MAIN REVIEWS AND EXCERPTS Double Cross, by Ben Macintyre. Reviewed by Gavin Mortimer Online Resources for Studying Ireland’s Easter Uprising. Reviewed by Mark Grimsley CNN’s Cold War Series on DVD. Reviewed by Gene Santoro The Long Road to Antietam, by Richard Slotkin. Reviewed by Harold Holzer Excerpt: The Rise of Rome, by Anthony Everitt
ALSO OF NOTE The Twilight War The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran, by David Crist (Penguin, $36). A historian and Gulf War veteran traces our shadow war of espionage, assassination, and subterfuge. Among his revelations are the Pentagon’s plans to invade after the fall of the Shah in 1979. Stalin’s General The Life of Georgy Zhukov, by Geoffrey Roberts (Random House, $30). Russian experts have hailed this as the first full biography of the Soviet hero of WWII’s Eastern Front. Scarlet Fields The Combat Memoir of a World War I Medal of Honor Hero, by John Lewis Barkley (University Press of Kansas, $29.95). The story of a Missouri farm boy and army troublemaker who discovers he loves to fight. Terrible Swift Sword The Life of General Philip H. Sheridan, by Joseph Wheelan (Da Capo, $26). Wheelan argues that Sheridan was as critical to the Union victory as U. S. Grant and William T. Sherman. Savage Continent Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, by Keith Lowe (St. Martin’s, $30). A study of the violent years that followed the end of hostilities on V-E Day, with revenge against women collaborators in France, the mass expulsions of ethnic Germans from postwar Czechoslovakia and Poland, East-West tensions, and more. For the Common Defense A Military History of the United States From 1607 to 2012, by Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis (Free Press, $28). The third edition of this invaluable resource, with new chapters covering 1993 to 2012. Embers of War The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, by Fredrik Logevall (Random House, $40). An in-depth look at the 40 years of political and diplomatic twists and turns in France, the United States, and Asia that led to America’s first casualties in Vietnam, in 1959.
FICTION The Absolutist by John Boyne (Other Press, $16.95). In this nicely crafted tale, Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) tackles the antiwar movement that arose in Britain in response to the slaughter of World War I, focusing on the life, and death, of an “absolutist”—someone who refused to serve in any way, either at home or in the trenches.
COMING SOON Commander The Life and Exploits of Britain’s Greatest Frigate Captain, by Stephen Taylor (W. W. Norton). The Black Count Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss (Crown).
|
