Doug

Thought I Knew About The Battle of Britain. Then I read this.

Revisado: 06-15-23

This is my idea of what history should be. Mr Holland weaves together the threads of myriad political, economic, social, military, and technical developments in the years leading up to May 1940 to provide the reader with a deep understanding of how the stage was set before the conflict ever began. In every instance, he keeps the narrative alive with a thorough examination of the players on both sides, including their motivations, challenges, strategies, triumphs and defeats. The result, combined with an excellent performance by the narrator, is remarkable.

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More About Author’s Opinions Than History

Revisado: 05-17-22

I came to this title after finishing Stephen Kotkin’s excellent 2-part (so far) Stalin biography. I hoped to learn more about Stalin during the 1942 and later period, since Kotkin hasn’t finished his trilogy yet, and maybe get more insight into the pre-WWII conflicts with Japan in Manchuria. Unfortunately, Mr. McMeekin’s book is more about how “regular” historians have screwed up the Stalin story, soft-pedaling the dictator’s monstrous crimes and lies to focus on Hitler’s evil. I guess the author’s entitled to his take, but I found his mocking, superior tone distracting and off-putting. Guess I’ll have to wait for Kotkin to finish…

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Goes Off The Rails At The End

Revisado: 05-01-19

Mr Rhodes is an wonderful, knowledgeable writer, and this book is both entertaining and informative... until the last two chapters. At that point, it suddenly veers into a screed against the anti-nuclear movement of the 60’s and 70’s, complete with the author’s personal theories of the psychological motivations that brought Rachel Carson to write Silent Spring (she was undergoing chemo and radiation therapy for breast cancer) and an attempt to discredit Obama’s science advisor by linking him to a racist professor at Cal Tech.

Mr Rhodes obviously knows a lot about nuclear power (he wrote The Making of the Atomic Bomb, an excellent book), but I think he would have been a better advocate for rehabilitating the nuclear industry, and would have written a better book, by making rational arguments instead of engaging in amateur psychology and conspiracy theory.

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