Troops Books

An amusing study in narcissism and delusional self-flattery. Jaime Salazar is absurd. He seems to fancy himself a cultured, intellectual, gentleman soldier but the bullsh** in this book is so shamefully thick that instead he comes across as a rather pitiful, self-conscious and insecure man-child. Seriously, this book is a farce.

This is the story of a bored, Generation X-er, who after reading too many adventure novels, decides to test his manhood and seek adventure in the military. Lacking military experience, he had not yet developed the healthy skepticism necessary for assessing military recruiters' promises of excitement and adventure. But instead of making a small mistake by enlisting in the U.S. Army and ending up peeling potatoes at Ft. Benning, he makes a bigger mistake and joins the French Foreign Legion for a five year tour.
The book is at its best when it describes the sadistic treatment of new recruits. Drunken NCOs savagely beat the recruits on a whim. Training is Spartan, equipment third-rate, and the rations kept near the starvation level. The other aspirants of the kepis blancs, unlike the author, have few opportunities in life. Some are refugees of Eastern Europe or North Africa, some veterans of other countries' military units. To them even the meager pay of a legionnaire is welcome. The author finds himself at a disadvantage with his civility and pampered upbringing. Those readers with military experience will find themselves comparing and contrasting their own basic training to this tortuous ordeal.
The author writes well and does a fine job inserting historical anecdotes about the Legion Etrangere. However, the publisher could have done a better job catching the many typos throughout the book. The author is obvious proud that he earned his kepi blanc. The book is at its worse in the latter phases when he describes, with obvious pride, his female conquests while on leave. The Paris bistros serve as the only battlefield for the drunken bravado he has acquired in his few months of training. In the end the author deserts before his first year is out. No tales of adventure or combat here. One wonders what took him so long.

Salazar could'nt finish what he started and appears to have written a book with the hopes of turning it into a movie. Much of what is written is not necessary to the story and serves no purpose other than to prop up Salazar's ego after he failed to serve with Honor and Fidelity. Every other book about the Legion is better reading. Buy Simon Murray's book instead.

This book is an account of a well-off american in the French Foreign Legion. Its really got nothing new to say about the Legion that has not been said endlessly in other sources. But its a fun "lite" read. Lots of stories about getting drunk, the absurdities of military life in peacetime and the charcters that are part of a force like the Legion.

Don't expect any excitment though. What you get is an account of garrison duty in the france during peacetime. About the closest there is to any action is when the author deserts the legion and he deserts fast.

Salazar (the author) doesn't come across as a very likeable character in the book. But he has a casual style in writing that made me forget all the things about him that were not all that great.

I wouldn't go so far as to place blame upon the author; however, the story telling is heavy skewed in the writers favor. Please do not consider this book to be representative of life in the Legion or the 2°REG.

Very dry, almost boring. Typical Clancy writing. I realize it is not a novel but I have read other books on SF and they are much more interesting although not as in depth as Clancy's. This book is a little outdated now. You can probably find more up to date information on SF.

I should have known when I noticed in the store that this book lacked an index, that I should have put it back on the shelf. The omission of an index in what is purportedly an information resource is generally a bad omen, as illustrated by this book.

The book feels rushed and half-hearted. The information included, whether on weapons systems or unit history is spotty, at best, and missing or incorrect at worst. Delta, which admittedly is not officially operational, rates only a single, offhanded mention. There is a definite biased slant towards Army Special Forces at the expense of other branches, and while it would be expected if this were written by an USASOC denizen, it is inappropriate and unprofessionial in this context.

The photos are grainy and rather oddly chosen and the use of black and white printing, presumably to save money, shows a sincere lack of attention when the book shows different SF unit badges as uniformly gray patches.

This book pales when compared to earlier efforts like Marine or Carrier and comes across as a quickly produced reaction to growing interest in U.S. Special Operations.

I want to say right at the front that I am a very big fan of Clancy, both his fiction and non-fiction work. After the current war in Afghanistan started and there were descriptions that the start of the fighting was being carried out by Special Forces, I thought this book would be a great educational tool to help me better understand the new reports. The book does give a broad understanding of the different US military Special Forces groups, a run down on training, tactics and weapons, but it did not offer much punch in the writing. I also felt like many chapters were almost cut and paste jobs from the chapters before. Overall I felt that the book could have been about 30 - 50 pages shorter and said the same thing, this disappoints me because those pages could have been filled with more real life examples as to the missions these guys actually perform.
Overall this is a good effort by the Clancy team; it is not as good as the Submarine or Carrier books in this line, but a solid effort. I guess I am just expecting more from one of my favorite authors.

Special Forces, the seventh and final entry in Tom Clancy's nonfiction Guided Tour series about America's armed forces, sets its sights on the shadowy -- and often misunderstood -- roles and missions of the men the author calls "the quiet professionals" of the Army's Special Forces command.

Although the public image of the Special Forces stems from such movies as John Wayne's 1968 cornball classic The Green Berets and the Rambo trilogy (Stallone's John Rambo is a former SF veteran who served in Vietnam) and Sgt. Barry Sadler's once-popular "Ballad of the Green Berets," Clancy and his co-author John D. Gresham point out that far from being hell-for-leather, shoot-first-ask-questions-later killing machines, SF soldiers are actually among the best troops in the U.S. Army. They have to be, because their missions -- ranging from blowing up a bridge or weapons factory far behind enemy lines to organizing, training, advising, and assisting foreign armies and police forces of "host" countries "to protect their societies or free them from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, and terrorism." This means that in addition to their combat roles in Afghanistan and Iraq, SF teams are among the busiest of America's soldiers.

One of the more interesting insights I got from reading Special Forces is related to the role played by SF deployments in El Salvador during the darkest days of that Central American nation's long-running civil war. The Reagan Administration, knowing that any major American military intervention would be very unpopular at home and abroad (a Vietnam II in our own back yard, to put it bluntly), was caught in a decision-making dilemma. Clearly they did not wish El Salvador to "go Red" as Cuba and Nicaragua had in the past, yet they knew the ruling class -- derived from the wealthy class of landowners and other top honchos -- was also very indifferent about the conditions of the Salvadoran poor, particularly those in the countryside. Using the army and national guard -- themselves derived from El Salvador's small middle class -- in repressive and counterproductive ways, El Salvador's government just made matters worse, using indiscriminate tactics and the infamous death squads. Surely, Washington couldn't be too closely linked to a small group of wealthy "patrones" whose only interest was to maintain their lock on power and to ignore the people's legitimate demands for justice and social reform.

The solution? To use Special Forces to gradually change the mindset of the Salvadoran army. It took time, and quite a few of the SF advisers lost their lives in the crossfire between leftist forces and the army. Nevertheless, the Salvadoran officers and soldiers were "re-educated" and, as Clancy writes, "the Salvadoran Army tried acting in other than brutal and repressive ways toward their fellow countrymen, they began to halt activities of their death squads and to actually show respect for basic human rights.

As a result, the rebels lost a lot of support, the Army started winning hearts, minds, and territory, and "by the end of the Cold War [a] peace treaty was a done deal, the civil war had ended, and today there is a coalition government...." Granted, the SF deployments alone were not responsible for this achievement, but they had a major effect in getting the Salvadoran people to see that the way things were being handled by both the government and the rebels were just leading to more bloodshed and chaos.

As in all the Guided Tour series, which are being updated to reflect changes in technology, doctrine, and world realities, Special Forces gives the general reading audience a look at the equipment, training, organization, and the soldiers themselves. There is an interview with Gen. Henry H. Shelton USA (Ret) former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an experienced Special Operations veteran who served with the Special Forces and also commanded Special Operations Command from 1996 to 1998. There are also overviews of the larger Special Operations Command and, finally, a short fictional account of SF personnel in action.

(Oh, and while the Special Forces troops are proud of their famous headgear, they really don't like to be called "Green Berets." As one of them told the authors, "We are NOT hats!")

I was in Special Forces Bad Tolz Germany July 1954 to Oct 1956. Most of the books I have read always say that we did not wear the "green beret" till after President Kennedy 1955. We took traning with the French in 1954, at that time they gave us the Green Beret. I have pictures of that. Carl Arndt

The problem with this entire series is that it is a rehash of the Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison except with more protagonists involved. Initially, the flippant tone is fun but after the third novel, it begins to pale. We're told that M'chel Riss and Jasmine King are gorgeous as well as competent at their jobs and skills but the constant re-emphasis just got to be a real drag: All right, already--we got the picture. Quit harping on it, okay? For a guy, nothing's going to beat a foldout picture so don't even try! Then the stories became very formulaic: Bad guys threaten good guys; good guys get help; bad guys get trounced. Then the last book in the series got a new tweak: Bad guys threaten good guys, good guys get help; good guys turn out to be just as bad as bad guys; both sides get trounced. Okay, neat. But where do you go from there? How many more variations on the theme can you do before you wear a hole in the rug? Somehow, Harry Harrison fleshed out his character of the Stainless Steel Rat much better than Chris Bunch did. And when the Perrys took over, after having read the excellent stuff that Steve Perry has come out with (especially the Matador series), it felt like he was slumming. Even his addition of the technology so common in his rather bleak Matador universe felt fake in this context. Cross-pollination just didn't work because Chris Bunch's original tone was so flippant that the juxtaposition was absolutely jarring to anybody who had ever followed Steve Perry's Matador series and suddenly found themselves in a "Matador Lite" or "Saturday Night Live, Matador-style" book.

This is a great finale (I think) to the Star Risk series. As usual our heroes end up in all sorts of trouble. I will miss the Star Risk gang.

Though well written and exciting sequal. It is not nearly as exciting as Chris Bunch would of made it.
For starters none of the main characters would be sitting around a table mopping. There would be small plots going on at the same time as the main story. Interaction between others and the main player would have a more impact on how each character reacts.
Though I enjoyed the book and the authors maintain the semblance Risk Inc. atmosphere there was some thing lacking. It did not keep me on the edge of my seat to see how it would turn out.

I really don't understand those people complaining that the authors did not do these characters justice. I found the original series at a used book store (a buck each) and tried really hard to like them. While the works were not awful, it would be a stretch to call them more than mediocre in any way. In steps the Perry's (the only reason I bought this book). Now, it is a long established rule that, when taking over a series, ghostwriting, or otherwise contributing to another author's universe, you attempt to emulate their style, theme, character development, etc. So, again, reading some of these reviews, I have to wonder, "What did people expect?" The new authors were given shallow characters and a history of two dimensional plots, and continued with that formula. They toned the ethics down a bit, took some characters off center stage, and added a bit more action (which helped), but otherwise continued in the "spirit" of the series. Perry also brought his martial arts experience to the pages, and, while some people complained that the crew became experts fairly quickly (I will grant them that), I would much prefer an author write a fight scene with authority and experience, rather then have everyone throwing "haymakers", or just skipping over the details.

All in all, this was not a great series, and this book does not make it so. What this book does is continue in the spirit of the original story, and attempt to add closure to the main character's lives. To be honest, Perry is never at his best when writing within the constraints of another author's vision (I don't know any author who is). If you really want to see what this author is capable of, pick up the Matadora series (starting with, the Man Who Never Missed). The entire first trilogy isn't even 600 pages, total, yet tells a far more complete and rich saga than most authors can manage in 4 times the space. And, if you are looking for a complex (and depraved) "space opera" style series, try reading Donaldson's sci-fi (grin); I loved it, but I don't envy his shrink. If you thought Thomas was bad, wait 'til you meet Angus.

I hoped this would be a good light action read. Well it is light if by that one means written for 12 year olds who are just getting into their space opera phase. The characters are cardboard and the action is simply written without enough texture to keep me going. I stopped about 1/4 of the way in and I hate to do that. I might return to it and finish when I have a lot of time on my hands. It's not like I will have forgotten any complicated plot twists and turns.

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.

This book has a good collection of maps and does a fair job of tracking troop movements but has a definite biased slant and innaccurately stresses slavery as the major cause of the war, even though this didn't become a real issue until 1862, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (which is a masterpiece of doublespeak that actually freed NO ONE AT ALL, since Lincoln had no authority over the Confederacy, and specifically excluded northern states). There is an emphasis on negative Southern acts, such as Longstreet's foraging mission in North Carolina, while northern atrocities are glossed over. An impressive piece of historical bias and revisionist history, and only the maps are of interest. Most of those are available for free from the National Archives, just to name one source, or other better-written works, so don't waste your money.

Mark Swanson states that he is a historian, which is an insult to all the individuals that actually delve into history in its entirety without slanting facts to their prejudices. Swanson's "Introduction - Origins of the Civil War" is an account of slavery in the United States and not one iota more! An uninformed person would believe that slavery was the only cause of the WBTS. Save your money and buy one of the many other books that will provide this information without a Marxist point of view.

Although the maps and troops movements are adequate, unfortunately the author falls into the trap of putting out a sanitized (and grossly inaccurate) account of the War Between the States. His "Origins of the War" dealt more with propaganda than with any factual information. The book would have been far more interesting had he actually researched the events taking place prior to the war (ie: the tariff battles and sectional conflicts relating to how the federal budget money was being spent disproportionately), this book would have been a much better work. As it stands, he should have either not delved into the causes (and got it wrong, as he did), or he should have done more research in that area prior to actually writing the book. Disappointing.

The University of Georgia Press Atlas of the Civil War, Month by Month, written by Mark Swanson is a fine book. It is quite unlike the other Civil War atlases out there, which it does not replace, in that it has no battle maps of Gettysburg, etc. with many units or hills marked on them. So if you want to see how the Second Battle of Bull Run or the clash at Mortons Ford unfolded this is not the atlas for you.

What it does do well, which the other atlases never try, is to give you the broad picture of how the entire war was being simultaneously played out across the southeastern third of the country in any given month from 1861 to 1865. Basically the same map of the Confederacy and the border regions appears on the right side with the relevant locations identified. A text on the left side describes the various actions and developments marked on the map on a state-by-state basis.

The text is relatively concise but clear and helpful. The author did not attempt to uncover new ground, but he followed the established line of major historians. For example, in his introduction describing the origins of the Civil War Swanson deftly summarizes the standard interpretation of all contemporary leading historians that slavery was the principal issue. This is not an all-purpose atlas but an atlas for the serious student of the Civil War. It deserves to be rated as five stars.

Mark Swanson has given us a very useful overview of the Civil War, emphasis on useful. This book is brief, giving maps of each month of the war with descriptive text on the facing page. Thus teachers, professors, travelers, and anyone seeking quick information will profit. Even veteran Civil War buffs will find information they did not know about. As anyone familiar with the war knows, there are many huge volumes covering virtually every aspect of the war, so this book is welcome since there is nothing else like it. Certainly more detail could have been given such as on the causes of the war. Yet Swanson is right in discussing slavery as the major cause, leaving other issues to other books. I would note that without slavery there would have been no war; states do not secede and people do not go to war over things like tariffs. Thus, this is not the volume to look to for lengthy discussion. Its purpose is to help one get an informative overview of the war as it unfolded, and to help one do so quickly. It succeeds admirably.

A.S. Johnston, J.E. Johnston, McClellan, Don Carlos Buell, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, John Pemberton and Robert E. Lee, seven generals that suffered defeat. The format is twenty to forty pages on each man by a respected historian. This is both the strength and the weakness of the book, as the format forces the author to be brief but allows him sufficient room to develop his idea.

Pemberton is the weakest essay not because Michael Ballard does a poor job but because Pemberton is doomed by temperament, circumstances and U.S. Grant being such a superior general.

Stephen Sears' thought provoking essay on Hooker presents some unexpected ideas even after reading his book on Chancellorsville.

The two Johnston essays are well written, very informative while staying within the norms for these men. ASJ is over whelmed by the size of his command and unable to gain control over his subordinates. Alan Downs' JEJ is more aggressive than we normally accept but still unable or unwilling to accommodate civilian controls.

I enjoyed Stephen Engle's essay on Buell and the theory of conciliation. Buell is trapped by his ideas, unwilling and unable to make adjustments losses everything. The Campaign to Chattanooga is the basis for his failure presenting the idea of conciliation facing the reality of secession.

The essay on McClellan by Ethan Rafuse is a treat. His "McClellan's War" is in the forefront of our rethinking of this man. This is the earliest publications of his work I have read and enjoyed seeing the development of his ideas.

Brooks Simpson's essay on Lee at Gettysburg is excellent. Accepting the role of the small boy who says the Emperor is naked, he presents a well-balanced historically accurate picture of Lee's battle management. The approach to battle management of Meade gives the reader an excellent view of what he did and how the different approaches influenced the battle. The small essay on Jackson at Gettysburg is excellent and may cause some to rethink this idea. His ideas on how the Army of the Potomac was different at Gettysburg highlight Lee's failure to make adjustments and contribute to his defeat. This is the strongest essay in the book and the most enjoyable.

This is a worthwhile book and a valuable addition to your library. Each essay is well thought out and written by a top shelf historians. Little of the presented is new or groundbreaking but all of it is informative and some of it thought provoking.

After reading this collection of essays, I was so disappointed that I gave it away to a local charitable organization.

With a doubt, the worst essay of the book is Brooks Simpson's horrific, myth-perpetuated and just plain non-insightful treatment of R E Lee at Gettysburg. So bad is this essay in my opinion, that the other essays suffer from reader-hangover from Simpson's hatchet job.

Woodworth's essay on Hooker was simply too pleading to be believed.

If you want to see this book, I hope that you get my copy.

It is too bad that Woodworth could not have had available to him a better talent pool for this collection of essays. While Steven Sears' essay on Hooker at Chancellorsville is very good, Brooks Simpson's piece on Lee at Gettysburg is extremely poor. The other contributions fall in between these two extremes that result in differing levels of satisfaction.

Someof the essays in this collection are simply superb, including Brooks Simpson's insightful examination of Gettysburg -- an essay that raises telling questions about how people traditionally evaluate command performance. Others are the sort of special pleading that proves tiresome, including Stephen Sears's brief on behalf of Joe Hooker.

Interesting perspective on the generals examined, & very logical. Stephan Sears' discussion of Hooker's performance at Chancellorsville was the most interesting, and made me reconsider my previous opinions on him. The writers also bring to the table solid analysis, such as Albert Sidney Johnston's management style. I found much of their assertions convincing.

Professional soldiers may get more out of this than the general reader, but close attention to the descriptions of the squad and platoon actions are rewarding. The importance of pre-planning, of coordinating different weapons systems, and of aggressive "upfront" leadership all come through. Another reviewer comments on the maps; yes, sometimes the text references locations the reader can't find, but they may be due to an inability of the authors to reconcile conflicting testimony between the participants and the official records. Given how few maps show up in military history books these days, I'd give the publisher a lot of credit for their efforts here. The style varies somewhat from section to section, but not so much as to detract from the value of the book.

This is obviously well researched and has plenty of detail - too much, in fact. Be prepared to be bombarded with unit numbers right off the bat. Not light reading, this is only for the serious researcher used to taking copious notes while reading...

Very confusing describing unit dispositions and movements.had to continue to turn back to maps which were not too helpful due to large areas depicted.(Referred to houses etc not on map)

I thought that I would read about individual situations of 57mm crews and rifle companies against panzers. Got too much our tanks and TD's.

See Citizen Soldier book.more about poor line company GI's.

This is not a book for the person looking for an easy reading, entertaining tale of US companies in action against German armor units. Rather, a number of various actions are analyzed in exhaustive detail. The maps can be very helpful at times (in one case tracing the path of a Bazooka-armed GI stalking a panzer) and not so useful in other cases. However, many maps are provided unlike other books of this type. I'd say that the target audience for this book is the serious military reader who wants more detail than the casual war story reader. Engineers, artillery, and anti-tank gun activities get covered pretty well.

Fairly comprehensive overview of USAF SOps history. Nedlesly weak on facts in multiple areas including and especially the names of people present at events described. While memories often fade or become fuzzy with time too many lapses in accuracy cause one to question the accuracy in other areaswhere onehas no first hand knowledge. Ron Kosh, Butterfly #44 late '66- early '67.

Good historical synopsis and background, in a readable format. But I was a trifle disappointed in ther author's coverage of present-day AFSOC. After all, the back cover blurb tells us that Air Force STTs "swim like Navy SEALs, attack like the Army's Delta Force, and fight lke hell anywhere, anytime." Yet Mr. Kelly hardly goes into any detail about the training the PJs and combat controllers go through. It would be great to know what their PT requirements are, hand-to-hand combat training, types of different small arms utilized, marksmanship standards, etc. Considering how unheralded and underappreciated Air Force special ops teams are compared to the endless volumes written on SEALs, Green Berets, etc., the above-mentioned types details would provide valuable insight into just how good these guys really are. But hey, any book written by someone with "Orr" in their name has to be doing something right!

While much of what the modern AFSOC is engaged in globally is classified, there still should have been a lot more regarding the present day Ops (which IS readily available)...sadly, there wasn't.
The upside to the book was the fascinating account of the beginnings of the Air Force special ops, from the early pathfinders and OSS. Again, this could have been better had more photos from that era been included, along with declassified maps, tactical data, and so on.

There were a few glaring inconsistencies, but much of this could be attributable to typos, and not necessarily the author per se.

Overall, this is a decent book about a group of people coming together to form one of America's most potent forces for freedom and democracy.

If this were to be a great book, it would have to have more photos, corrections to the errors, and less "dramatic license" in retelling the stories. When it comes to military actions, the MORE facts...the better!

Orr Kelly is somewhat of a specialist in the special operations genre. This book provides a good overview of USAF experience in that area. However, Kelly falls victim (as many have before him) to embellished stories. Some of these are recognizable as such on their face and should certainly not be repeated, no matter how lurid material may help sales. I was particularly irritated that Kelly checked some detail with me, received a correction, and then printed his version! He also has a problem with incorrect numbers sneaking through his proofing process. Thus, WWII B-24 production becomes 1800 vice the actual 18,000. Estimated 15,000 NVA dead becomes 1500. Range of the ZSU-23 (not ZPU-23 as he writes) becomes 20,000 feet vice its actual max effective range of 6000 feet. And so on. The number of these sort of errors casts doubt on the accuracy of the rest of the book. Good overview, unreliable history. Karl Polifka RAVEN 45 1969

William Urban's trek into the world of medieval mercenaries, Medieval Mercenaries: the Business of War, is extremely interesting. Urban mixes historical fact from reputable sources with popular literature to create a better understanding of the mercenary in the tenth through sixteenth centuries. Mercenaries participated in every major and most minor conflicts of the medieval period. A mercenary is a professional soldier who enters into a conflict not for nationalism, but for profit. Urban discusses the intricacies, hazards, and profits of the mercenary soldier.
Urban kicks off his investigation with the Vikings, referred to as the Varangian Guards by the Byzantines, defending the imperial interests at Constantinople. Through their activities, the Varangian Guard helped Harold Hardrada, previously the King of Norway and at the time the commander of the Varangian Guard, gain a reputation as a powerful general. Hardrada had come to Byzantium to seek protection from rebels who had killed his half-brother. The Byzantine emperor employed him in the Varangian Guard, eventually promoting him to commander. This time spent in the employ of the Byzantine emperor and the reputation earned there helped Hardrada regain his throne in Norway.
The activities of the Vikings and the Varangian Guard in Byzantium are followed by the stories of William the Conqueror, Friedrich II, Edward II and III, Charles the Bold, a host of popes and too many would-be kings to name. These stories fill the pages with their quests for power, glory, and greed. At their service are thousands of mercenaries looking to get rich or die trying.
Urban gives extra focus to several medieval heroes and villains, most notably John Hawkwood. Hawkwood's humble beginnings and adventuresome spirit lead him to become one of the most notable mercenaries of the time. Hawkwood and his troop venture through Italy, working for popes and quarrelling noble families, fighting Greeks, Arabs, Italians, and other mercenary groups. Urban does a good job of illustrating how Hawkwood paid, hired, and deployed his mercenary forces, as well as how he dealt with difficult employers.
The business of war is a difficult one. Money runs out. Mercenaries switch sides mid-fight. Peace means unemployment. During the Hundred Years' War, mercenaries came to dominate the battlefield and were employed to supplement the feudal forces. However, during times of peace, they could turn on their employers and start a new conflict. Therefore, it was in the interest of all professionals to keep the wars as long and bloodless as could be managed.
The free companies of mercenaries operated all over Europe and were for hire to anyone who could afford them. The White Company, the Black Company, the Teutonic Knights, and other military organizations operated as standing armies without a nation. These groups did not have to look far to find a fight. Rivalry between kings and religious sects kept the free companies busy almost year round. Great profits were made and lost as mercenaries tried to survive to retirement. Very few died of old age however.
Urban uses several historic documents, as well as modern studies to compile the information of his book. Jean Froissart's writings are expertly placed throughout the book to back up the author's conclusions. Froissart, who lived through the first half of the Hundred Years' War, chronicled many of the events that took place during that horrible time. Urban includes poems by various authors as well as a section of artwork, pictures of castles, and maps of medieval Europe.
William Urban dissects the world of chivalry by using writings from Froissart, Shakespeare, Chaucher, and Mark Twain. Some of the writings examined by Urban are Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucher, The Prince and the Pauper, Saint Joan, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain. Urban devotes additional space to examining nineteenth-century adventure novels, like Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott and The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle's novel is given particular attention in a comparison of its accounts with historical accounts of the real White Company's activities.
William Urban is a dedicated author who brings to life medieval mercenaries in a way I had not known before. My knowledge of mercenaries has been strictly from newspaper articles and internet news on "private military companies." The mercenary is a tradesman who fills the very real need for well trained and professional freelance warriors who can go any where, at anytime, and fight. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in military and medieval history.

The Middle Ages were a long time back and, despite the many fanciful references to those times in books and film, we often do not know what that life was truly like. Medieval Mercenaries: The Business of War was written by a historian, who is also a university teacher, to help people to imagine that remote time.
He does this by recounting a large number of factual events and situations, in story form - almost like sports reporting but for battles and strategic developments - identifying and relating people and institutions in a way that is readily grasped. The presentation is orderly, going from early to "classic" mercenaries, chivalry, the Hundred Years War, the Baltic Crusades and more - but you can open the book wherever you like and find such readable accounts.
There is more to this book than the title indicates, though. It does provide data on the early mercenaries - who they were, where they came from, how necessary they were, how they were used - and also what it was like to have troops of restless mercenaries lying about in your castle or town after the job they were hired for was done! But the title might well have been lengthened to include "...and their Representation in our Literature." As one would expect, the references to the historical writing are ample (there are three pages of these, in small type, at the end of the book, so as not to interrupt the story), but a good part of this volume shows the way certain classics of European and American literature - Chaucer, Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Twain - made dramatic use of these useful and disquieting outsiders.
Throughout the book, Urban suggests thought-provoking analogies to our own times, and the concluding chapter is a stimulating overview of the issues raised by this history and this way of telling history.

Perhaps the author was contractually obligated to deliver another book to the publisher; otherwise I see no reason for it to have been written. It reads like a junior's term paper, skimming over the period with the grossest of generalizations and no citations of sources. Because the sources are, in fact, inadequate to provide the depth and detail that the average reader would expect to find in a title like this, Urban pads them with fictional sources and tries to pass it off with the repeated excuse that fictional representations are at least as responsible as reality for forming modern notions of mercenaries. While this may be true, I picked up the book (for $10 from the History Book Club) expecting to get the straight dope; instead, I get quotations from Shakespeare. In short, if you want to know about medieval mercenaries, you'll learn practically nothing from this book.

The book is an eclectic series of anecdotes, without much of analyses or insight, and not always accurate.

I do have the book in my library,even owing to the fact that an ancestor of mine took part in tha capture of Barcelona while serving in Napoleon's Army.After the battle he was promoted one rank as all other surviving Neapolitan officers and NCO's as a tribute to the valour shown in this particular occasion.

The book is outdated and I belive the publisher should replace the cartoon-like features of the soldiers depicted,as they reflect obsolete and silly British stereotypes on the Italians and should find no place in a serious publication.

This is nice booklet on the Italian troops. Nevermind their battlefield performances, just admire the uniforms which are very nicely executed by Mike Chappell. That kettledrummer has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Murat had such great sartorial tastes!

This excellent book tells you all you need to know about the Italian troops during the Napoleonic wars. The plates are excellent, as are the descriptions. It follows the Cisalpine republic, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Kingdom of Naples. There is also a very informative section that tells us what units fought where and when. A must for Napoleonic buffs and wargamers.

This was and is a great starter into looking at Italian and Neapolitan uniforms. The uniform plates are nice, but there are more indepth period plates available. Unit histories are brief and the Neapolitans get little to no treatment and what is said is with a definite bias. Uniform plates at the museum of San Martino can be viewed for the Neapolitan plates. An Italian publication reprint of first hand artist sources from 1850s is available from Sugarco Milano. The Italian General Staff publishes a full color publication (but expensive) on the Cisalpine republic, Lombard legion etc. A cheaper publication is also available. Use the Osprey title as a starter. Osprey will do better to replace the title with a several part treatment.