Douglas Winter Books

Apocalypse: 1. a. Apocalypse. Bible, The Book of Revelation. b. Any of various anonymous Jewish or Christian texts from around the second century BC containing prophetic or symbolic visions, especially of the imminent destruction of the world. 2. Great or total devastation. 3. A prophetic disclosure; a revelation.

In the United Kingdom, Revelations has an alternate title: Millennium. This 1997 anthology does indeed consider the (then) impending Millennium, in Clive Barker's exquisite fictional discourse on storytelling, "The Chiliad--A Meditation." Composed of two interlocking stories set one thousand years apart, this framing device puts forth the notion that the future influences the past, that the river of time "flows both ways." The true focus of this collection, however, is the twentieth century, perhaps the most turbulent in all of human history. Over the course of ten stories, each dealing with a specific decade, twelve writers focus on the human element involved in cataclysmic events.

The first story, "The Big Blow," by Joe R. Lansdale, is set in 1900. Two hurricanes hit Galveston, Texas, one a natural phenomenon, the other taking the form of big John McBride, a vile, profane man hired by racist members of the Galveston Sporting Club to wrest the club's boxing title from its present owner, a black man named 'Lil' Arthur (Jack) Johnson. Their intense battle is matched only by the ferocity of the hurricane that strikes during the match, leveling the city.

The next story takes place in 1918. "If I Should Die Before I Wake," by David Morrell, tells the story of Dr. Jonas Bingaman, whose heroic efforts do little to assuage the devastating effect of the Spanish Influenza on Elmsdale, the small town where he practices. Morrell reveals a sobering fact at the end of this touching story: while World War I caused the deaths of 8.5 million, the estimated number of those killed by the Spanish Influenza was 40 million.

F. Paul Wilson's entry, "Aryans and Absinthe," takes us to Germany, circa 1923. Here, Karl Stehr, a Jewish bookseller, is befriended by the mysterious Ernst Drexler, who counsels him on avoiding the debilitating effects of Germany's runaway inflation. Drexler also introduces him to absinthe, which causes the bookseller to hallucinate during an impassioned speech by rising political figure Adolph Hitler. During this episode, Stehr has a vision of the Holocaust, and, believing it to be true, decides to kill its architect. This is a "If you could stop Hitler before he came to power story" with a delicious twist.

"Triads," by Poppy Z. Brite and Christa Faust, is the story of two young boys, Ji Fung and Lin Bai, lovers caught up in the corrupt and exotic world of 1937 Hong Kong and Shanghai. Sold to a performing troupe by their families as children, the pair escape their brutal master only to become involved with Chinese gangs. This stylish tale, set against the backdrop of the Sino-Japanese War , ends tragically, but on a note of optimism.

We next visit the forties and fifties, courtesy of Charles Grant and Whitley Streiber. In "Riding the Black," Grant takes a prototypical Western plot and stands it on its head. Here, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse perceives the end of the world not in the creation of the atomic bomb, but in the advent of the television age. Streiber's story "The Open Doors," is a stream of consciousness reflection on the atomic bomb and (surprise!) alien visitation which demands rereading.

The sixties are handled by Elizabeth Massie. I felt sure that "Fixtures of Matchstick Men and Joo," Massie's story on hippie cults and culture, would end up dealing with the Manson family, but I was dead wrong. Her twist ending reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw recently, which read "I know I'm Paranoid, but am I Paranoid ENOUGH?"

The seventies are covered by Richard Christian Matheson's epistolary "Whatever," the eighties by "Dismantling Fortress Architecture," a collaboration between David Schow and Craig Spector. Matheson's knowing story follows the rise and fall of seventies supergroup Whatever through a series of magazine articles, press releases and interviews (I especially liked the name of the band's debut album, Know Means Know). Schow and Spector use the fall of the Iron Curtain as a backdrop in their piece, an eclectic summation of over sixty years of German history. This piece is unique to the anthology in that it refers to events in another story in the collection, Wilson's "Aryans and Absinthe."

Ramsey Campbell brings readers into the nineties with "The Word," which chronicles the career of writer Jess Kray, as seen through the eyes of Jeremy Bates, a curmudgeonly reviewer/critic. Kray, a sub mid-list author, writes a bestseller called The Word, which literally means all things to all people. Bates, skeptical of Kray, hopes to expose him as a fraud, but unwittingly bestows Messianic status on him during a live television broadcast.

Winter should be commended on the uniform quality of these stories--after all, the nature of the anthology did not permit him the luxury of arranging the stories to maximum advantage. The book is indeed a revelation, a thought provoking reflection on the century just ended. Rather than dealing with thousand year cataclysms, the stories focus on individual apocalypses, reminding readers that horror takes many forms--prejudice, natural disasters, disease, runaway inflation, technology, social upheaval and ignorance are just a few of its aspects. This emphasis gives Revelations an intimacy and power it might not otherwise have had.

Winter points out in his afterword that the end of a century is "a global anniversary, and inevitably a time of summing up and looking ahead." Revelations does just that: it tells us where we've been, while raising a number of disturbing questions about where we are going.

Words fail me, which is not usual at all. All I can say is if they decide to do another one of these things for God's sake pick an editor that knows what he's doing!

Well, I finished revelations ed by Douglas E. Winter. I appreciate what he tried to do here, a novel of short stories, and it was a good idea, but it just seemed to fall flat. I could never quite see the connection between the stories. But it fell short. And I was surprised that this wasn't that great, because Winter put together _Prime Evil_, which I truly enjoyed.

Clive Barker's wraparound story wasn't very good. It had some interesting parts to it, but really, not his best work. Landsdale, who wrote the first story (each story took place in a different decade...but I'm not sure when barker's story took place) wasn't too bad. David Morrell's story I'd say the same about. F. Paul Wilson's story about Nazi Germany was excellent. Probably the best in the book. Poppy Z. Brite and Christa Faust's story was a good one. charles grant's story wasn't bad. Whitley Streiber wrote an unintelligable, very bad story for the 50s decade. I never really caught on to what was happening. Elizabeth massie wrote what would be the second best story in the book, it too was excellent. Matheson, who I know is a good writer wrote some garbage for the book...it sucked. David J. Schow and Craig Spector wrote a story for this book that was okay, it was almost good, but something is missing from it (hmm...I wonder if that'd be Skipp). And since at least half of this book was bad, I was worried when I got to the last decade/story which was written by ramsey campbell. Luckily he wrote a pretty good story.

I think this is the most useless, pointless, and very frequently unintelligible book I have read in a long time. Although I admit I was expecting the stories to be more inclined toward Apocalyptic scenarios, my mind was open; but this book asks the reader to go almost as insane as some of its collaborators. It is comprised of 10 stories, and a wrap-around story written by Clive Barker (if you don't get that, it means the first part of it starts the book, the second ends it). Besides Barker's story, the others take place in successive decades of the Twentieth Century. Overall it is an attempt to create a book of short stories attempting to be short novels that contemplate the nature of humanity and send out a "prophetic warning and a visionary answer for all humankind."

Barker's story "The Chiliad" (referring to the passage of 1000 years) is original, if not a little confusing at times, especially because the first half leaves the reader a bit confused, and is overall a worthy read. The second story, called "The Big Blow" takes place in 1900. It involves a prize fight in Galveston, Texas, that is interrupted by one of the worst hurricanes in Unites States History. There's really no story here, no "revelations" except my realization that author (Joe R. Lansdale) likes to use misplaced vulgarity and homosexual scenes to compensate for spans where the lack of talent is apparent.

The story following it, called "If I Should Die Before I Wake" is one of the better stories in this book, possibly be the best. David Morrell did a good job here showing the turmoil of the influenza pandemic, and the personal agony it caused. There is a small amount of personal revelation here, and it complements the story in a way I can't fully explain. The 1920's story that follows it written by F. Paul Wilson is also fairly good. Titled "Aryans and Absinthe" it regards the real story behind the "staged" assassination attempt of Hitler in Munich, which caused a riot and started the political uprising that Hitler rode from prison to the writing of Mein Kampf and eventually all the way into the Reichs Chancellery. Although it has some annoying bouts of economic jargon, the "revelation" part led to a very original, as well as interesting interpretation of history.

Here's where the book takes a turn for the worse, with the atrocious piece of "work" called "Triads," taking place in 1930's Hong Kong as well as mainland China, during the start of the Chinese-Japanese hostilities. It's the story of two young lovers, put into a Hong Kong dance school as young children, who end up defying the Triads...blah, blah, and more blah. It sucked! Oh, and by the way, the two lovers, they're both men, and the story is written by two women. Perhaps they're trying to make the story seem more sincere or they're trying to make some insinuations into male lives. There is a minute revelation here, lasting for about a paragraph, and having no other connection with the plot. Besides that, it seethed ineptness bordering on incompetence, the story being so disjointed it was not worth the read.

Charles Grant's story taking place in the 1940's was pretty good. It was a bit strange, especially because of the ambiguity regarding the strange cowboy living on the edge of a desert town, but was definitely worth the read. The 1950's story written by Whitley Strieber is the worst piece of writing (I could've used other words besides worst to describe it) that I have ever read. It makes no sense at all, and reads like a four-year old with hallucinogens in its formula wrote it. It has something to do with a nuclear scientist, and simply thrown in there as a minimal point, the ever-present Strieber theme: aliens! I don't know how anyone could interpret this as anything other than inane babble.

The 1960's story is pretty good, having to do with a camp devoted to ensuring the peace, love, and well-being of individuals during a time of war and unrest. However, it is not as tranquil as it seems, and society is actually being manipulated by a guarded evil...The 1970's story is more crap, written by Richard Matheson, called "Whatever." It is an incoherent mass of news clips and short narratives about a revolutionary band that aspired to change the world. The 1980's story is mediocre, though I agree with another reviewer here, it is missing a degree of something, and the ideas put forth in it are not fully developed. The premise is the Fourth Reich's rise from the dust still new on the ground from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the attempts of some to prevent that rise. The 1990's story is called "the Word" and chronicles the release of a new book (called The Word) which puts the whole world in an uproar. Everyone feels that it is Earth-shattering, when it actually says nothing at all, and only one man knows it, because he knew the author before he wrote this book, and what type of person he is. I still haven't figured out what The Word (the imaginary book in this story) heralds: the coming of the new messiah or the apocalypse, but (the story) sure ends strangely.

This book is overall amazingly strange and has very little in the way of revelation in it, and when it does it is mainly clouded by bad writing and vague terminology, which results in a very sub-literary book, which it seems to constantly attempt to be. It ultimately comes off as exactly what it is: nothing much at all, save for perhaps the meager good stories which carry the overpowering dead weight of the many horrible stories in this ineffective anthology.

The title piqued my interest. Most of the authors listed in the contents, I had heard of or read before. My favorites in the group are "If I Should Die Before I Wake", which involves a small town dealing with the deadly Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and "Whatever", which deals with a cultist society. Both sent chills. The rest of the stories provoked a good response in me, but those two continue to stand out. Clive Barker's wraparounds were very good. Be sure to add this to your collection.

A strong anthology, with a 3.57 average, with the Simmons being the weakest part in general. However, the Martin 'hard boiled werewolf' novella is excellent.

Dark Visions : The Reploids - Stephen King
Dark Visions : Sneakers - Stephen King
Dark Visions : Dedication - Stephen King
Dark Visions : Metastasis - Dan Simmons
Dark Visions : Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell - Dan Simmons
Dark Visions : Iverson's Pits - Dan Simmons
Dark Visions : The Skin Trade - George R. R. Martin


Tonight show replacement appearance.

4 out of 5


Music biz mule dunny ghost.

4 out of 5


Spoof eater curse signing time.

3 out of 5


Cancer monster suspicion.

3 out of 5


Bolgia's televangelist transformation torment time.

3.5 out of 5


Officer's holey end.

3 out of 5


Mirror mirror on the wall, werewolf killer, blood will call.

4.5 out of 5




3.5 out of 5

I purchased this collection of works originally in its 1988 "Night Visions" release, primarily for its Stephen King contributions - and promptly work the cover off reading and re-reading the absolute masterworks by Dan Simmons and George R.R. Martin. I was literally jumping out of my chair when I happened across this new edition!

First off King's works are as good as always, both entertaining (Reploids, Sneakers), disturbing (Dedication) and thought-provoking.

Dan Simmons' contributions were an unexpected surprise. "Metastasis" had me on the edge of my seat, and "Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell" had me laughing out loud and shouting triumpantly at the same time. Bravo, Mr. Simmons!

George R.R. Martin's "The Skin Trade" definitely saves the best for last. This short story has become my favorite horror tale of all time, hands down. As of my writing this, I have read it at least twenty times, and it hasn't lost a bit of its appeal. For those of you who only know Mr. Martin through his "Song of Ice and Fire" series, this will show you why he is one of the greatest storytellers of our generation. It is a must-have for any reader's shelf.

I agree with Harry - I don't know why everyone feels the need to post reviews before they actually read/use the products. This definately goes to all the losers who posted reviews on the latest Harry Potter book seconds after it came out. Or spoiled it by insisting on reviewing right after they finished it. I really don't care if you lined up for a two hours at midnight and then read it cover to cover over the next 24 hours...get a life.
In short -- don't display your ignorance for the whole world to view...there are enough people doing it as it is.
If you really want to see crazy, check out the review of "Partridge Family Christmas" that some religious nutbag posted.

I have been reading SK for almost 30 years now. Along the way I have occasionally had to allow for some "make a deadline" stories(ie Geralds Game, The Tommynockers.) Over all I have loved most of his work and have always eagerly awaited his next story. The last one I read was the final Dark Tower book of the series and I have to say, his ego seems to be out of control in this one. It used to be quirky and fun to have him incorporate himself into his stories and movies.
Stephen King's story, in this book, definitely falls short of his normal intense and creative writting. As was stated in another review, there seems to be no ending. As for buying it, that's up to you. I am a loyal reader of his and will give him a few more sales (we'll see what "Cell" has to offer, but it sounds dangerously close to the semi-recent movie) just in case he is going through a slow period. Dare I say it...maybe it's time to call it a day and retire from writing Stephen...or at least take an extended vacation.

"Dark Visions" (2000) is a new edition of a 1988 anthology called "Night Visions 5: The Skin Trade."

It includes 3 short stories by Stephen King, 3 more by Dan Simmons, and one by George R.R. Martin.

King's contributions are "Reploids", "Sneakers", and "Dedication." Reploids is very short and goes nowhere. "Sneakers" is okay. Some parts are pretty cool. It's basically about a haunted men's room. (I kid you not.) "Dedication" is pretty gross. (As part of a black magic spell, a woman eats a man's congealing semen off of his sheets.) It gets points for the originality of its disgusting premise, but it's not a great story. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, all three stories are reprinted in King's collection "Nightmares & Dreamscapes."

Dan Simmons' contributions are "Metastasis" -- which is great -- "Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell", and "Iverson's Pits." Metastasis is about supernatural slug-like creatures that cause cancer. They're usually invisible. Only one man is able to see them, and he invents a technique for drawing them out of their victims. "Vanni Fucci" is about a damned man and is slightly comedic. It's an okay story. A lot of Dan Simmons' fans think "Iverson's Pits" is the best of the three, but I liked it least. It's about Civil War ghosts, I think. (It's been a while since I read it.) Like Stephen King's stories, these three Dan Simmons stories were reprinted elsewhere. I think they're in the collection "Prayers to Broken Stones."

The best story is the last and also the longest. It's George R.R. Martin's werewolf story "The Skin Trade." I don't remember the whole plot, but I remember the story was *good*. And I don't think this story is available in another book.

I bought this book simply as an assignment for an English class where we had to read a book by a Canadian author. Luckily I chose this book! Living in Saskatchewan myself, I relate to many of the same feelings the author describes, particularly about the seasons, and the simple summer pleasure of going to the dairy queen on 8th at 10:00 at night. I think the readers living in Sask. will have an extra appreciation of where Mr.Carpenter is coming from.

Generally a good book but it lacked the stories of Saskatchewan life I wanted to read about. Almost every story was about fishing which may be the only thing one does in Saskatchewan. I had expected more about the province, more stories and tales about Saskatchewan. What I found were stories about Carpenters life, although interesting, not very reflective of living in Saskatchewan.

Nearly four decades into Stephen King's professional writing career, the critical debate continues as to where his work falls on a spectrum ranging from disposable trash to genuine literature. I have my own opinion, of course; but I will say this: even King's prolific schedule (four novels published inside a year and a half, at its peak) can't compare to the number of books written about him. And that, I suspect, is something that can't be said of Danielle Steel.

King the man (apart from King the writer) is a fascinating person, both in terms of his own biography and experiences and in the erudite way he can hold forth on seemingly any topic (not just his encyclopedic knowledge of the horror genre). I would point the interested fan to Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller's collections of Stephen King's interviews for a revealing look at King's thoughts and they way they've evolved over the years. Douglas E. Winter's study of King's work from Carrie through The Talisman provides yet another perspective, focusing on the origins and influences of his output during that period.

Winter terms his work a "critical appreciation," which I find to be a fair designation. There is no pretense of impartiality here (though no literary critic is impartial, and Winter sets himself apart with his honesty), and indeed Winter has based his work in large part on an extended interview with King himself. Winter, uniquely, accepts the author as the final authority on his own writing and limits most of his comments to harmless observations on recurring themes anf motifs in the stories and novels and so forth. The book is, however, meticulously footnoted, with indices and primary and secondary bibliographies, and so it cannot be said that Winter hasn't done his homework. To complain that Winter hasn't taken a deconstructionist or postmodernist axe to King's work like some ham-handed graduate student is to criticize The Art of Darkness for failing to be something it was never intended to be.

If there is a caveat for the reader, it is that this book is, of course significantly out of date. This is a critical snapshot of a moment in time; be warned, the Stephen King depicted here is no more. Too much has happened since then; personal issues, external events, landmark happenings such as the completion of the Dark Tower series (the first volume of which was only available in a limited edition when Winter published his book). Nevertheless, I believe that even a Stephen King completist will find some tidbit of King's or observation of Winter's that he or she hasn't run across before; if you are such a person, you might want to give this a glance--assuming you haven't already

This is an interesting collection of essays on King's early novels--from "Carrie" (1974) through "The Talisman" (1984). It's got some interesting things to say about images and structures of the novels--I particularly enjoyed his comparison between Jack Sawyer in "The Talisman" and Huck Finn. The essays include comments from both from interviews with the author and quoted from other sources. But Winter is really more of a fan than a critic, and his praise tends to be a bit too gushing and somewhat less critical than I would hope. A readable book and interesting if you're into King and horror commentary. But I'm still waiting for a more insightful commentary on King's work.

These are the opening words of this book:

"Until the 1960s, Britain's contribution to the Great War seemed clearcut, the roles of her chief players generally accepted.

"Haig campaigned consistently for concentration of effort against Germany's main army....

"When it came to actual fighting, the traditional view was that Haig had pounded the Germans with a string of attrition battles, worn them down and in the end won that sweeping victory he always predicted." [Page 1]

That "traditional view," now there's the rub. Anyone coming to ths book about the First World War with no more knowledge than that imparted in the half hour or so devoted to it in high school history classes might actually believe Winter's implication that Field-Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC (1861-1928), has a military reputation of sufficient luster to justify a scholar mounting an all-out attack against it in the name of truth. Those who know a little bit more about the man and the war, tend to treat Winter's self-proclaimed crusade with something very like a snort of derision--as may be seen from the negative reviews to be found right here in Amazon.

That Haig is not enrolled upon the list of history's great captains is hardly news. B. H. Liddel Hart was making mincemeat of Haig's accomplishments back in the 1930s and the memory of the First Lord Haig has not exactly been overwhelmed by the number and warmth of his defenders since then.

Whatever Winter's original outlook and intention might have been, it is clear that by the time he came to write this book, he despised Haig and all his works. Winter never gives Haig the benefit of a doubt: Haig was always wrong in whatever he set his hand to and any or all of his actions can be analyzed as a combination of self-serving careerism, general stupidity and pig-headed rigidity.

Winter is always delighted to quote negative remarks made about Haig by his brother officers.

Monash, Commander of the Australian Corps: "Haig was, technically speaking, quite out of his depth in regard to the minutiae of the immense resources which were placed in his hands. I was at first quite dismayed to find that he obviously did not know in detail the composition of his formations.... On a later occasion in 1918, he appeared to blunder badly and be out of touch with the details of the situation when he came to discuss with me how best to exploit the great victory of 8 August before Amiens." [Page 163]

Edmonds, the official historian of the war: "Haig knew nothing about infantry or engineers and could not understand artillery." [Page 163]

Morton, one of the Field Marshal's ADCs: Haig had an "utter dislike of new ideas." [Page 163]

Readers familiar with the voluminous and bilious writings that followed the American Civil War will tend to take such ex post facto stabs and digs with a grain of salt.

Winter does not limit himself to blackguarding Haig at second hand. Often enough, he speaks in his own voice:

"Thus Haig's rapid promotion owed little to proven professional competence and much to good fortune with patrons. Wood, Kitchener and Escher were all men of substance and their support had pushed Haig far ahead of his rivals--but at a price. The frisson of homosexuality attaching to each of his patrons gave ammunition to jealous rivals, all the more because of a strong dislike of women which he made little effort to conceal. As a middle-aged bachelor, Haig realized that he was in a potentially embarrassing position and his marriage must be seen in that context." [Page 33]

"In briefing sessions, Haig always reduced the airing of contrary opinions to a minimum.... These symptoms of a man avoiding situations which might challenge his own rigid conceptions of command were accompanied by a disturbing change in Haig himself. Before the war he seldom went to church, preferring to spend the Sabbath on a golf course.... As soon as he became Commander in Chief, however, a religious dimension appears. God, to be sure, was never mentioned by name, and Haig's denomination seems almost to have been chosen as a result of a particular preacher's good looks, youthful energy and simple sermons...." [Pages 164-165]

To my mind, whatever value this book may have is subverted by the author's evident passions. It may well be that he has assembled useful facts and made valid judgements, but the tone of the book is such that I simply cannot trust them.

Two stars and too bad.

One should read it opposite the John Terraine hagiogrpahy on Haig, and be prepared to be surprised by all the gloss, flasehoods and lies by the British Establishment to cover up its idiocy in prosecuting the war in the hands of an incompetent like Haig.

With this book Denis Winter seems to have launched a near-quixotic quest to get the real facts regarding Haig's command. One of the most important conclusions reached is that almost all the official histories, cabinet minutes, unit reports, and similar works have been very carefully vetted and 'cleaned up' before being published. Not even individual memoirs can be relied on as the gov't often had carrots and sticks in hand to deal with more independent-minded veterans. Winter suggests a broad, self-serving conspiracy by those at the top to preserve their reputations and to save the public the additional grief of learning that their sons/husbands/fathers may have died incidentally due to bureaucratic incompetence, amateurish leadership, or the sheer indifference of chateau generals.

Winter deconstructs the official mythology regarding Haig and exposes him to be a well-connected careerist interested more in being field marshal than in pursuing the effective and successful leadership of his troops. This isn't so surprising or unusual in that most democracies at least initially heavily rely on political appointees in times of mass mobilization (American Civil War, Pershing, Smuts, etc.). However, Haig seems to have devoted much of his WWI energies intriguing for the top job and writing daily diary entries (apparently meant for later public consumption). How is it that so many leading British figures found time not only to keep copious, detailed diaries but also to manage an entire war?

The book is divided into the following major sections: Haig's Credentials, The Attrition Battles of 1916-1917, The Attrition Period, 1918: A Year of Mobility, and Falsifying the Record. 'Haig's Credentials' examines how Haig's top-level connections with Esher and the king eventually unseated French and placed Haig securely in power for the remainder of the war. 'The Attrition Battles' critically analyzes Haig's refusal to stop a battle once it became obvious it would not succeed (usually the first 48 hours). 'The Attrition Period' looks at the Commonwealth armies under his command and his heavy reliance on Canadians and ANZACs. '1918' discusses Haig's poor preparations to meet the expected German spring offensives and his near panic, followed by placing supreme allied command into Foch's hands. 'Falsifying the Record' then goes into particular detail involving the cover-ups and manipulations of Haig's memoirs - apparently three different versions of them.

Denis Winter's analysis is highly critical, but he does give Haig some due credit for correctly anticipating the time and place of the German attack. But for the most part, Winter shows Haig in the likely true light, that of an aspiring careerist officer struggling to learn the military side of his trade and often scapegoating others for his own failures, e.g. Charteris, and selectively releasing self-serving diary excerpts. All in all a very insightful book about Haig that I recommend to any serious student of WWI. Consider reading John Terraine's To Win a War for an alternative pro-Haig/establishment view.

Denis Winter's nickname in Great War history circles is "The self-appointed Witchfinder General of the Great War". It's not catchy, but it's pretty accurate.

This book is a nonsense that would be ridiculous were it not worryingly popular. Winter's thesis is effectively a vehicle to advance his own agenda and has been debunked by a number of highly reputable historians, including Australia's two most eminent historians of World War 1, Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson (neither of whom could be described as fans of Haig). It has also been disowned by the staff at the Australian War Memorial. Not a very glittering endorsement.

Winter accuses a lot of people (pretty much everyone in Britain, basically) of covering up Haig's deficiencies and generally lying. Aside from that fact that it is generally unwise to buy into any conspiracy that requires more than three people to keep their mouths shut, Winter's thesis doesn't have much credibility when one considers that fact that half the people accused of conspiring harboured massive personal animus agaisnt Haig and would have taken delight in sticking the knife in where possible (as Brigadier James edmonds did on more than one occassion). Given the shockingly bad reputation Haig enjoys among the public at large, Winter's book has been described by one historian as "surely the most unsuccessful conspiracy in history". Well, quite.

On top of this, ironically given the relish with which he accuses others of lying and distorting history, it has been demonstrated that Winter systematically misquotes and selectively edits sources and distorts the evidence. For example, from a letter by a staff officer saying "You might think that the quality of the army has not improved a jot in the four years since the outbreak of the war but I would most strongly disagree with this assessment and would argue that our performance has demonstrably improved in leaps and bounds", Winter will simply lift the bit that says "the quality of the army has not improved a jot in the four years since the outbreak of the war" and present that as evidence of British generals covertly condeming themselves out of their own mouths. Of course, for people without the time to look or access to archived material it is fairly difficult to refute this sort of thing and for a long time Winter's claims went unquestioned (aided in no small part by the fact that he was often telling people what they wanted to hear). Judging by some of the reviews of the book on this website, some things haven't changed.

In summary, this is a terrible book. It is bad history. It is polemical. And above all it is intellectually dishonest. There are far better books on great war generalship out there, if only people would care to look. Sadly, most people seem happier reinforcing their prejudices with this sort of thing and as long as this is the case I don't doubt Winter's books will continue to sell like hot cakes while more worthy academic works will continue to gather dust on the shelves.

Part military history, part rant, part character assassination, and part conspiracy theory, Denis Winter's "Haig's Command" has, in a morbid sense, something for everyone.

The central thesis of the book is simple, yet sensational: The "truth" about British military operations in France during the First World War was concealed for nearly fifty years because Field Marshal Douglas Haig, with the complicity of the British government, bowdlerized and rewrote the official records so that his own incompetence (and indirectly that of the British Government) would be hidden. Winter claims that the true story can be pieced together by comparing the histories and minutes of the Dominion records (i.e. Australian and Canadian) that escaped the censorious scalpel and became public record in the 1960s.

From beginning to end, Winter unleashes a firestorm of abuse on Haig. To begin with, he says, Haig's military career is the story of a completely fabricated C.V. and the patronage of a few, well-placed figures in the British Army. Moreover, the author hints that Haig's relationship with these key mentors -- most notably Lords Kitchener and Esher -- may have been homosexual in nature. As a Corps commander under Sir John French during the opening months of the war, Haig bungled every operation he was entrusted with, Winter says, so his eventual promotion to Field Marshal had nothing to do with battlefield performance.

From the moment Haig takes command in December 1915, Winter's book so entirely rewrites the history of the Western Front that it is impossible to synthesize his points and accusations. Needless to say, everything you've read before is wrong; everything Haig did was a moronic disaster; and everything in the British war records is a willful, malicious lie.

This book comes with the imprimatur of dusk jacket praise from Norman Stone, a respected historian of the First World War. It also lists some prominent endorsements for Winter's previous effort, the widely acclaimed "Death's Men." It isn't surprising that John Keegan and others refused to sign up in support of the author's latest work.

If you are a serious student of military history and the First World War in particular, it may not be a bad idea to familiarize yourself with Winter's arguments, if only to reject them out of hand. Otherwise, don't bother with this book.