Thor Olson

Excellent, incisive and compelling

Revisado: 12-20-22

This book, and series, does a wonderful job of bridging the divided between strategic, operational, and tactical realities of the Pacific Theater while making it a interesting and enjoyable book to listen to.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Interesting but complicated to recommend

Revisado: 09-06-22

The book gives you a very different perspective of WW2 which appears to be well researched and very thought provoking. To anyone fairly well versed in WW2 history it’s a good read. If you are not well read in WW2, I would say some of the themes running through the book are stated in ways that give them more weight than they should have and tend to provide a distorted view. Come back to this book when you are ready, and you will find it interesting.

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Just don’t

Revisado: 08-03-22

The authors historical facts are accurate, but the conclusion he draws are simplistic at best, and problematic in most cases. For instance, the author sets up some what if scenarios towards the end of the book that could not technically occur given actual realities. Or you would have to butterfly so many things to reach conditions to allow them, that you might as well add death rays and aliens. There are much better books on ww2 naval history.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Just don’t suffer the stupidity

Revisado: 11-21-20

I think someone played a bit too much Axis & Allies as a kid then as an adult decide to use the game play as his has operating theory to write a book. I actually hope the author goal was a simple money grab on ww2 book popularity and not his actual-beliefs because it would make me fear for the future of scholarly thought.

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Do not read this book

Revisado: 12-15-19

The basic problem with this book is that the author seems to have a “fan boy” view of WW2. The Allies are underdogs who only make honest mistakes and will win out in the end because there side is noble and just, seems to be the authors defining thesis of the book. He use this thesis to justify so many things, that should be explained not justified. There are far better histories that give a more competent understanding of the realities of WW2, the good and bad of the Allies, along with the horror of the Axis.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Interesting but not mandatory

Revisado: 08-29-19

This book has some interesting details. It’s fairly well researched. It does a good job of consolidating information that is widely dispersed.

However it reads more list like than an organized thesis. The conclusions it does draw, aren’t organized well in a reasonable thought process. The old argument between armored and unarmored carrier flight decks was “solved”, when most experts say is really arguable either way depending on what is considered important.

Unless you are well versed in ww2 carrier operations this book will be problematic.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Interesting but problematic

Revisado: 06-14-19

“1941” is and interesting book but is problematic in its assertions.

The detail of the events and the research is evident. I have done substantial reading in this area and found this I was unaware of. This is enough to recommend it.

However, it first relies a bit to much on post war German General writings. Most of these follow the format of “if Hitler would of just listen to us Generals, we would have won”. This is not even close to the case. The blame should be shared a bit more equally.

Second, he makes some grand strategic assertions about going for Moscow that are at least questionable. The logistics were doubtful, and Moscow was not necessarily the center of gravity for the Soviet Union. A lot of this originally comes from the first point about German Generals shifting blame.

Finally, he really dislikes the Soviet Union. He even alludes to historic family reasons for this. I am not in anyway defending one of the worlds most horrific regimes. He just can’t separate himself from the full history of the Soviet Union and Stalin to be more fair in the judgement of the interpretation of historical actors and there decisions.

But as long as you keep this in mind, the book is certainly worth the read for most of the content.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Just don't!

Revisado: 03-17-19

So this is my third attempt at writing a review, but I have come to realize the book is just not worth the effort. I would have to write a multi-page dissertation on the faulty analysis alone, just to do the utter stupidity of this book justice.The author doesn't seem to even have a simple grasp on logistics or military operations, give the errors he makes in that area. I really do not think this book was actually intended to clarify lessons learned from WW2 and provide guidance for the future. I honestly believe he is trying to shape the past to affect current events or thinking to his point of view.

There are far better books on the why's and how's of WW2. Just about any of them would be better than this one.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

For beginners only

Revisado: 03-08-19

This is not a bad book, but only for beginners who want a general overview of WW2. It presents a couple of little known events, but otherwise a standard explanation of the timeline.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Very interesting history but biased

Revisado: 10-09-18

This is a very in-depth look at the the history of intelligence and how it was used throughout history. A lot of the information was very new to me, but on the historical parts I am better versed on, it was very accurate. The whole book was interesting.

However, it is sort of implied that the author believes all methods and function of intelligence work is totally justified and not at all problematic in a free and open society. I’m not entirely sure the author can tell were a well intend intelligence activity begins and purges and paranoia ends in the destruction of the society it was meant to protect.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas