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Title: A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War by Williamson Murray, Allan R. Millett ISBN: 0-674-00680-1 Publisher: Belknap Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (33 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Fact-Packed, Well-Written Overview of World War Two
Comment: I enjoyed reading this book, which is a bit off-putting due to its size and breadth. As long as one has a bit of time on his or her hands, this is a useful and entertaining way to spend some quality time with yourself in the company of two excellent history writers. The book has an amazing scope, and like Gerhard Weinberg's "A World At Arms" has a mammoth and daunting job at hand to describe the total scope and kaleidoscope of activities contained under the rubric of the second world war.
The authors here are much more forthcoming than was Weinhard in discussing specific battlefield details of particular engagements, and this adds to the book's considerable value and readability to history buffs like myself. I enjoy their liberal employment of relevant economic, technological, geographical and other factors in describing the whos, hows, whens, wheres and whys of specific struggles as well as in describing the nature of the overall socio-political aspects of the war. So, when they subsequently launch into discussing their uniquely constructed "standards of military effectiveness", they add to its value by buttressing their findings with a wealth of different kinds of supporting data, information, and background that makes the total overview of the war much more understandable than it would be otherwise.
The book does suffer from some minor drawbacks, such as the authors' obvious quarrel with the contributions and strategies of Douglas MacArthur, yet they are also suitably fastidious in pointing out his many contributions and effective tactics as well. This drawback is counterbalanced by an outstanding treatment covering the Nazi campaign against Russia, and the day to day details crammed into describing the ill-fated and terribly over-extended German occupation and troubles in Operation Barbarossa and in the subsequent crushing defeats at the hands of the Russian armies is worth the price of the book alone.
In summary, I also believe their well-argued and documented take on the importance and lasting influence of the second world war is crucial in understanding all that followed in the balance of the 20th century to be well taken, and to be beyond reasonable dispute. In some respects (Such as level of detail regarding specific engagements) this is a better book than Weinberg's, and on other levels it falls short of his monumental work. Combined, the two books offer one an astounding and quite rich look at a war that we are just starting to appreciate in all of its amazing scope, ferocity, and consequence. This book should be required reading for anyone considering a career in 20th century history, or for all of us history nuts who just can't get enough of a great thing. Enjoy!
Rating: 4
Summary: An Interpretation Unlike any Other History of WWII
Comment: From the first, the reader is treated to a newness in WWII historical narrative and interpretation -- how combatants planned, prepared, and delivered their military campaigns across the globe. The authors have superbly managed the complexities of modern warfare on a global scale, and they manage to include theaters and personalities that often are ignored -- such as the Austrialian campaign in the Dutch East Indies, the Indian-British campaign in the China-Burma-India theater and the never talked about plight of the First Panzer Army from the South Caucasus to Romania. Guderian, Rommel, Zhukov, Montgomery, and Patton of course get thorough treatment, as do MacArthur, Clark, Nimitz, and King. The focus is on the men who implemented (and in some cases developed on their own) national stratgy to fight the war.
There are however, some drawbacks that may thwart the lay reader. On a few occasions, the double-authorship assumes a "Jeckle and Hyde" character with seemingly contradictory statements in the same chapter. Unless familiar with modern military lexicon, the reader might not understand the distinction between "best battlefield commander" (Rommel) and "best operational commander" (Zhukov). Likewise, the Battles of the Atlantic and the Airspace over the Reich are said to have "been won" in mid 1942, yet in 1943 in both cases the authors state the issues were in doubt, and on occasion, the Germans getting the upperhand. Again, if the reader misses the distinction between victory in a campaign, and the remaining tactical engagements, he may be confused.
Most annoying to me were editorial errors such as the "four cruisers sunk at Midway (should be carriers), that Patton's Third Army was to the left of First Army (it was on the right, from the Allied perspective), and that General James Gain commanded the 82nd Airborne (ouch. James Gavin).
Finally, on the minus side, there is an extreme dearth of citations for a 600 page work. Only direct quotes are annotated, and often the authors fail to back up controversial points with evidence in the narrative or by scholastic citation. This gives the work a "journalistic" flavor, which may appeal to those intent on reading, but for the researcher who wants to verify statements on atrocities or Nazi-Wehrmacht complicities, be prepared for disappointment.
If nothing else, buy it for the pictures: over 100 famous and not so famous photos found in one volume (overlook the "British sniper" with a .45 Thompson). The appendices can stand alone. The trenchent analysis of the total cost of war can't be found anywhere else.
In a single volume, no better value for the money.
Rating: 5
Summary: What does it take to win a war?
Comment: 'In the course of the twentieth century, no war looms as profoundly transformative or as destructive as World War II. Its global scope and human toll reveal the true face of modern, industrialized warfare.'
Thus begins the volume 'A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War' by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett. Murray, a fellow at the Institute for Defense Analysis, and Millett, professor of Military History at Ohio State University, has collaborated to produce a volume that looks at the World War II in almost exclusively military terms, with detailed (if not always precisely accurate) analysis of battlefield plans and progresses, logistical situations and problems, and (to a lesser extent) political and economic considerations behind the military decisions. Murray and Millett are very direct in this focus:
'In this book, we have concentrated on the conduct of operations by the military organizations that waged the war. We have not ignored the strategic and political decisions that drove the war, but what interests us most are the issues of military effectiveness.'
Perhaps more true than anywhere else, on the battlefield those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and, in fact, are most likely doomed to failure because the enemy most likely has consulted history.
This book looks at the origins of the war (chapter 1 and chapter 7), follows the military progress through the European, African, Atlantic, and Asia-Pacific theatres of warfare, and concludes with two broader chapters, one entitled 'Peoples at War', which examines civilian efforts toward the war in areas of industry, labor, civil defence, and basic food-production; and a second entitled 'The Aftermath of War', which looks very briefly at issues of resettlement, reparations, war crimes, and the political state of affairs after the war.
The opening chapters are very telling regarding preparedness in the face of a potential adversary -- the state of British and French forces at the outset of the war, even in the face of an only-somewhat rearmed Germany made their position difficult, and indeed they were thoroughly routed in short order. However, the fault was not merely technical or logistical, but also involved poor planning and preparation on the part of officials who could or would not grow beyond then-traditional methods of warfare, most having derived from the experience of World War I.
Despite its attention to all theatres of war, this remains a very Euro-centric book. The true starting date of World War II in increasingly under debate -- not all scholars subscribe to the September 1939 invasion of Poland as the beginning of the war, but rather the beginning of the European theatre of events. Japanese forces had been at work in Asia prior to this -- indeed, one could say that the first and last shots of World War II were fired in the Manchurian plains.
This is a relatively minor point, however, and one that will most likely not occur to most Western readers who are accustomed to the portrayal of World War II in this manner.
The chapter on the conclusion of the Asia-Pacific war addresses, but not in detail, the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan; more detail in the proposed invasion planning of Japan would have been helping here -- the recent book 'Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire' by Richard Frank does an excellent job at showing the difficulties that faced the Americans and other Allied forces as they contemplated a full-scale invasion of Japan, including the misperceptions of Japanese strength on the island that would have made the battle the most costly in human terms in all of history.
This book, however, is a good survey of the military aspects of World War II, and fills in many gaps for those of us who have concentrated primarily on the political issues and only peripherally on the military engagements.
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Title: A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II by Gerhard L. Weinberg ISBN: 0521558794 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Why the Allies Won by R. J. Overy, Richard Overy ISBN: 039331619X Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Iraq War: A Military History by Williamson Murray, Robert H., Jr. Scales ISBN: 0674012801 Publisher: Belknap Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Road to Berlin: Stalin's War With Germany by John Erickson ISBN: 0304365408 Publisher: Cassell Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Battle: A History of Combat and Culture by John A. Lynn ISBN: 0813333717 Publisher: Perseus Books Group Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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