I am reading this at the moment as I mentioned previously. Its a good book and Hastings has an eminently enjoyable writing style - very easy to read.
The problem I find is that he is - not for the first time - too hard on the British Army. To effectively discount one man's VC is pretty shoddy in my opinion.
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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.
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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
warspite1
Armageddon probably - by the same author...
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England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805
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?
You hated it that much? I can understand someone not liking a particular book but that seems really extreme. Anyway, I'm only through the first act or so, so I reserve the right to change my opinion, but I really like the atmosphere and the world building. Right off the bat you have cool high-tech stuff mixed with elements of mysticism and various layers of politics and intrigue. It's certainly a page-turner for me.
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A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin
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But when Territories are acquired in regions where there are differences in language, customs, and laws then great good fortune and much hard work are required to hold them.
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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.
< Message edited by cpdeyoung -- 11/26/2013 12:23:46 AM >
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I saw, quite on the off chance, that there is a book by Geirr H Haarr called The Gathering Storm (The Naval War in Northern Europe Sept 30 to April 40).
Having bought, read and loved this author's work on the naval war during the Norwegian Campaign - The German Invasion of Norway and Battle For Norway - I thought I would take a chance and buy it. It arrived today and from a quick glance through I have to say this looks like its going to be another very good read
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England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805
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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
warspite1
Its a real shame because I find Max Hastings to be an excellent story teller. To be clear I do not have a problem with any pointing out of the truth, its the way it is being presented. He finally said something positive about the British performance in the latter stages of the Battle of the Marne, but essentially it boils down to this:
German and, particularly the French fought like lions but their leaders were rubbish, The British hardly fought at all, and when they did, they were incompetent at all levels. The German and French fighting is largely at army / corps level, while the tales of the British are at division, regiment or even smaller level - hence the comment earlier about having time to trash the merits of one soldier's Victoria Cross...
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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.
< Message edited by Hotschi -- 12/1/2013 11:46:24 AM >
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"A big butcher's bill is not necessarily evidence of good tactics"
- Wavell's reply to Churchill, after the latter complained about faint-heartedness, as he discovered that British casualties in the evacuation from Somaliland had been only 260 men.
This is just one title of the 11 volumes series "Abraham Lincoln, A Life", a superb 11 volume narrative of Lincoln, by Michael Burlingame.
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"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman
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.
Chuck, who did your ASL type avatar? I like it, very original!
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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.
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England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805
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?
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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?
warspite1
Well obviously. Its more of a saying - I think it naturally assumes that when, for example, one is talking about standards of today in a rascist context, one assumes the position that you have to be a malignant piece of %^&* to believe that one race is inherently superior to another.
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@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.
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Just started reading a collection of works by David Hume called "Moral Philosophy", published by Hackett Press. It contains "A Treatise of Human Nature", "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" and "Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary". Not really reading in any order a this point, just sort of jumping to different essays at the moment. Read three essays from "Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary". also started on the editor's introduction. Pretty good read so far. I love the modern philosophers. They seem to have a very common sense approach in their writing style that is relatively easy to follow. It makes their ideas seem almost timeless. Hume makes a lot more sense to me than lot of the "post-modern" hocus pocus out there.
"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman
@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)
Chuck, thanks for your reply ! Do you still have the original Squad Leader game that you play tested with? Thanks for sharing your notes about your play testing...you are a Squad Leader/Avalon Hill celebrity of sorts . And Don Greenwood is the all-time war game guru!
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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.
Will reply on topic in about a week or so - my 6 yr old laptop finally broke down, have to wait about a week until the ordered new one arrives. By then I guess I have also finished reading the book. Until then, see you all!
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"A big butcher's bill is not necessarily evidence of good tactics"
- Wavell's reply to Churchill, after the latter complained about faint-heartedness, as he discovered that British casualties in the evacuation from Somaliland had been only 260 men.