Book Review – sfoil blog

“Hanoi’s War” by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen

On August 27, 2018

Lien-Hang Nguyen used unprecedented access to Hanoi’s governmental archives to write her 2012 book Hanoi’s War, a political history of the Vietnam War from the northern perspective focused on two powerful key figures in the North Vietnamese government, Le Duan and Le Duc Tho — the most powerful man in the northern government and his protege and chief negotiator, respectively. The book had less insight into northern military operations than I’d hoped, but it’s still an excellent if somewhat preliminary work and I eagerly await Nguyen’s next major work.

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“Crusade” by Rick Atkinson

By sfoil

On July 3, 2018

In Book Review, Military History

I originally heard Rick Atkinson’s “Crusade” mentioned in a discussion about French & British forces underperforming during Desert Storm . I put it on my to-read list, found a copy in a used bookstore, and read it. Atkinson doesn’t actually have that much to say about the British or the French. “Crusade” is a solid chronicle of the war, and even though it’s not in the same league as Atkinson’s best work, he did produce it rather quickly (published 1993), especially given the detail of both the sources and the writing. The title derives from Atkinson’s thesis — that President George H.W. Bush drummed up support for the war by turning it into something that it wasn’t, a great Crusade — but he thankfully doesn’t spend much time on this.

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“The Allure of Battle” by Cathal Nolan

By sfoil

On May 3, 2018

In Book Review, Military History

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The Allure of Battle, Cathal J. Nolan, Oxford University Press, 2017. 728pp.

In The Allure of Battle, Cathal Nolan purports to tell the reader “How Wars Have [really] Been Won And Lost”. His basic answer is “attrition”, and he goes a little further and asserts that attempts to resolve wars via decisive battles a la the recommendations of Clausewitz tend to devolve into attrition. Basically, says Nolan, long wars always end up as wars of attrition, and states that attempt to start small, winnable wars typically end up fighting long wars to their disadvantage. Over hundreds of pages, Nolan does an admirable job of demonstrating that Napoleon and Hitler were megalomaniacs who pushed their finite military resources beyond any sensible limits, as were other military leaders to lesser degrees. He ultimately has nothing new to say, unfortunately.

Men Against Fire

By sfoil

On April 30, 2018

In Book Review, Military Theory

I read S.L.A. Marshall’s 1947 Men Against Fire after seeing it cited over and over again, sometimes even in conversation. The common takeaway is that most infantrymen in the Second World War didn’t really do much in terms of killing or even shooting at the enemy. Indeed Marshall does claim that, with the qualification that “didn’t shoot” isn’t the same as “worthless”, but that’s not the only point the book makes — more broadly, it’s an attempt at a systematic if ultimately somewhat anecdotal study of infantry combat, something subject even in WWII to far less quantification and contemporary study than combat in the air or at sea.

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I had a devil of a time finding this because of some TV show.

Category: Book Review

“Hanoi’s War” by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen

“Crusade” by Rick Atkinson

“The Allure of Battle” by Cathal Nolan

Men Against Fire