JonS Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Take, for example, Simon Trew's review of his 'D-Day' here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2X0IPES71YWTF/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 This should cover the subject nicely 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnart Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 This should cover the subject nicely I am sure I have that one. Hope all you grogs out there kept your comics from when you were a kid. I did, and now it they worth about $2800. I had one early 60's "Our Army of War" worth around $400 alone which i sold. Sgt. Rock was my favorite. Great Cover art that inspired me to want to be an artist. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wokelly Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 in total non-snarkiness, please tell of the myths Sir Beevor perpetuates. i hadn't heard of that critique before, and i find his work to be very strong. Beevor perpetuates the myths his sources does, as do most other historians. It is not a snide remark at Beevor so much as just inherent weaknesses in his works on the eastern front which rely very heavily on secondary sources. For example Beevors work perpetuates the "blame hitler" myth, especially in regards to Stalingrad. There are works more recently (last decade) which have shown there were generals who agreed with Hitler to leave the 6th Army at Stalingrad (at least initially) because it simply did not have the fuel to conduct a withdrawal of all its units without being mauled if not destroyed by the Russian pincers. It is not that Beevor purposely pushes myths, his works are just a product of what is available and when he published his two work history of the eastern front (berlin and Stalingrad), the sources had flaws. The work is good for the time it came out, but it does not hold up as well with the more scholarly articles written recently that demolish many myths perpetuated by many sources Beevor used. I would not suggest Berlin or Stalingrad now compared to other more modern works, as I stated if you want one work on the eastern Front, "Ostkriege" is one of the most up to date regarding the continuously changing historiography of the eastern front in a single volume. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Nice to read the critique of Beevor's D-Day. If you could recommend one single book on WW2... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Belenko Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 This one here http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&book_id=29 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartokomus Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Beevor perpetuates the myths his sources does, as do most other historians. It is not a snide remark at Beevor so much as just inherent weaknesses in his works on the eastern front which rely very heavily on secondary sources. For example Beevors work perpetuates the "blame hitler" myth, especially in regards to Stalingrad. There are works more recently (last decade) which have shown there were generals who agreed with Hitler to leave the 6th Army at Stalingrad (at least initially) because it simply did not have the fuel to conduct a withdrawal of all its units without being mauled if not destroyed by the Russian pincers. It is not that Beevor purposely pushes myths, his works are just a product of what is available and when he published his two work history of the eastern front (berlin and Stalingrad), the sources had flaws. The work is good for the time it came out, but it does not hold up as well with the more scholarly articles written recently that demolish many myths perpetuated by many sources Beevor used. I would not suggest Berlin or Stalingrad now compared to other more modern works, as I stated if you want one work on the eastern Front, "Ostkriege" is one of the most up to date regarding the continuously changing historiography of the eastern front in a single volume. ahh well ty; i guess i just missed that overtone to the book or i automatically discount it, not certain. thanks for the tip on the other book, but can i get an author for that title? i can't find any book with Ostkrieg spelled like that (in english that is). thanks much 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wokelly Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 ahh well ty; i guess i just missed that overtone to the book or i automatically discount it, not certain. thanks for the tip on the other book, but can i get an author for that title? i can't find any book with Ostkrieg spelled like that (in english that is). thanks much I mentioned the full title and author on my original post, but here it is again: "Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East" by Stephen Fritz That said it is not without its own flaws, one of the most annoying is how the author talks about the late war Russian operations as based on the German 1941-42 operations which ignores Russian deep operation doctrine. But it is not a real military history as much as a general history of the war and as a single volume work it is quite good. Also I didn't really think when I said what I said about Beevor about his more vocal critics. I personally quite enjoyed Beevors books, they were in fact my first on the Eastern Front and helped me develop an interest in an area I had no knowledge about. My only issue with them is because they are a decade old they are out of date on certain things and thus do not hold up well to more recent books which can incorporate recent historical works. They are still good reads, but if I had to choose ONE work today they would not be it. In another 10 years Ostkriege probably will not be the one I will choose either. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wodin Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 'Island of Fire' looks really good but lists for over $100 on Amazon. I see they have an e-version for Beevor's 'Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943' though. I'll have to check that out. Yes but moaney well spent. Any book by Jason D Marks is worth it's wait in gold. I'd have no problem paying $100 for it. I paid nearly £50 and would have paid more. I want his more recent on on Cholm aswell. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MengJiaoRedux Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Take, for example, Simon Trew's review of his 'D-Day' here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2X0IPES71YWTF/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview sounds like Beevor is becoming a minor industry and not doing his own work as well as he should. I think his book on Paris after the liberation is pretty good. But maybe that's all Artemis Cooper's doing. Apparently I mean Hon. Alice Clare Antonia Opportune Cooper Beevor. Opportune? And where is the Artemis for her pen name? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrspawn Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Inside Hitler's High Command 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 I always really liked Cornelius Ryans books. Beevor isnt so bad too, though I wont argue with the opinions posted here. The link the the Ambrose thread is great though. I never knew proof he fabricated things - but I remember when reading his books when I was 15 years old that I got a very strong sense of personal opinion in his writing - The brilliant, brave, Americans, saved the world, stopped the idiot Montgomery from mucking things up, and were ready to give the evil Soviets their what-for. And Im a proud American. I hate to say it - but this is all too often the case in our TV and half documentaries on our 'history' channels. Even in school I can remember a lot of misconceptions that will probably always be endemic to the average American - all Germans are Nazis - if you bring up Germans to this day to a lot of Americans and asked them to say the first thing to pop in their mind it'd be Nazis, that we basically singlehandedly won WW2, very little knowledge if any about the Eastern Front, etc etc etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myles Keogh Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I like Beevor (Berlin, Stalingrad, Normandy). But I also enjoy Ambrose, though I think Ambrose does not have many friends on this forum. Why, I don't really now. Not groggy enough maybe :-) I don't like the work of Stephen Ambrose, and it's certainly not because he wasn't "groggy enough." In fact, I love the work of Max Hastings, Rick Atkinson, and Anthony Beevor, and they certainly aim for the same reading audience as Ambrose did. However, there is good historical writing and there is bad historical writing. Hastings, Atkinson, and Beevor write the former, and the Ambrose the latter. Dr. Stephen Ambrose was a documented plagiarist who realized that there was money to be made by concocting romantic tales about America's WWII experiences and marketing them to baby-boomers nostalgic for their parents' dying generation. Thus, he cloaked himself in the mantle of the unofficial "spokesman" for the "greatest generation" and their struggles during the "Great Crusade." His WWII books consist of recycled (or stolen) secondary source material and his lazily conducted oral interviews with septegenarian and octogenarian veterans whose old soldiers' stories he accepted without any attempt to verify as to accuracy or veracity. He would then add a bunch of completely unsupportable and asinine assertions as to the unsurpassed fighting prowess of the American combat soldier in comparison to all other WWII combatants including our British allies. Unsurprisingly, this fluff made American hearts swell with national pride and it sold like hotcakes which eventually caught the eye of Hollywood. Thus, did Stephen Ambrose become a very famous and wealthy man despite being a p*s-poor excuse for a historian. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I agree with Myles : ) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Belenko Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Was the sequel to this the book about the Hamster Truppen? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I agree Myles. Also I was always interested when I read his readings how he'd basically make it seem like the whole might of the Wehrmacht was completely against the US and we beat them hands down. The books seem to be replete with 'bumbling stupid Nazis' stories. Even when I was 14 I knew that much of the defenses on the beaches in Normandy were filled with second or even third rate troops, or facts like 3/4's of the German war machine was fighting in the East. Used to annoy me to no end. And as I said before, Im a proud American, the last 4 generations of my family were active duty military, 2 of those being war veterans, with my great grandfather being gassed in the Argonne forest in 1918. I love my country, but to make up lies or heavily exagerrate the truth is a disservice to everyone involved. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I agree with Myles : ) Me too. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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