Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: jamesm

Max Hastings "Catastrophe", very well written and an overall excellent read.

http://www.amazon.com/Catastrophe-Sir-Max-Hastings/dp/0007467648/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1385022013&sr=1-1

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

Catastrophe - I enjoyed this book. I liked the transition from diplomacy to the opening battles of the war.

Warspite1 - There does seem to be a big change in opinion of the British Army, in both world wars, from the books I read in my youth to today. I remember reading about the Normandy campaign after the landings, with some significant beating up of the British forces by the author. I don't remember the book just off hand.

Chuck

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Hi Ranger33,

Dune was, in my opinion, terrible. It put me off of the Fantasy/ Sci-fi genre for 15 years. To each their own of course.

Just out of curiosity, what do you find intriguing about it that I missed?

quote:

Hastings, Max
Winston's War.

This is a remarkable book. It changed the way I looked at the Second World War, and I have been looking at that war for a long time. The book is very sympathetic to Churchill, and deservedly so, but it pulls no punches when it describes the problems the British Empire had at warmaking. It presents the Americans as having very special interests which conflicted with Britain's, and as gaining with British loss. Well written and very worthwhile.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

Catastrophe - I enjoyed this book. I liked the transition from diplomacy to the opening battles of the war.

Warspite1 - There does seem to be a big change in opinion of the British Army, in both world wars, from the books I read in my youth to today. I remember reading about the Normandy campaign after the landings, with some significant beating up of the British forces by the author. I don't remember the book just off hand.

Chuck

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

Warspite1, re Catstrophe : That is close, but I looked in my books database and found this -

quote:

Hastings, Max
Winston's War.

This is a remarkable book. It changed the way I looked at the Second World War, and I have been looking at that war for a long time. The book is very sympathetic to Churchill, and deservedly so, but it pulls no punches when it describes the problems the British Empire had at warmaking. It presents the Americans as having very special interests which conflicted with Britain's, and as gaining with British loss. Well written and very worthwhile.

I seem not to have read Armageddon.

Chuck

Edited for a typo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hotschi

Finished Wars of Empire by Douglas Porch.

It was one of the free military history e-books for the Kindle. Mixed feelings. It's one of those "I want to squeeze too much stuff into too few pages" kind of books. Porch is extremely jumping around to different places and stories on the very same page - as if he wants to put a 3 hour speech into 10 minutes. And the largest disappointment was the end of the book, where Porch writes about the twenties of last century then immediately jumps to George Bush ! But at least the book was for free...

Started Churchill's Empire by Richard Toye - and am very impressed reading into the first chapters so far. I was looking for a book describing how Winston came to his often contradictionary and sometimes downright racist views about empire and people not of the white colour - there's books around by Gordon Corrigan about Churchill ("Blood, Sweat and Arrogance") but he is what I would call a "Churchill-Hater" which I am not, so he's not a good read for research. I want facts in a book, not opinions.

Richard Toye seems to find the right balance.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hotschi

Finished Wars of Empire by Douglas Porch.

It was one of the free military history e-books for the Kindle. Mixed feelings. It's one of those "I want to squeeze too much stuff into too few pages" kind of books. Porch is extremely jumping around to different places and stories on the very same page - as if he wants to put a 3 hour speech into 10 minutes. And the largest disappointment was the end of the book, where Porch writes about the twenties of last century then immediately jumps to George Bush ! But at least the book was for free...

Started Churchill's Empire by Richard Toye - and am very impressed reading into the first chapters so far. I was looking for a book describing how Winston came to his often contradictionary and sometimes downright racist views about empire and people not of the white colour - there's books around by Gordon Corrigan about Churchill ("Blood, Sweat and Arrogance") but he is what I would call a "Churchill-Hater" which I am not, so he's not a good read for research. I want facts in a book, not opinions.

Richard Toye seems to find the right balance.

warspite1

Hotschi, please let me know what you think once you have read it. My take on it is that Churchill was no different to the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries - its the old problem of trying to judge people of yesteryear by the standards of today.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hotschi

Finished Wars of Empire by Douglas Porch.

It was one of the free military history e-books for the Kindle. Mixed feelings. It's one of those "I want to squeeze too much stuff into too few pages" kind of books. Porch is extremely jumping around to different places and stories on the very same page - as if he wants to put a 3 hour speech into 10 minutes. And the largest disappointment was the end of the book, where Porch writes about the twenties of last century then immediately jumps to George Bush ! But at least the book was for free...

Started Churchill's Empire by Richard Toye - and am very impressed reading into the first chapters so far. I was looking for a book describing how Winston came to his often contradictionary and sometimes downright racist views about empire and people not of the white colour - there's books around by Gordon Corrigan about Churchill ("Blood, Sweat and Arrogance") but he is what I would call a "Churchill-Hater" which I am not, so he's not a good read for research. I want facts in a book, not opinions.

Richard Toye seems to find the right balance.

warspite1

Hotschi, please let me know what you think once you have read it. My take on it is that Churchill was no different to the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries - its the old problem of trying to judge people of yesteryear by the standards of today.

But how do you know that the one who judges is using "standards of today"? Maybe the one who judges also judges today negatively?

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

@Wings7 - I play tested Squad leader, not ASL though, and Avalon Hill gave me a counter in the mix as a reward, along with a game. The game were nothing to get excited about, but the counter warmed my heart.

After I joined the forums I saw people using various counters as avatars, and I wanted to photograph mine, but it was so small that I cut cardboard square, and applied ink and marker to make my image.

I still have my notes from the play testing, and some correspondence from Don.

Chuck

(Page 1 of 27 I think)

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Hotschi, please let me know what you think once you have read it. My take on it is that Churchill was no different to the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries - its the old problem of trying to judge people of yesteryear by the standards of today.