Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2024/Book reviews


 * By Hawkeye7

Historical novelist Robert Harris once wrote that "history is too important to be left to the historians." Historian Daniel Aaron argued that this was because "good writers write the kind of history good historians can’t or don’t write." Aaron went on to quote Henry James: "Professional historians aren’t ordinarily attuned to these resonances and historical shudderings. Henry James likened them to coal miners working in the dark on hands and knees, eyes downcast, foreheads contracted, a “vast fabric of impenetrable fact” stretched over their heads. The historian, he wrote, “essentially wants more documents than he can really use.” Storytellers require just enough of them to quicken or discipline their imaginations without suffocating under an avalanche of fact. Yet James was a realist and suspicious of the historical novel as a literary form. The farther the past receded, the more inaccessible it seemed to him."

Which brings us to this book, which is largely about John von Neumann. If you haven't heard of von Neumann, and want to see an example of his legacy, you're already looking right at it! Through his development of the MANIAC I computer, von Neumann introduced the Von Neumann architecture which defines the organisation of all modern computers. (He was also one of the first to recognise the potential of computer viruses.)

This book is written as a novel, with each chapter in the distinctive voice of one of von Neumann's collaborators, associates or family members, including boyhood friend Eugene Wigner, Los Alamos Laboratory colleague Richard Feynman, wife Klara and daughter Marina. Yet I have read a great deal about von Neumann, having written or expanded the sections in his article about defence work, including his work on the Manhattan Project, and it is completely factual. It is the manner in which the story is told, not the contents, that make it straddle the boundary between fiction and non-fiction.

Whether the maniac of the title is the computer or the person is one of the running themes of this work. Early on, von Neumann was involved in formalism, the effort to place mathematics on a foundation of formal logic. This was proceeding apace until Kurt Gödel came up with Gödel's incompleteness theorems: if a system is consistent, it cannot be complete. Shocked, von Neumann went and proved the reverse: if a system is complete, it cannot be consistent. (Gödel had already proved this result too, but not yet published it; he was impressed that someone understood it.) Later, von Neumann was involved in the creation of game theory and applied it to nuclear strategy, developing the doctrine that came to be known as mutually assured destruction (MAD).

Good summer reading.

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 * By Hawkeye7

This detailed and thought-provoking book is about the German National Railway (Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Allied bombing campaign against it. It challenges many common misconceptions about the bomber offensive of World War II.

In the run-up to Operation Overlord, General Dwight D. Eisenhower gained operational control over the heavy bombers of the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) and RAF Bomber Command, which he exercised through his deputy, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder. Although a mighty bomber force had now been built and deployed, by early 1944 time was running out for them to strike a crippling blow against the German war economy. Now they were being diverted from this task to assist the ground forces in landing the decisive blow. How to best utilise them was the subject of considerable debate.

The bombers were used to cut German communications and isolate the battlefield. British boffin Solly Zuckerman came up with a plan to disrupt the German railway system by bombing the marshalling yards in France. These were the areas where trains were assembled. This book goes into considerable detail about their workings. Based on the success of the marshalling yards strategy in France, Tedder extended it to Germany in September 1944. The idea was that bombers could aid the ground forces and attack German industry at the same time.

An opposing strategy was advocated by the USSTAF: the oil campaign. Mierzejewski notes that while Americans laud American exceptionalism - the notion that the United States is a distinctive or unique nation - they have difficulty imagining how another nation could be different. In this case, the United States's economy ran on oil, but Germany's did not; its primary source of energy was coal. Thus, German industry was not significantly affected by attacks on oil targets, although it impacted ground and air operations.

What brought about the final collapse of the German economy in 1945 was the attacks against transportation targets. This book explains how this occurred, and how Albert Speer and the Deutsche Reichsbahn attempted to prevent it. In the end, there were more locomotives than ever, and railway cars piled up in the sidings, but the vital coal did not get delivered because the bombing of the marshalling yards completely disrupted the transportation system.

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 * By Hawkeye7



This book is about the logistical support of the First Crusade. The crusaders had to traverse vast distances just to get to the frontier of Christendom, and then had conduct a major campaign involving a series of sieges and pitched battles against a strong and well-led if occasionally divided enemy.

No king, emperor or pontiff stepped forward to lead the crusade, so it consisted of contingents under lesser nobles whose names are now legendary: Raymond of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert II of Flanders and Bohemond of Taranto. The crusaders were no rabble, but a well-disciplined, well-trained, and well-equipped force. (In contrast to the ill-fated People's Crusade.)

Just getting there was a logistical feat of the highest magnitude. How they did it is the subject of this book. Keeping the troops' animals fed and providing drinking water for them were major concerns throughout, affecting the course of the campaign as the crusaders met and overcame formidable obstacles. Mostly the crusaders followed what remains sound advice to travellers today: take less baggage and more money. The resulting logistical system was very different from what many readers might imagine was used in the middle ages.

This book represents an important contribution to the history of the crusades and medieval logistics. It is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in either subject. This book is solidly based on recent scholarship while still being an easy read. However, it covers logistics, not battles. If you want to know more about the conduct of the campaigns (or need to brush up on them), I recommend John France's Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (1996).

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