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshall Joseph Stalin. “Three Days At The Brink” is an account of the lead-up to the Teheran Conference in 1943, the Conference itself and its aftermath, with the…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 21

War In The Mountains: The Macbeth Light Artillery At Asheville, NC 1864-1865 by J. L. Askew

War History Network members know that war studies have many aspects.  They focus on the big story, who won the war or battle, the life of the individual participant and the betwixt and between, the smaller battles, and the roles of the participants.  I place “War In The Mountains: The Macbeth Light Artillery at Asheville, NC 1864-65” in the betwixt and between category.  It is a well-researched, detailed history of the last two years of the Civil War in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 9

The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome

Friction between the United States and Mexico is a long saga that sometimes erupted into military conflict.  The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome chronicles a particular flashpoint in that relationship.  The General is John J. Pershing, the Jaguar is Pancho Villa and the story is the 1916 American invasion of Mexico to capture Villa and to disperse his followers.  A fairly quiescent period in the relationship existed during the 35 years of relative stability under Mexican President…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 14

Historical Memoir of The War In West Florida And Louisiana in 1814-1815 by Arsene Lacarriere Latour

 “Historical Memoir Of The War In West Florida And Louisiana in 1814-15” is a first-person narrative by Frenchman Arsene Lacarriere Latour, who served as chief engineer under Gen. Andrew Jackson throughout the Gulf campaign.  Hie obtained his position due to his professional qualifications, his loyalty to the American cause and the fact that most U. S. military engineers were committed to the eastern campaigns.  After the Introduction, this work commences with an introduction to the renowned…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 20

Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth by Holger Hoock

Histories of the American Revolution ordinarily feature wise Founding Fathers, military heroes and, in the end at least, glorious triumph.  “Scars of Independence” presents the image of a violent struggle, not between freedom-loving Americans and tyrannical British, but as more of a civil war between Americans preferring to maintain their association with Britain and those striving for independence.  This work follows the pattern of war from beginning to end.  It chronicles atrocities on both…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 27

From Ushant To Gibraltar: The Channel Fleet 1778-1783 by Quintin Barry

To some, 1778-1783 is identified with the American Revolution.  From Ushant To Gibraltar relates the men and actions of the Royal Navy Channel Fleet during those years.  Americans would be interested in this book for its study European naval combat and to better appreciate the American Revolution in its global context.  The first chapter is a brief biography of John Montagu, First Earl of Sandwich, a British politician who served in a number of cabinet positions, most relevant for this review,…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 15

Women Remember The War 1941-1945 Edited by Michael E. Stevens

Not all war history centers on the battlefield.  The home front has its own contributions.   “Women Remember the War” is a fascinating collection of oral histories of 25 Wisconsin women who lived through World War II.  It consists of edited versions of interviews done in the early 1990s.  The chapters are organized by the women’s experience with some women appearing in multiple sections.  The factory worker, the single employed, the mothers, those who wore uniforms and they who waited for their…

Read more…
Started by Jim Gallen
0 Replies
Views: 21

BOOK REVIEW ARCHIVES LIBRARY

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
· Wisconsin Women In The War Between The States

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
· Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth
· John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot
· Pierre Gibault, Missionary 1737-1802
· Morrstown: The Darkest Winter of the Revolutionary War and the Plot to Kidnap George Washington
· George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved The American Revolution
· The Philadelphia Campaign
· Revolutionary War Forts: New York
· 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
· Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-15 with an Atlas
· 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
· 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
· Women Remember The War 1941-1945
·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
· Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II
· The Splendid And The Vile
· 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
· Winning French Minds, Radio Propaganda in Occupied France 1940-42

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