"The nation of St Wenceslas, Jan Hus and Tomas Masaryk will not be a nation of slaves"
A couple of years ago on a whim I picked up GHOST EMPIRE by
"The nation of St Wenceslas, Jan Hus and Tomas Masaryk will not be a nation of slaves"
A couple of years ago on a whim I picked up GHOST EMPIRE by Richard Fidler - the Eastern Roman Empire is something that I wasn't particularly familiar with and it had fairly good reviews. In the end, it turned out to be less about the Eastern Roman Empire and more about Constantinople/Istanbul itself by way of a general history.
I found this really interesting - it's not very common to find a book so focused on the history of a single city rather than a country, a people, a period - so when I saw THE GOLDEN MAZE on the shelf, knowing very little about Prague, I snapped it up.
The Czech Republic and former Czechoslovakia is a country that I pretty much always forget exists, to my discredit. Similar to Switzerland or Belgium, it is a small country locked in by larger powers on all sides, and has been for most of its history - from its beginnings through the highs of Bohemia and the lows of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic under the USSR.
Much like GHOST EMPIRE, GOLDEN MAZE is incredibly readable - it isn't deep history by any means, but it's still incredibly interesting and informative, providing a good overview of the Golden City and, importantly, inspiring the reader to do further research off their own back.
Again, much like Fidler's previous book, the drama and intrigue of high politics keeps you turning the next page. Bohemia was a powerhouse of the early Holy Roman Empire and found itself at the centre of many major conflicts, including the Thirty Years War, and Fidler does a fantastic job of giving a human face to the protagonists in each stanza of the city's history.
The one exception to my statement above regarding forgetting that the country exists is the lead up to the Second World War, where Nazi Germany 'peacefully' swallowed up first the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia as a whole - fully half of the book is dedicated to this period onwards to the collapse of communism in 1989-1990, and while I was quietly dreading it as being too in-the-weeds and ground I had walked over many times before in history reading, I found it very eye-opening. Czechoslovakia under German rule and later Stalinist USSR rule had a streak of rebellion that I never knew about.
The history of the Czech Republic in the end is very closely linked to the history of the Golden City, so at times the GOLDEN MAZE can end up reading like a more straightforward history - which does take away from some of its charm, but I was more than interested enough to let that slide.
Finally, my major negative on GHOST EMPIRE was the semi-regular cutaways to Fidler and his son’s trip to Istanbul, and their anecdotes while they travelled through the city he wrote about. These are still present - Fidler has visited Prague several times, including during or just after the Velvet Revolution - but they were far less prominent. When they turn up they do still feel a little bit self-important.
Another excellent work of history by Fidler - I am very keen to pick up and try SAGALAND....more
It's a bit more than that in actuality, but I find it pleasing how I've read three books almost back-to-back that are ostensibly covering the same ground, but do so in very different ways. The Silk Roads was probably the weakest of the three from my perspective, but I'm definitely in a minority on that one. It was still incredibly interesting, particularly the first two thirds of the book.
Beginning in prehistory, Silk Roads covers the evolution and use of the Silk Road from east to west to spread trade, religion, ideas and, of course, war. Specifically it is quite focused on what we consider today to be the Middle East, between Constantinople in the west and China in the east, and how mainland Europe in the west tried (and often failed) to influence it - first the Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire, then the Papacy with the Crusades, etc.
This was the most interesting portion - up to and including the discovery of the Americas and the Columbian Exchange. Fankopan does an excellent job of describing the slow shift in gravity from the Middle East to Western Europe as Spain, Portugal, France and England become ever more important, while the former powerhouses in the Mediterranean wither away.
This is followed by the least interesting part of the book, from World War I up to present day (or 2014, anyway). Silk Roads really struggles to hold grimly onto the central conceit of being about the natural flow along the spine of Eurasia during this section, often becoming just a passable retelling of the history of events. It does pick up again in the last couple of chapters, with the numerous conflicts and interventions in Iran, Iraq, etc., and describing how after centuries of neglect, the oil and resource rich Middle East is once again becoming the centre of gravity for the world.
The book is split into chapters - The Road of Faiths, the Road to Heaven, the Road of Furs, etc., tying the central theme to the specific subject of that chapter. As the book wears on, these get more and more contrived - The Road of Superpower Rivalry? And I wonder whether it would have been better to be split into straight-up time periods. A minor complaint, but still.
I very much enjoyed the Silk Roads, and it did the most important thing that Big History can, which is spark my interest in some of the events it covers in brief.
Definitely recommended to fans of history in general.
What we are witnessing, however, are the birthing pains of a region that once dominated the intellectual, cultural and economic landscape, and which is now re-emerging. We are seeing the signs of the world's centre of gravity shifting - back to where it lay for millennia.
I have been hankering some Ancient Roman history lately and luckily enough I've owned this book for the last two years without reading it, so I was abI have been hankering some Ancient Roman history lately and luckily enough I've owned this book for the last two years without reading it, so I was able to effectively scratch that itch.
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome covers the history of Rome from its beginnings in the 700's BCE (roughly) through to the decision of the Emperor Caracalla to make every free citizen of the empire a Roman Citizen, thus bringing to an end the importance of Rome itself as the center of the Empire - or at least, that's Beard's justification for ending it there.
I am a big fan of Mike Duncan's 'History of Rome' podcast, and it is my main exposure to the history of the Roman Empire, as it isn't something I've really had much interest in until recently. I'm aware that Duncan used SPQR as his source occasionally, which came through in a few sections where I was able to 'guess' what was going to happen next in the text as his podcast followed a similar format.
Beard writes a very consumable non-fiction book - the writing style is almost casual, but still very informative without being dumbed down. It certainly isn't an exhaustive history - little time is spent on any emperors after Augustus, with the vast majority of the book being the rise of the Republic of Rome, and the Augustan period itself - it then speeds up at a breakneck pace from Tiberius through to Caracalla.
I very much enjoyed SPQR, and as always with non fiction, it has piqued my interest to pick up some other material on Ancient Rome - and maybe a re-listen of the History of Rome podcast....more
I got this book for $6, and at that price point I'd probably rate this higher - but as a book, I wasn't that fussed. Hubris covers six conflicts, threI got this book for $6, and at that price point I'd probably rate this higher - but as a book, I wasn't that fussed. Hubris covers six conflicts, three in detail and three very briefly.
The first is Tsushima, the Japanese defeat of Russia in a large naval battle in the Tsushima Strait, a battle I'd heard of but never learned about - this was good, nice and detailed and interesting.
The second is the Battle of Nomonhan, a slapfight between Russia and Japan in north-western Manchuria just prior to the outbreak of WWII, which was the main cause for Japan "going south" (into the Pacific and eventually America) rather than trying their hand at conquering Russia. This was interesting, but quite brief.
The third is the Battle of Moscow, another battle I've heard about but never learned about, in favour of it's more popular brother the Battle of Stalingrad. Very interesting, very detailed. Good stuff.
Fourth, the Battle of Midway - another battle I've heard a ton about but never knew anything about. Quite detailed, interesting and neat.
The fifth and sixth barely deserve to be in the book - Horne gives an incredibly brief overview of the Korean War, in less than 30 pages - and then the battle of Dien Bien Phu, a battle I've now read two 500+ page books on, so his 25 pages worth of coverage he saw fit to give it didn't really impress me very much.
An interesting concept - from my general military leanings I know about FACs (Forward Air Controllers) and the role they provide, but not in Vietnam, An interesting concept - from my general military leanings I know about FACs (Forward Air Controllers) and the role they provide, but not in Vietnam, and certainly not in a jet blasting above the ground at a few hundred kilometres an hour.
Bury Us Upside Down goes into detail about the Misty "Fast FACs" - pilot-and-backseater crews who would fly over North Vietnam, spotting trucks, anti-aircraft sites, tanks, basically anything they could and then calling in fighters to take them out. This made it an incredibly dangerous, stressful job - but one that they carried out with aplomb and bravado for the better part of two years.
The majority of the book is taken up with anecdotes and stories from this period, from a couple of dozen different pilots and crewmen. What's left is a study of the effects on those left behind - wives and children of those who were missing in action, as several Misty pilots were.
This is the kind of book I call "soft history" - anecdotal, story-based and written in a kind of pulpy, easy-to-read but not very informative way - as opposed to "hard history", which is usually more dry, with more numbers and statistics and objective analyses. I can enjoy both - usually the sweet spot is where it falls right in the middle, but this book is definitely firmly in the Soft side of the spectrum, to the point where I struggled with parts of it.
Still, an interesting subject for sure, but the book itself unfortunately - unlike the Misties - outstayed its welcome for me....more
I've been endeavoring to read some non-fiction this year that I have little or no knowledge about - certainly before reading this I had the barest inkI've been endeavoring to read some non-fiction this year that I have little or no knowledge about - certainly before reading this I had the barest inkling of the fact that Algeria was once a holding of France, and that they must have gained independence at some stage.
Savage War of Peace came highly recommended by several articles and reviews I read on the topic before committing to a book - and it didn't disappoint. I'd not read any Alistair Horne before, and I picked up Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century earlier in the year and was very underwhelmed - but from what I can tell it is pretty much agreed that it is one of his weakest, and just a last attempt to cover some subjects he had never covered before.
A Savage War of Peace is incredibly detailed and - most importantly for me - accessibly (is that a word?) written - it talks you through the eight year conflict with patience and obvious care and does a good job of covering both sides and their strengths, weaknesses and issues.
The edition I read included a foreword which makes plain the comparisons drawn between the French attempts to provide 'freedom' to the Algerian state whilst still maintaining control over it, and America's recent excursions in the middle east - including Horne claiming that he sent President G.W. Bush a copy of the book for study purposes - and whilst there are parallels to be drawn here, I feel that the French are probably remembered with a lot less animosity 60 years on than America and her allies will be by Iraq, Syria and so on.
Horne especially draws attention to how tragically close France came to retaining control, albeit much reduced, and the benefits this would well have had for an independent Algerian state which has, since throwing off the yoke, staggered from crisis to civil strife and back to crisis again.
I'm bad at reviewing non-fiction, but suffice to say that I really enjoyed the read - and it was unexpectedly pleasing to see 'cameos' by names I was familiar with from my readings about Indochina and Dien Bien Phu - 'Bruno' Biegard, 'Madarin' Salan, and so on.
I look forward to reading more Horne in the future....more
As someone who knows almost nothing about the Vietnam War other than popular media's portrayals of it, and absolutely nothing about Australia's involvAs someone who knows almost nothing about the Vietnam War other than popular media's portrayals of it, and absolutely nothing about Australia's involvement, I loved this book. It provides an excellent overview of the war, but contained to the Australian commitment – so whilst you get the broad strokes, you avoid the minutiae of every single skirmish, which can often be overwhelming when reading about a conflict or war for the first time.
As an Australian, I've grown up hearing about Long Tan and Coral/Balmoral, often as the lesser brother of Lone Pine and the Nek, but never really understanding their significance - Australia's Vietnam War was vastly different to the United States experience. Stealth, diplomacy and civilian assistance ruled, and the single province assigned to Australian forces was one of the most stable and secure throughout the war – but when forced into a pitched battle, Australian and New Zealand soldiers showed the same courage and selfless dedication to their comrades that they are rightfully renowned for – so while 18 ANZACs perished at Long Tan, compared to the over two thousand casualties at Lone Pine, it is not made a lesser event as a result.
Possibly the most interesting part of the book for me was the last third dedicated to the treatment of our veterans when they came back home – I was aware that the US veterans were treated with contempt and disgust, but for some reason I believed that Australian people would be above that. Not so unfortunately, and returning Anzacs were as despised and mistreated as any others – great steps have been made since to right this injustice, but it is something that, as an Australian, I'm ashamed to learn about. If I'm honest, I got a bit teary during some of this stuff.
So, onto other things - I've got a lot more to learn about the war from an American perspective, so I'm interested to see how that goes. But I'd highly recommend Vietnam: The Australian War to any fellow Aussies who know as little as me about the seven years and tens of thousands of men that the Australian people and government committed, and then rejected as cowards and monsters when they came home....more
I am a huge fan of Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast. As such, for anyone else who enjoys his work, I can highly recommend The Storm Before the StI am a huge fan of Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast. As such, for anyone else who enjoys his work, I can highly recommend The Storm Before the Storm, at least in audio format.
I think if I were reading it, his slightly casual and humorous tone would have grated some - but in audio, it was just like listening to a very extended few episodes of the podcast.
I was expecting the book to concentrate more on Gaius Julius Caesar, as the man who in theory killed the Republic, but in practice it was focused about 50-80 years before he came onto the scene with the building blocks that made him see that absolute rule was even a possibility. Interesting, and something I wasn't really familiar with.
I remember being bored by the Russian Revolutions when we did them in second semester Year 12 History back in high school. It seemed like a nonsense cI remember being bored by the Russian Revolutions when we did them in second semester Year 12 History back in high school. It seemed like a nonsense conglomeration of fancy-sounding organisations and men, which all kind of blurred one into the other as I spent most of my class time staring (probably drooling) at the girl I liked at the next table over.
As such, when one of my favourite authors released a book on the events of the February and October Revolutions, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to read it. China Miéville's Bas-Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, especially The Scar, and to a lesser extent Iron Council) are some of my favourite books ever. How the hell would he turn his hand to non-fiction, and more specifically to a piece of history that couldn't hold my attention more than that blonde girl?
Turns out, extremely well.
There's a kind of absurdly fantastical style that Miéville writes in, and it is supremely suited to narrating possibly one of the most absurdly fantastical events in modern history. His flowery, sometimes overly-tricky language, whether intentionally or not, perfectly captures the roiling nonsense that was the Russian Revolution - one impotent Committee, or Congress, or Preparliament after the other, decisions made and ignored, resignations tendered and then thrown away.
Had this been another dry recitation of the events of the Revolution I imagine I could easily have been distracted, as 17-year-old Liam was 11 years ago. As it was, Miéville's telling becomes something of a fantasy novel in itself, and held my interest for the duration as someone who is a fan of his writing style in his Weird Fiction roots. For strangers to Miéville, I would be interested to see how (if at all) they liked his take on the Revolution.
I really enjoyed this - as someone who knows frightfully little about Roman history (East Roman history, at least, I've got a passing knowledge of theI really enjoyed this - as someone who knows frightfully little about Roman history (East Roman history, at least, I've got a passing knowledge of the Republic and early Imperial), it was quite a good biography of a fascinating and important city.
Fidler goes through the entire history of Byzantium come Constantinople come Istanbul through its entire history as a capital of the world from 300AD - 1453AD, an incredible eleven century journey laden with tragedy and destruction, interspersed with anecdotes from his son Joe and his trip to Istanbul in the early 2010's.
Though written largely as pop history, and a fairly skeletal overview of some fairly major European events, it does a good job of giving an overview of an incredible range of time. I found the asides regarding their trip interesting and heartwarming, but they also jarred slightly with the historical text - I would be turning the page desperate to know what the next horror to befall the great city was only to find a few pages of describing how his son likes a particular Turkish warm coffee.
Regardless, very enjoyable and consumable and has done its job sparking interest in the history of the Queen of Cities....more
Thanks to my girlfriend's parents for giving me this one for Christmas, most appreciated.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World WThanks to my girlfriend's parents for giving me this one for Christmas, most appreciated.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War 2 are two of the most controversial events in warfare. As a student of World War 2 - albeit I've always been much more interested in the European theater than the Pacific theater - I've read quite a lot about the subject, but it has always been tinged with a distinctly rationalist tone. 'Sure, it was a tragedy, but it stopped World War 2 so it was in service of good'.
This book is the first proper historical work I've read which has flown in the face of that narrative - if anything, the book is deeply biased against the use of the bombs, a point of view that I've always held myself so this review is likely to be flawed from the outset. But nevertheless, here we go.
The old samurai, in frock coats and winged collars, sitting at attention at the conference table in the government's well-stocked Tokyo shelter, continued to observe - in extremis - the ancient forms of deference and decorum of the warrior class; they lived in the shadow of an antique past, in the darkened codes of 'honour' and 'sacrifice', in whose interests they were willing to destroy their nation and race. -p256
The book begins with an overview of the state of the world at the outset of 1945 - Roosevelt's death and Truman's ascendance, the defeat of Germany, the Japanese Empire's defeats and retreats throughout the pacific, and the research into the atomic bomb. As someone who hasn't been too interested in the Pacific theater until this point, this was valuable. I knew the broad strokes, but the first few chapters of Hiroshima Nagasaki do a fantastic job of laying the foundations for the deeper study to follow.
A chapter is dedicated to the US firebombing campaign which destroyed dozens of Japanese cities - including Tokyo and Osaka - and it is in this chapter that, if it weren't already, Ham's bias becomes self-evident. He labels this campaign of terror and wholesale civilian slaughter as the barbarism that it was, and doesn't shy away from the lack of Japanese response.
Fully the last two thirds of the book are dedicated to the preparation, use, and aftermath of the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man. This is the real meat of it. There are three major themes running throughout this section off the text - the brutality of the US campaign, the Japanese leadership's indifference to the slaughter of its people, and the argument of whether the bombings were 'justified'.
Ham is quite obviously a detractor of the United States' campaigns against the Japanese homeland - this is made obvious by the chapter dedicated to the firebombing campaigns across Honshu and Kyushu. I was vaguely aware that the US had firebombed Japan (especially from the film Grave of the Fireflies), but I didn't realise the extent of the campaign - pursuing a flawed philosophy that the death of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants would cripple Japanese morale to such a point that they would have no choice but to surrender (a concept that anyone who knew the slightest amount of Japanese zealotry at the time would have found laughable), Major Curtis LeMay intentionally targeted civilian population centres and displaced millions from their homes.
This campaign continued for several months until the Japanese surrender in August - concurrent with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ham doesn't pull any punches with these events - the injuries, destruction and sickness are described in full detail, from a child losing his eyes from the change in pressure (screaming 'Soldier-san, help me!' while nobody listened), to a girl who tried to pick up her brother and carry him to safety, and found his skin sloughing off his arms in bloody, wet sheets.
This was the great success that was heralded back at home in America.
Lewis [co-pilot of the Enola Gay] scribbled 'Just how many did we kill? My God, what have we done?' 'My God, look at that sonofabitch go!' he is said to have also shouted, according to other crew members. -p298
65,000 of Hiroshima's 90,000 buildings were 'rendered unusable' and the rest partially damaged. Glass windows were blown out at a distance of up to 8 kilometres. But 'nothing was vaporised', the report noted optimistically. p414
While the bombing of Hiroshima is portrayed as a tragic waste of human life, the bombing of Nagasaki is worse - in fact the Japanese, having received word of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria the day before, were drafting surrender terms to send to America when a messenger burst into the cabinet and notified them that another 'special bomb' had been dropped on Nagasaki - the Japanese cabinet ministers paused for a moment, then went back to their drafting.
For most, the news that 30,000 of your people had just been wiped out would be an event worth dropping everything for - but not so for the Imperial Japanese. Throughout the book, the Japanese leadership's total and utter lack of care for their people is drilled home again and again - it wasn't that they didn't care whether they died or not, it is that they were expected to die for the Motherland. The Japanese plans to rebuff a US land invasion was predicated on the 'one-hundred million' residents of Japan (in actual fact Japan only had a population of 70m at the time) rising up and repelling the western invader.
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were in the process of developing a 'field cap' to protect their people from the glare and heat of future atomic bombings - this goes to show how just how low a priority they placed on the bombings. They were prepared to weather more of them until the 'inevitable' land invasion. And the United States was prepared to drop more of them - had Japan not capitulated on August 15th, the US had a half dozen more bombs in the pipeline, with plans to drop them every 10 days or so.
Ham makes his opinion on whether the bombings were justified well known by the closing chapter (tellingly titled 'Why'). The main reasons for justifying the use of the bombs is that they ended the war, and that if they hadn't used the bombs then the US would have risked a bloody land invasion of the Japanese mainland, killing many more Japanese and Americans in the process.
Ham carefully deconstructs these justifications. As stated above, and at numerous points throughout the text, the Japanese officials placed little importance on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the same could not be said of those on the ground in those two cities, who experienced likely the closest representation of hell on earth yet - dozens of Japanese cities had already been wiped out wholesale by the American firebombing campaign, what were two more? The real impetus for Japan's surrender was the Soviet Union's surprising and crushing invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria and Korea between the bombings. Nothing matched the fear Japan held for a Russia, and their surrender to America on the 15th was merely picking the lesser of the two evils to capitulate to.
That the bombings removed the need for a US land invasion is also a fallacy - the US leadership had in fact abandoned the possibility of a land invasion of Japan in the early stages of 1945 as too costly, far before the atomic bomb was first tested. Later attempts to use this as the justification for the bombings by Truman and other American officials neatly avoids this point.
Of course, a less virtuous explanation often given is that the bombings are proportionate 'revenge' for the attack at Pearl Harbour, and the Japanese atrocities throughout the war. I won't dignify this with any more words.
In the end, the thing that finally brought Japan to the table was Emperor Hirohito giving his own judgement - in the past when the Emperor had suggested peace or surrender, the militant armed forces had killed those advisors closest to him - obviously they had corrupted his Majesty for him to suggest such things. But as the dust settled on Nagasaki, the Voice of the Sacred Crane stating once and for all that victory was no longer possible was the real decider - and tellingly, during his surrender address, Hirohito only pointed to the Soviet invasion as the reason for this.
As stated, I've always been on the view that the atomic bombings are wholly unjustifiable. Nothing - no atrocities, contingencies, possibilities or plans - justifies the instant murder of tens of thousands of civilians, and the slow and painful deaths of tens of thousands more. Having been to Hiroshima, having stood on the Aioi Bridge and under the hypocenter, I cannot feel anything other than disgust that this was something that human beings did to their own.
At a time of war, people will applaud any story their government feeds them. Americans continue to swear blind that the bombs alone ended the war; that they were America's 'least abhorrent' choice. These are plainly false propositions, salves to uneasy consciences over what was actually done on 6 and 9 August 1945 when, under a summer sky, without warning, hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children felt the sun fall on their heads. -p510...more
56% of the way through and I give up - the book is so dry, I can't bear to finish it. It reads as a collection of essays placed end-to-end, which in m56% of the way through and I give up - the book is so dry, I can't bear to finish it. It reads as a collection of essays placed end-to-end, which in my opinion is the worst way to write about history. The amount of research and work that has gone into the book is regardless very impressive, and a staggering achievement, but I just cannot read it, which is a shame as it is a subject I dearly wish to learn more about....more
Fairly disappointing. Reads very dryly, like a sequence of Year 12 students' essays back to back. Each chapter has a subject, begins with a vaguely inFairly disappointing. Reads very dryly, like a sequence of Year 12 students' essays back to back. Each chapter has a subject, begins with a vaguely interesting introductory paragraph, then many random pieces of information from various different sources slapped together, and the chapter finishes with a conclusion which goes over what we've learned. And then it begins again.
Wouldn't recommend - that coverart is nice though....more
For a pretty basic overview of the Viking Age, not bad. The writing is pretty good other than the author's propensity to waffle on quite a bit on unimFor a pretty basic overview of the Viking Age, not bad. The writing is pretty good other than the author's propensity to waffle on quite a bit on unimportant details, and a sort of fluctuating tone in general. Couple of things in there that are flat out wrong, but nothing too bad....more
I've always been fascinated by the Vikings, as I'm sure a lot of people are. They were such an interesting society, with unique beliefs and myths thatI've always been fascinated by the Vikings, as I'm sure a lot of people are. They were such an interesting society, with unique beliefs and myths that still capture the imagination of people 800~ years after they in a mainstream sense, faded into history.
Parker's book is the most thorough exploration of their history that I've yet read, and I very much enjoyed it. Beginning with their origins and the infamous 'first' Viking raid at the monastery of Lindisfarne, Northmen's Fury breaks down the first hundred years of the Viking Age, their raids and eventual settlement in Normandy, England and Ireland.
From there there is a chapter each going in depth into the Norse settlement of the Faroes and Iceland, the ill-fated colony of Greenland (something I've always been interested in), the failed attempted settlement of North America and Newfoundland, and the Viking usurpation of the fledgling Russian societies and settlements of Novgorod and Kiev.
This was the strongest part of the book - deep-dives into specific subjects are my jam, and the Norse settlement of Greenland and North America are subjects I've always been hugely keen to learn more about - however, they cause the general layout of the book to stumble a little bit, which I'll talk about further down.
After this, Northmen's Fury explores the transition of Scandinavia and Britain from disparate, feuding factions into defined countries and monarchies, and the arrival of Christianity and its effects on Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Finally, it goes into the transformation of the Vikings in the British Isles and France into the Normans, those in eastern Europe into the homologous Rus, and the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and the Battle of Hastings - which are generally accepted as the end of 'Vikings' as a raiding force of warriors.
My main issue with the book is that the first couple of chapters chronologically explore the Viking world as a whole, as do the last few chapters - in the middle, you have those 'deep-dives' that I mentioned above, which go into detail on the various colonies and settlements of the Norse, which follow the chronology of these settlements start-to-end. This makes everything a little bit messy and confusing, as you'll read about people during these deep dives who then die or accomplish something, etc., and then later in the book they'll be re-introduced as part of the larger narrative.
Not a huge complaint, and other than that I very much enjoyed Northmen's Fury - it can be a bit dry, but certainly the best and most extensive exploration of Viking history that I've read. Highly recommend to anybody with an interest in the subject....more
...[General] Giap had decided to accept trial by battle at Dien Bien Phu, it remained only for 15,000 French and 50,000 Viet Minh troops to act out th...[General] Giap had decided to accept trial by battle at Dien Bien Phu, it remained only for 15,000 French and 50,000 Viet Minh troops to act out the drama in pain and blood and death. -p50
Dien Bien Phu is a battle which holds a surprising amount of interest to me - much like Stalingrad, it's an example of the desperate heroism that humans are capable of when their back is to the wall and they have nowhere else to turn.
Martin Windrow's excellent accounting of the siege, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, sparked my original interest in Dien Bien Phu and the Indochinese War, and by extension the Vietnam War, a period I know frightfully little about. Windrow's book draws heavily on Hell in a Very Small Place, and the author credits this book with sparking his own interest in Dien Bien Phu, much like his did mine, and so it immediately became a must-read.
Hell in a Very Small Place is a much more focused book - the first third of The Last Valley is spent discussing the leadup to Dien Bien Phu, the battles and combatants, whilst this book is in the valley within the first 100 pages. Perhaps this is due to it originally being published in 1966, 12 years after the battle itself, and it's assumed that most readers would be familiar with the events - regardless, had I not read Last Valley first I would have been a lot more confused.
After that however, the two unfold more or less the same, with Last Valley glossing over the occupation and fortification (or the lack thereof) of the valley in favour of a focus on the preceding events. Fall and Windrow's opinions on the outcome and the conduct of the siege are also in line with one another - as to be expected, I suppose, when one introduced the other to the event.
All over again I found myself agonising over the fate of the thousands of French paratroopers and others who were trapped in the hellhole - their desperate defense of a mudhole in the middle of nowhere, far from home - and putting paid to the ridiculous modern myth of the Frenchman's propensity to surrender.
It would now be their task [...] to make yet one more desperate effort to finish off the grimly determined French resistance on the blood-soaked hills and filth-laden valley bottom... -p342
Whereas Windrow focuses mostly on a play-by-play of the battle itself, Fall goes into detail on the political situation throughout - specifically France's pleas to the United States to provide air support in the face of an increasingly disastrous siege battle, and Britain's stubborn refusal to throw their support behind France. As it was written in the midst of America's own disastrous adventure in Vietnam, this book also draws very clear and painful parallels between the French experience and the ongoing war - and how the latter may have been easily avoided with American assistance in the former.
There can be no doubt that Dien Bien Phu, far from being a purely French defeat, became an American defeat as well [...] From 1965 onward, the United States was willing to go to work for the sake of preserving what her President calls her 'national honor'. In 1954, one hundred airplanes could not be found to save 15,000 French troops at Dien Bien Phu. p461
Following the battle, Fall's book does a slightly better job of explaining the POW situation and the grueling march they were forced on - the attempts of the French to repatriate their dead, scattered across the valley, ultimately unsuccessful due to clashes between the Viet Minh and French diplomats - the fate of the few dozen who managed to escape the encirclement at the end of the siege and flee into the jungle - and where most of the significant players of the battle were when the book was written in 1966. As it was, the majority of these people were still alive to give eyewitness accounts to Fall for his book, whereas Windrow did not have this luxury.
A very enjoyable read, I could not pick between it and Last Valley which I preferred. Both are incredible works of historical storytelling which I would heartily recommend to anyone.
Colonel Bastiani states that "the defenders of Dien Bien Phu have up to now covered themselves in glory and are an object of admiration for the Free World."
The price of that unsullied glory came to 5000 dead, 10,000 prisoners, and a lost war. p361...more
Unlike the huge majority of the current generation in the West, the men on both sides at Dien Bien Phu did not live at a time or in places where they Unlike the huge majority of the current generation in the West, the men on both sides at Dien Bien Phu did not live at a time or in places where they enjoyed the luxury of disregarding [that war is what human beings do]; and we, who are lifelong civilians, have not earned the right to sit in judgement over them. -p55
The Last Valley is a fantastic historical work focusing on the Battle of Dien Bien Phu at the end of the Indochina War. It is written by Martin Windrow who, importantly, isn't a historian.
Prior to reading the Last Valley, my sum knowledge of the First Indochina War was that it was basically the Vietnam War, but with the French rather than America. Whilst this is somewhat true, Windrow does an exceptional job of outlining the reasons for the conflict and the background of the battle at Dien Bien Phu (DBP) itself.
The first third of the book is taken entirely by a deep analysis of the Expeditionary Corps and the People's Army, their relative strengths and weaknesses, and the various conflicts that led up to DBP - specifically Na San and RC4. Whilst obviously told from a mainly French perspective, Windrow doesn't shy away from telling it like it is - indeed, he portrays the French command as arrogant and out of touch with the realities of a war in south-east Asia; the People's Army as a surprisingly effective fighting force, with a commander who - more than anything - was terrified of meeting the French in pitched battle.
The majority of the remainder of the book tells the story of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, from the initial paradrops into the valley to the last POWs being marched out.
Similar to Antony Beevor's Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943, Last Valley surprised me with the empathy I found myself feeling. A first, at odds with my personal opinions, I found myself almost rooting for the French forces to be decimated - their command and view of the People's Army was so arrogantly dismissive (in relation to their ability to take DBP, anyway) that I felt like they almost deserved to get their teeth kicked in. Who were these colonialist scum, trying to reclaim a part of the world they failed to protect from Japanese atrocities in World War 2? Who are they to now claim ownership once more?
However as the siege progresses, and the horror of the situation deepened and the intense bravery of the French garrison became more and more apparent, I found my empathy sliding back to the French - not their commanders, for the most part (though there were a couple of exceptions), but the paratroopers, Legion, Algerian, Moroccan, and Vietnamese soldiers who were forced into a 'toilet bowl' on the whims of command, and held it - through devastating losses - for two months.
[Increasing at the same pace as combat fatigue] was the repeated and irreplacable withdrawals which battle forces each man to make from his strictly finite store of courage. p499
The telling is all the more impressive when you take into account the fact that Windrow is not a trained historian, which makes the depth of his research all the more impressive. Part Two of the book, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, is presented both as an overarching combat narrative and as a series of anecdotes from survivors or memoirs, giving a moment-to-moment runthrough of the battle.
I think Windrow's lack of training as a historian also helped with the presentation; the out-and-out passion that he works into every paragraph of the book. There are three quotes in this review, and each of them is brilliant - but the book is full of these. Praising the bravery of the French garrison, the ingenuity of the People's Army - whatever he's talking about, it is filled to the brim with such an enthusiasm and believable emotion that you cannot help but be pulled along for the ride. Rather than being a historian pushing out another work of historical narrative, Windrow is simply hugely passionate about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu - and it shows.
I grew attached to French sergeants and lieutenant-colonels from 60 years ago, to the rankers and file of the garrison who were left in the mud and rot for months with no hope of rescue and came so close to achieving an impossible victory. I didn't want it to end - but I didn't want their suffering to continue.
It took me a long time to get through the Last Valley due to my generally slow reading speed which is only exascerbated by non-fiction, but it was worth it - Windrow's writing demands that you inhale every last sentence, every mention of B-26 logistics and bombing weight - all of it.
It isn't all sunshine and lollipops - sometimes the minutiae of which particular battalion of which regiment was on which hill can get a little wearing, and it ends on a bit of a whimper - but considering the end of the actual battle itself, that seems somewhat appropriate.
A fantastic book.
For 56 days they had given everything, endured everything; they had achieved the impossible, not once but again and again. They deserved to win; and if they were now being robbed of victory, then the real thieves weren't the People's Army, the 'rats of the Nam Youm', or anyone else in the filth of this last valley, but men who slept between clean sheets far away. p614...more
Liam || Books 'n Beards
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