War in the Pacific

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 

by Ian W. Toll

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942, by Ian W. Toll, is the first entry in his acclaimed Pacific War Trilogy. Covering the initial six months of the conflict—from the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 through the Battle of Midway in June 1942—the book examines how a staggering American defeat transformed into a strategic turning point. 

Toll depicts the initial stage of the Pacific Campaign as more than a series of battles, but a total trial by fire for the two nations involved. The first part of the story is some background on US-Japanese diplomacy and naval doctrine, followed by the shock of Pearl Harbor, then the early battles (Doolittle Raid, Java Sea, and Coral Sea), and finally Midway.

The story is equally divided between the American and Japanese high command, doctrine and decision making, and not just the Allied high command. Toll describes the change in operational philosophy from the traditional battleship-based doctrine (based on the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan) to carrier aviation and submarine warfare.

This is history at its best. Compulsively readable. The author writes in a disarming style, and lays out the details. You find it hard to put the book down. Even with the detail of the story (this volume only brings you to the battle of Midway) the pages fly by as you get engrossed in the details of everything from the lead admirals to the minutia of all the significant battles.

View all my reviews

To Viet Nam and Beyond

The Education of Corporal John Musgrave:

 Vietnam and Its Aftermath 

by John Musgrave

"When you were out in the bush and someone screamed, it was easy to tell the difference between someone who was scared and someone who'd been hit bad. There's both pain and terror in the scream when someone gets hit. Suddenly I heard someone screaming that way, and, God, it sounded so fucking horrible, and I couldn't figure out who it was. Then, and instant later, my mind caught up with my body, and I realized the scream was coming from me." (p 157)

Growing up in a small midwestern town in the fifties and sixties is something I share with the author of this memoir. It is a story about joining the Marines, going to war in Vietnam, and surviving both the war and its aftermath. Fortunately, I did not share the going to war part nor the aftermath, at least not in the same way as the author, but as one of his fellow Americans who lived through that era and experienced its effects on both those who went to war and those who did not.

I suppose it was that connection which was part of what made choose to read this book. Once I started I could not put it down for it was a riveting story of an innocent boy of 17 who dreamed of joining the Marines and managed to live that dream and the nightmarish consequences that he had to endure as a result. The book enthralled me because his story was real and believable. The personal details from boot camp to Nam and his return on a stretcher thinking that he would not survive were narrated with prose that would make professional writers proud. That his story did not end there made it even more readable and took this reader into parts of post-Vietnam history that were unfamiliar territory. Through it all I got to know this, now not so young, man and his story of going into the depths of hell (for that is what war is) and reclaiming his life with purpose through raising a family and standing up with and for other Vietnam veterans who all too often did not receive the support they deserved from their fellow Americans.

I would recommend this sincere and informative memoir to all who are interested in how even one individual with a few close friends can make America better and surmount the terrors, both physical and mental, that come from going to war.

The Gallic Wars

The Landmark Julius Caesar: 

The Complete Works 

by Gaius Julius Caesar



“In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes.”   ― Julius Caesar






"All Gaul is divided into thee parts."
With these famous words Julius Caesar begins the first of his Commentaries on the Gallic War.*
In these Commentaries, he gives a chronological account of his activities in Gaul from the time of his succession to the governorship of Gallia Narbonensis in 59 b.c.e. to the end of the Gallic revolt led by Vercingetorix late in the same decade. During those years, Caesar and his Roman legions confronted first one group of tribes, then another. Only two sections, the first section of book 1 and the second section of book 6, are not about actual battle operations or preparations. The former is a description of Gaul and its inhabitants; the latter is an account of customs of the Gauls and Germans.

In his comments about the Gauls, Caesar stirs the imagination and stimulates curiosity by giving only enough information to make the reader wish more had been written. The account of the Gallic Wars is a reminder that war has been a continual factor in human affairs. As one example of the fury and effectiveness of war in ancient times, Caesar comments at the end of his account of the battle with the Nervii: This battle being ended, and the name and nation of the Nervii almost reduced to annihilation, their old men, together with the boys and women whom we have stated had been collected together in the inlets and the marshes, when this battle had been reported to them, convinced that nothing was an obstacle to the conquerors, and nothing safe to the conquered, sent ambassadors to Caesar with the consent of all who survived, and surrendered themselves to him; and in recounting the calamity of their state, they said that their senators were reduced from six hundred to three; that of sixty thousand men who could bear arms, scarcely five hundred remained.

Other examples of the character of these ancient wars included the massacre at Avaricum, at which, according to Caesar, scarcely eight hundred people of all ages and both genders escaped the city when it was taken, out of a population of forty thousand; the rest were killed; while indiscriminate killing was the norm at Sarsura and the Euberones, among others.

Caesar the Roman administrator is apparent throughout the Commentaries. He writes in an impersonal fashion, however, much as though he were preparing a favorable report to the Roman senate. Only rarely does an individual come through to the reader as a real personality. Even Caesar himself, whose name figures more largely than any other, remains an official and a general rather than emerging as a clearly visualized person. The Gallic and Germanic chieftains who oppose him are little more than names, and the same is true of the lieutenants who serve under him. The only outstanding exception to this general statement is the passage concerning Sextius Baculus, who, sick though he was, arose from his bed and saved the day for the Romans by rallying their forces when they were attacked in a camp at Aduatuca; he fought bravely until he was carried back to rest.

Of particular interest to English-speaking readers are those portions of the Commentaries that deal with Britain and Caesar’s invasions of Britain. Caesar’s account of the early history of that part of the world is the earliest of the Roman documents. Caesar tells of his first expedition, an abortive one, made in 55 b.c.e., and his second and more successful attempt the following year, an invasion that paved the way for the Roman occupation that lasted until the fifth century c.e. For his second invasion, he ordered a fleet of more than eight hundred vessels built and assembled, a logistical success noteworthy in any era of history. This fleet carried two thousand cavalrymen with their mounts and five Roman legions, each consisting at that time of about five thousand men.

Caesar was a remarkable man, one of the greatest in human history, in the sense that greatness may be defined as leaving an indelible mark on the history of his time. Few such men have lived; fewer still have left written records for posterity; and none has left a document to compare with Caesar’s Commentaries. The book occupies a unique place in the written records of the Western world. In addition to its value as history, it deserves to be read as an example of a concise report presented with an idiosyncratic style and flavor. The military greatness of Julius Caesar is the most striking aspect of the eight books of his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Whether you believe all of what is reported or not, this was an achievement of massive proportions.

*The Landmark edition of his commentaries is magnificent providing a new translation complemented by extensive footnotes, helpful maps, drawings, and illustrations. There are also useful appendices and even links to a series of scholarly essays on the Landmark web site.

Life in the Army Air Force

Guard of Honor 
by James Gould Cozzens


"On one of his ill-considered impulses, Colonel Mowbray must have summoned everyone he could think of who might possibly know anything about it.  The undesirable result would be that all of them, in exchange for their trifles of information, learned much that was not necessary for them to know." (p 202)


James Gould Cozzens is an author who has been unjustly neglected both during the latter years of his life and in the three decades since his death. Of his often critically-acclaimed novels this one, published in 1948, stands alone, on its own merits. I believe that I first learned about this novel from reading Noel Perrin, the Dartmouth professor and book reviewer, who praised the author and this novel in particular as deserving more popular notice as worthy to stand beside Melville's novels in the American canon.

Cozzens' achievement in creating this war novel is evidenced by the setting, a Florida Air Base, but more importantly in doing this he has brought into sharp relief against the background of boredom and frustration and disappointment which most of the officers assigned there felt, the minor dramas of human lives, loves, hates, jealousies; the competitive spirit leveled at minor goals; and the interrelation of men, whose ranks are more or less the accident of the chance of war. General Beal, younger than most of his staff though already the commanding officer, is portrayed as vital figure who is torn by his friendship for a difficult junior officer, eternally in hot water, disturbed profoundly by the necessity of playing off local prejudices against the directives from Washington, attempting to be human and at the same time the martinet military procedure demanded.
The major issues that dominate and motivate the story include the problem of the Negro officers and the officers club; the disaster attendant on the trials of parachute jumping -- and the question of blame. Most of the story is told from the perspective of Nathaniel Hicks who, in private life, has a significant role in the media world of magazines. The tensions of civilian life are brought home through his own affair with a WAC Lieutenant. Character after character comes clear- small bits as well as large. In creating this world Cozzens reminds me of the breadth and depth found in the novels of George Eliot.

There is an implicit message of humaneness in the whole the kind of drama Command Decision provided -- against a setting that is infinitely less provocative of dramatic treatment. Cozzens has written a long book with many subplots; one that can be difficult at times. But the power of his prose and the resulting enjoyment of this great war novel builds as minor incident is piled on minor incident to create an unforgettable pattern. Rather than romanticizing his story, Cozzens' writing is taut and realistic, but at the same time exhibits an expansive warmth -- an unusual combination which makes for a favorable impression and an enjoyable read.

View all my reviews

Rites of Spring : The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age 

by Modris Eksteins

Having read and enjoyed Paul Fussel's The Great War and Modern Memory I came to Modris Eksteins’ The Rites Of Spring and discovered another great work of cultural history that both augmented and complemented Fussel's book. The author transports the reader by demonstrating the advent of the modern through a mood laced with death, movement, irony, rebellion and inwardness. The book unveils a pre-war world of German industrialization and avant-garde art, discusses the disillusionment of an unending first world war, and climaxes with the resultant rise of Nazi regime. Eksteins’ cultural history is readable as he delves into the beginning of tthe 20th century, limning the convoluted social, political and military realities through the lens of individual lives of thinkers, artists and politicians. His aesthetic style, fleeting comparisons and iconoclastic conclusions not only mimics the modes of his subjects, but engages the interest of the reader in a manner paralleled only by authors of fiction. Taking a new approach to cultural history, The Rites of Spring challenges traditional historiography that sheds new light on the spirit of the modern age. For those interested in the nexus of traditional history and culture this is an essential book.




Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins. Mariner Books, New York. 2000



View all my reviews

The Peloponnesian War

The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War

by Thucydides

“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”

- Thucydides

This is the first history in the modern sense (apologies to Herodotus who invented the genre). Thucydides, and Athenian general, wrote this history of the Peloponnesian Wars; admirable in its objectivity in discussing contemporary events, in its direct and descriptive style, and the author's grasp of cause and effect. It covers the history of the Hellenic race and ends, unfinished, in 411 B.C., seven years before the wars ended. The best-known passages are those relating Pericles' Funeral Oration, the plague at Athens, and the Sicilian expedition. The detailed reporting and acute political analysis vindicate Thucydides claim that the work is a "possession for all time." In fact, the parallels with modern international political history abound making this one classic relevant for our own day.

This edition of the classic is particularly useful as edited by Robert B. Strassler, with a fine introduction by the classical scholar Victor Davis Hanson, and voluminous maps, notes, appendices; and a glossary and index. It uses the Crawley translation which some consider on a par with the more recent translation by David Greene.

The Landmark Thucydides, Robert Strassler, ed. The Free Press, New York. 1996.

View all my reviews >>

The Trojan War

"Both in his exaggerations and his honesty Homer is truer to the Bronze Age than is generally recognized." - Barry Strauss, The Trojan War, p185.



Ever since Heinrich Schliemann discovered the "gold of Troy" archaeologists and historians have been expanding our knowledge of this era at the beginning of Western history. Barry Strauss' account of this era of Bronze Age history is delineated in The Trojan War: A New History. He writes a narrative drawing on recent archaeological data that he uses to explain the events at Troy more than 3,000 years ago based on current evidence.
This book puts the events of the age into perspective with insight on the relations between Troy and the Hittite Empire of Anatolia and its impact on the battles between the Achaean's, as the Greeks were known then, and the Trojans. He comments on the story as found in Homer's Iliad, pointing out those aspects of the epic poem that have some basis in that can be connected with the archaeological data. I found the book to be a useful adjunct to my current rereading of Homer's Iliad and would recommend it to anyone interested in ancient history.

The Trojan War: A New History by Barry Strauss. Simon & Schuster, New York. 2006.

The Coldest Winter

If you enjoy history well told you must read the last book by David Halberstam. Reading The Coldest Winter reminds me why I still remember reading The Best and the Brightest and The Powers That Be many years ago. As a writer Halberstam is superb and his latest, an excursion into the early years of the cold war, is more evidence of his skill. The story unfolds with careful attention to the details of the battles as well as incisive character sketches of the main players on each side. The international political tensions of the early fifties are highlighted and become as real as those in the Mideast today. That North Korea is still a significant international political and diplomatic problem even today makes this book relevant. Halberstam himself regarded this as his best book. But more importantly, from the perspective of a literature lover, it is a very good read.


The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam. Hyperion Books, New York, 2007.