Fans of the companion volumes to Ken Burns’ film series will find this a familiar, and worthy, approach.
An image-driven history of the tumultuous period between and including the world wars.
Jones, an accomplished popular historian of the medieval era, turns to the recent past in this collaboration with Brazilian artist Amaral, who—following the lead of film director Peter Jackson and the World War I footage he restored in They Shall Not Grow Old—colorizes images from the years 1914 to 1945. That colorization, which Jones calls “an emotional enhancing agent,” serves to underscore just how recent this past is: When we look into the unblinking eyes of a dead German machine-gunner from 100 years ago, we could be looking at a neighbor. Jones rejects the idea of considering the period a “second Thirty Years War” even though many historians have traced the causes of both wars to antecedent events much like those of the past, including failed efforts at peace and imperial rivalries, marked here by an affecting portrait of the Archduke Ferdinand and Archduchess Sophie lying in state side by side after having been assassinated in Sarajevo. The text amounts to mostly a series of extended captions, but Jones capably limns some of the big-picture elements, including the Russian defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg, which helped precipitate the Russian Revolution and the rise of Hindenburg to power in Germany; and the Battle of the Marne, which halted a German offensive and caused the invaders to dig themselves into trench fortifications: “Little did they know what a trend they were setting.” Many of the photos are unsettling, even horrific, such as an image of a Japanese soldier’s skull that emblazoned the February 1943 issue of Life. Others, such as that of Brazilian singer and actor Carmen Miranda dancing on a Hollywood street on VJ-Day, are little known.
Fans of the companion volumes to Ken Burns’ film series will find this a familiar, and worthy, approach. (200 color photos)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64313-222-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (1900–45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle’s “dense, descriptive style” and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience—a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler’s reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context—Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage—is valuable. Kirkus, at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: “the book doesn’t let the reader down.” Pyle, of course, captures “the human qualities” of men in combat, but he also provides “an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers.” Despite Piehler’s current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), Kirkus in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, “here’s a book that needs no selling.” Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
Pub Date: April 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8032-8768-2
Page Count: 513
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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