Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War by William Manchester ISBN: 0-316-52940-0 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: If only this was available at Nuremburg.
Comment: Manchester's epic should appeal to readers of politics, economics, and military history as he skillfully intertwines the Krupp family business with multiple generations of political leaders of Europe. While 400 years is a bit of a misnomer - the Krupps weren't the Rothschilds and only truly affected the world scene from 1870 onwards - the author does a magnificent job of immersing the reader in a fascinating top down look at the political and military climate of pre-Great War Europe from their most important arms supplier - the Cannon Kings Alfred, Fritz, and Gustav Krupp. Underlying this is a well-proven thesis that Germany's military prowess relied heavily on Krupp technological innovations, and Manchester is to be commended for making this understandable to the layman.
The second half of the narrative is far darker but equally as important as he essentially reconstructs the Allied case against Krupp in greater detail than publicly available at Nuremburg for their crimes in World War II. Beyond any doubt, Alfried Krupp and the firm did monstrous things - at times far worse than the SS - to slave laborers that other German manufacturers refused. Starving to death thousands, torturing more, and outright looting conquered territory were good business for Krupp. Manchester's reconstruction bogs the pace of the book but is an overwhelmingly effective refutation of Krupp as victim. Had this been available at Nuremburg Krupp would clearly have hanged. One finishes the book hoping that some effort was made to memorialize the slave camp babies murdered by 'die Firma'.
The age of the 1968 publishing only shows up in some of the economic analysis, but even then students of economics can glean a couple of lessons about what happens when you overlever and overexpand.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 5
Summary: How the manufacturing family influenced the shape of Germany
Comment: This is an excellent book about a family struggle along with a nation. We start out in 1587 and follow their progress and politics of the family and industry of making arms (cannons) until the fairly recent time.
One of the things I like to do is to read books that become movies and movies that are novelized. You are right this would have to be a mini-series. Ha, I will bet you did not notice that in the book William Manchester mentions that the movie "Major Barbara"; the only play actually written by George Bernard Shaw was modeled on the Krupp family.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb Biography of Europe's Premier Armaments Family!
Comment: "The Arms Of Krupp" is the incredible biography of a powerful and incredibly rich and powerful family that was central in the advent and progress of European history for the more than four hundred years they presided as an almost imperial force within the boundaries of what is present-ay Germany. Certainly no other non-royal dynasty engenders such controversy and hotly expressed differences in opinion than does the multiple generations of this critically based family so critical to the development and technological capabilities of the German war machine. Of course, no one could do a better job at providing a definitive historical biography of the Krupp family than William Manchester. This is truly a magnificent book, a spellbinding story splendidly told by a master of English prose, rendered in a flawless, comprehensive, and objective treatment of this fascinating, often outrageous, and sometime imperious string of Krupp family member who ignited the wars raging in Europe in terms of their ability to provide the motherland with such complex, ingenious, and technically superior weapons of war.
This is, in fact, considered a masterwork of history, an eminently readable and elegantly stylish work by Manchester, a master of the trade. Manchester, a retired history professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, is widely regarded as one of this country's preeminent biographers and historian. The Krupp dynasty was extinguished in 1967, when the last surviving family member passed away. With his death the legacy of a four hundred year span of contribution to the European armaments industry came to an end, and so brought to a conclusion a tradition spanning wars and quite profoundly influencing outcomes of European history for centuries. The Krupp Arms conglomerate was technologically innovative, devising new weapons such as a superior cannon to an anti-air vehicle weapon designed to counter the reconnaissance capabilities of aerial observation balloons to exotic and much more capable submarines, which they then built for over four decades.
In so doing, they became fabulously rich, and rose to become extremely influential and exceedingly conservative voices within the realm of German political circles. No German leader could hope to marshal the resources or the weapons of war necessary to mount a military campaign without first gaining the trust, confidence and support of the Krupp family, which then cleverly and cynically manipulated this influence to vastly enrich themselves. During World War One, their cannons helped to flatten the French city of Verdun, and at one point succeeded in lobbing projectiles into Paris from as distant a location as some eighty miles away, an unheard-of innovation at the time. Aiding the Third Reich in its secret rearmament effort after the end of the First Word War, they provided a much advanced tank design that eventuated in the Panzer tank, used subsequently so successfully in Hitler's blitzkrieg through France in the summer of 1940.
They were quite influential within the German society as well, having armed the forces of Kaiser Wilhelm for battle before World War One, and then surreptitiously backed Hitler financially in the so-called terror-campaign" of 1933. Incredibly, the Krupps participated in the war crimes of the Third Reich, even controlling and operating more than 130 concentration camps during the war. Afterwards, they help to rebuild Europe in the eventual development of the European Common Market. This is a truly fascinating book written with all of the usual style and substance one come s to expect of William Manchester, and it is certainly a book I can highly recommend to anyone with an interest in European history. Enjoy!
 |
Title: Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Manchester ISBN: 0316501115 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 12 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 by William Manchester ISBN: 0440304245 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1983 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
 |
Title: The House of Krupp: The Steel Dynasty That Armed the Nazis by Peter Batty ISBN: 0815411553 Publisher: Cooper Square Press Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind, And the Renaissance: A Portrait of an by William Manchester ISBN: 0316545562 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester ISBN: 0316545031 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 30 May, 1983 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
