Inevitable? Perhaps not, but the events of 1939 made the war “hard to avoid.” Lucid and to the point, as is Overy’s...
Overy (History/Univ. of Exeter; The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars, 2009, etc.) limns the annus horribilis in which World War II broke out in Europe.
By the author’s account, the war was inevitable. Europe had nearly disintegrated into chaos, marked by “economic crisis, the rise of authoritarian dictatorships, deep ideological divisions, nationalist rivalries, and the collapse of the effort of the League of Nations to preserve peace.” All of these elements virtually guaranteed conflict, though the so-called Polish question was the single great catalyst. After World War I, the Allies had both created an independent Polish state and carved access to the Baltic Sea for it out of German territory, another sure way to cause strife, especially since Germany never recognized many of the provisions even before Hitler’s time. Yet it was Hitler who added the missing ingredient of revanchism, while his erstwhile treaty partner Joseph Stalin labored diligently to secure Soviet neutrality in the hope of winning some measure of control over Eastern Europe. As Overy writes, the Soviets were masterful in playing the Western Allies against Germany to gain concessions from both sides. Neither Germany nor Russia “regarded Poland as a permanent political fixture,” so dividing it up was troublesome to neither party and indeed was “an acceptable outcome to both sides.” The author gives Neville Chamberlain a slight rehabilitation, noting that by 1939 he had no illusions about Hitler or his intentions, and adding that very few ordinary Europeans actually wanted war. Yet in the end war was the only possible result of a great chess game in which Hitler played an Italian card even as Italy scrambled to maintain neutrality on its own, betting as well that England and France would not rescue Poland. That they did, the author concludes, was “not to save Poland from a cruel occupation but to save [them] from the dangers of a disintegrating world.”
Inevitable? Perhaps not, but the events of 1939 made the war “hard to avoid.” Lucid and to the point, as is Overy’s custom—of much value to students of the political dimensions of WWII.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-670-02209-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
HISTORY | MODERN | MILITARY | GENERAL HISTORY
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Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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