Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2022/Book reviews


 * By Hawkeye7



The aren't a lot of books on military logistics, and the closest there is to a classic on the subject is Martin van Creveld's Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. That book, which is still in print, has clear limitations of scope: it only covers wars in Europe, North America and the Middle East, and only (as the title suggests) from the seventeenth through to the mid-twentieth centuries.

In this book the prolific British historian Jeremy Black sets out to redress this, writing a more comprehensive work that covers logistics from antiquity to the twenty-first century, with a wider geographic scope that includes Latin America, Africa and Asia. To do so in one slim volume is quite a challenge. How well does Black meet this challenge?

Not too well.

There never seems to be enough detail as to how things were managed, and details are critical to understanding logistics. Yet at the same time there is a blizzard of references to various wars, most of which the reader is guaranteed to never have heard of, especially when we get to the eighteenth century, which is Black's field of special expertise. There are a lot of good points made, but there is little effort to pull them together, so they often get lost in the snow. The conclusions chapter in particular falls flat.

However there are certain themes that run through the book, with lots and lots of examples:
 * Strategy depends on logistics There is no shortage of examples of armies halted or defeated by logistical failure. Or campaign plans that were shaped by logistic constraints such as access to rivers. Or campaigns that were dependent on capturing the supplies needed to conduct it (never a good idea). But armies have also discovered that devastating the landscape to secure or deny supplies may not be the best strategy to win over the support of the local population.
 * Tactics depends on logistics Constraints on tactics are not so obvious but the employment of weapons like firearms or motor vehicles necessitates certain logistical support in the form of gunpowder, fuel and maintenance. But counter-logistics such as demolitions have also been effective tactics since ancient times.
 * Logistics is not sufficient to guarantee victory The US Army did not fail in Vietnam due to logistical difficulties.
 * Good enough logistics is good enough You do not need the best state-of-the-art logistics, just ones that are good enough for the purpose at hand. This is a running theme throughout the book. There is a tendency to study the best, but that may not be what is required.
 * Geography is the key dominating factor in logistics The means of transport, the availability of food and supplies, the weather, climate and endemic diseases are critical factors in logistical planning.

The book's strength is in its references. Black provides lots of references to recent material, and there are a lot of great books and journal articles cited. The reader interested in the subject would be well advised to pore over these.

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 * By Hawkeye7

This is a book about the rebuilding of Nagasaki after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not about the physical rebuilding of the city as such, but the formation of narratives that shaped the rebuilding process.

From the beginning, the approach taken to reconstruction at Nagasaki differed substantially from that at Hiroshima. For a start, the scope of destruction was different: 90 per cent of Hiroshima was destroyed, but only 30 per cent of Nagasaki. The high hills (seen in the image) confined most of the devastation to the Urakami Valley. In particular, the central business district of Nagasaki survived. National involvement in reconstruction was limited; nearly every city in Japan had suffered damage from bombing, and for many years Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not regarded as being special cases in Japan. Rebuilding policy was therefore decided at the local government level.

While Hiroshima sought to live down its historical role as a military garrison city, Nagasaki sought to embrace its past as a cosmopolitan city of culture and commerce. This arose from its centuries-old role as the main trading port with China and Europe. The city had a developed a major shipbuilding industry in the form of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which was the biggest employer in town, and the target of both conventional and atomic bombing raids. Nagasaki was also a centre of Christianity in Japan. The persecuted Catholic Christian minority lived mainly in the Urakami Valley and suffered heavily; 8,000 of the 10,000 Catholics who lived there died in the bombing. Their spiritual centre, Urakami Cathedral, was not far from ground zero, and was reduced to ruins.

Making sense of the tragedy was difficult for the survivors. In Japan the atomic bombings were seen as bringing death and destruction whereas the American occupiers saw them as bringing peace and prosperity. Unlike the protestants, Japanese Catholics had enthusiastically supported the war effort. A leading figure in Nagasaki was Takashi Nagai, a Catholic doctor who had served in the Japanese Army in China and was dying of radiation poisoning years before the atomic bombing. His transformation from soldier to saint was very much the image that the new Japan wanted to show to the world.

The choice of the evocative word "resurrection" in this book's title is thus deliberate and carefully chosen. Nagai contended that the atomic bombing was God's will, that it was required as atonement for the sins of all humanity. Since Japan had started an unjust war, atonement had to occur in Japan, and the people of the Urakami Valley were chosen for sacrifice by the almighty because of their purity of spirit. Somehow this was comforting to the survivors (hibakusha) who had lost loved ones.

To the people of Nagasaki, it was their atomic bombing that was the most significant, for the war had continued after Hiroshima, but ended after Nagasaki. But while Hiroshima refashioned itself into the centre of commemoration of the bombing, tourists who came to Nagasaki were treated to the full scope of its long and rich history. A key event came in 1958, when the Catholics were allowed to demolish the ruins of the Urakami Cathedral and build a new cathedral on the site.

All in all, a well-written and thoughtful book on an unusual subject.

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