Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/March 2012/Book reviews


 * By Nick-D

MI6 is the official history of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in the period between its establishment in 1909 through to 1949. It was written by British historian Keith Jeffrey who, in his role as official historian, was given almost free access to SIS's files. The book is primarily focused on the history of SIS as an organisation, but includes lots of detail on its activities during the two world wars.

As an official history, MI6 ran the risk of being 'dry' and uninteresting. Fortunately, Jeffrey is an excellent writer and has a good eye for interesting anecdotes so it's a very good read. He ably balances material on how the SIS was organised and funded with lively stories of fieldwork and anecdotes from bureaucratic battles in Whitehall, and the narrative is well paced. As a result, while the book shouldn't be mistaken for a James Bond novel (despite what some of the blurbs on the cover hint at!) it's highly accessible.

Jeffery has made good use of his source material to provide a serious assessment of the SIS's performance. He argues that the SIS made an important contribution to the defence of the United Kingdom during the world wars. I was generally convinced by his analysis, though I think that Jeffery excuses away too many of SIS's lax practices (the fact that the service didn't develop a through training program for its agents until after World War II seems inexcusable, for instance). However, he's generally pretty clear-eyed and takes a refreshingly unromantic view of SIS's activities and performance: SIS's blunders are acknowledged, and the unsavory way in which it operated at times is covered in detail.

Overall, I think that this book will be of wide interest, and it's an excellent example of what official histories should look like.

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 * By Nick-D

Target Tirpitz is a narrative history of the 24 Allied attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz during World War II. It was written by British historian Patrick Bishop.

While this book is aimed at a general audience, it will be of wide interest. Bishop's descriptions of the attacks on the battleship between 1942 and 1944 are well written and detailed, and place the role of the ship in the context of the general war. He also provides useful details on Tirpitz's career and British and German tactics. While the book is mainly referenced to existing secondary sources, Bishop also consulted primary sources and makes fairly astute judgements about the campaign. As a result, Target Tirpitz doesn't fall into the trap of hero worship, and provides useful and interesting analysis of the German and British decision making. Bishop is particularly critical of Winston Churchill's interventions, but also notes the mistakes made by the German Navy and the flaws which doomed many of the British attacks to failure. A particular strength of the book is the skillful way in which accounts from veterans of the campaign are integrated into the narrative; these are used to illustrate the main points, but do not dominate the text.

That said, Target Tirpitz does have some flaws. At times Bishop gets sidetracked onto topics of secondary importance (such as a detailed account of the hunt for the Bismarck and over-long biographies of some of the key people involved in the campaign) and probably goes into too much detail on the mini-submarine attacks on the battleship. The amount of coverage accorded to the British carrier raids on the ship in 1944 (which was a major effort) is surprisingly brief. Inexcusably, the book contains a number of minor mistakes and typos, though I didn't spot any significant errors. As a result, appears that the book was never properly edited, despite being published by a major firm.

All up, however, Target Tirpitz is a success. I found it to be an interesting and fast paced read, and it avoids most of the usual problems which affect popular histories.

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