A fine, discursive study of war and peace, and a worthy companion to the late German writer W.G. Sebald’s On the Natural...
A thoughtful examination, by a noted German social and “consciousness” historian, of what happens to victor and vanquished alike in the aftermath of war.
Why, wonders Schivelbusch (Tastes of Paradise, 1992), were Union officers so full of praise for the Southern cavaliers against whom they fought? Why did the Germans of 1918 so readily believe that Woodrow Wilson was an “honest broker in whose hands Germany entrusted its future”? Why were the defeated French, usually so quick to distinguish themselves from their neighbors, so eager to reform their educational system on the German model following defeat in 1870? Strange things happen to defeated countries, Schivelbusch responds, just as they do to bereaved individuals: first comes the denial, then the anger, and then the quest for a scapegoat (“the previous regime is held responsible both for leading the nation into the fateful misadventure of war and for directing it down a dead-end path long before the commencement of hostilities”). Finally, there’s some sort of accommodation that can involve the wholesale adoption of the former enemy’s customs. Similarly, conquerors often find themselves in tremendous sympathy with their defeated foe, so that, Schivelbusch writes, a generation of American intellectuals was inspired to move to France after WWI to become, for a time, Europeans. (But wasn’t the defeated foe Germany? Well, yes, Schivelbusch writes: but the real loser in WWI was Europe, the real winner America.) Schivelbusch tends to an essayistic, even impressionistic approach to history, but his pages are dense with documentable facts that speak to the horrors of war: one of every five Southerners died in the Civil War, one of every five Germans in WWII, one of every thirty Parisians in the ill-fated Commune. And some of his most interesting observations (such as his lengthy digression on the Volkswagen) come in the densely set, small-type endnotes, making every page worth a look.
A fine, discursive study of war and peace, and a worthy companion to the late German writer W.G. Sebald’s On the Natural History of Destruction (Feb. 2003).Pub Date: April 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-4421-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
From independent historian Beevor (coauthor, Paris After the Liberation, 1994, etc.), a meticulously researched and gripping account of the horrific battle that culminated in the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg offensive in Russia, and ultimately ordained German defeat in WWII. In June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, with a vast surprise attack comprising three large army groups, a quick defeat of the Red Army seemed probable if not inevitable: Germany’s massive blitzkrieg style of war had quickly subjugated Poland and France. But, as Beevor makes clear, Hitler never prepared his army adequately for war with the Russian behemoth, and the blitzkrieg petered out as the Russian winter closed in. Hitler delayed the attack on Moscow, and by the early spring of 1942, when General Friedrich Wilhelm Paulus assumed command of the Sixth Army, the combination of surprise and terror on which the Nazis had depended was lost. Despite strategic victories along the way, the objective, Stalingrad, proved elusive, and after Paulus’s repeated sanguinary assaults against the city proved ineffective, his position became a trap for thousands of German troops, few of whom survived the battle or the rigors of the Soviet gulag. Beevor is evenhanded in his treatment of the two sides: By contrasting the German and Soviet points of view, he conveys the experiences of Axis generals and fighting men (who comprised thousands of Romanian, Hungarian, and disaffected Russians as well as Germans) in the midst of a total war, and those of Soviet soldiers, who had to fear the NKVD and SMERSH, the Soviet intelligence services, as much as the Nazis. A painstakingly thorough study that will become a standard work on the battle of Stalingrad. (Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection/History Book Club main selection)
Pub Date: July 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-87095-1
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.
A delightful new translation of what is widely considered the first work of history and nonfiction.
Herodotus has a wonderful, gossipy style that makes reading these histories more fun than studying the rise of the Persian Empire and its clash with Greece—however, that’s exactly what readers will do in this engaging history, which is full of interesting digressions and asides. Holland (In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, 2012, etc.), whose lifelong devotion to Herodotus, Thucydides and other classical writers is unquestionable, provides an engaging modern translation. As Holland writes, Herodotus’ “great work is many things—the first example of nonfiction, the text that underlies the entire discipline of history, the most important source of information we have for a vital episode in human affairs—but it is above all a treasure-trove of wonders.” Those just being introduced to the Father of History will agree with the translator’s note that this is “the greatest shaggy-dog story ever written.” Herodotus set out to explore the causes of the Greco-Persian Wars and to explore the inability of East and West to live together. This is as much a world geography and ethnic history as anything else, and Herodotus enumerates social, religious and cultural habits of the vast (known) world, right down to the three mummification options available to Egyptians. This ancient Greek historian could easily be called the father of humor, as well; he irreverently describes events, players and their countless harebrained schemes. Especially enjoyable are his descriptions of the Persians making significant decisions under the influence and then waiting to vote again when sober. The gifts Herodotus gave history are the importance of identifying multiple sources and examining differing views.
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-02489-6
Page Count: 840
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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