Hooton explores the complexities of the two Balkan Wars with a surgical analysis–two important, little known, wars that were the prelude to the Great War in 1914. He earns a sincere congratulation for his in depth research. His statistics are overwhelming–so overwhelming that the reader is inundated with details that after a time becloud the […]
Tag Archives: Book Review
BOOK REVIEW: The Spanish Civil War by Gabriele Ranzato
Ranzato presents us with a pocketsize, summary of the political machinations of the various fighting-factions during the 1936 to 1939 Spanish Civil War. In large measure, he skips the military campaign. Permeating the conflict was the chaos of vacillating loyalties, conflicting interests of the various factions, and the telling influence of the military involvement of […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China by David J. Silbey
This treatise on the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 in Shantung Province in northern China and in Peking is exceptionally well researched and told. Silbey has written this book with keen understanding and the perceptive knack to engulf the audience deeply into his chronicle. Of what I know of the Boxer Rebellion, I would suggest that […]
BOOK REVIEW: A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912 by Charles Stephenson
I’m conflicted reviewing this book. Stephenson reports the chronologic events of this war in exceptional detail. Unfortunately, it’s dull, and tedious—lacks an empathetic milieu. It’s hard reading for the ordinary citizen. Perhaps it is best as a reference book for the military historian. This war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire early […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport
This powerful account of the Romanovs’ internment and regicide at “The House of Special Purpose” at Ekaterinburg, July 1918, is compelling, evocative, and horrifying. I suspect that Rappaport’s book on this ghoulish event is the most meticulously researched and accurate account of the Bolshevik’s liquidation of Czar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, and their five children. […]
Book Review: Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris
Mark Harris weaves an intriguing story of five top-notch motion-picture directors that abandoned their careers in Hollywood and joined the military to help win World War II by producing documentary, propaganda, and information films. He has integrated numerous moving parts into a coherent tale with keen interest. It’s a heavy book that deserves a careful […]
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics by Charles Krauthammer Book Review
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics Book Review S. Martin Shelton Charles Krauthammer, Crown Forum, New York, 2013, 388 pp. Table of Contents. Acknowledgements, and an Index. Krauthammer includes ninety plus columns, quips, and screeds on topics that matter to him and ought to matter to us. His comments were previously […]
The Last Prophecy, Jon Land Book Review
I’ve seen this book many times past. Not exactly this one book but other books, films, and tales with the same basic plot: intrepid adventurers discover an ancient and secret writing or glyph well hidden in some exotic/dangerous/gruesome local. Only some obscure university professor/retired cryptographer/computer geek can decode this mysterious writing. Meantime, eeevil (keep “eeevil”) […]