Book and Film Reviews

This is a unique book compared to those normally reviewed here. It is not an operational history, nor is it an in depth look at a given weapons system or battle. Instead, what Jeff Danby has created in Men of Armor is an excellent look at what it was like to train, deploy, and engage in combat as part of a Second World War U.S. armored battalion. Quite a bit of work goes into getting right a book like this and in this regards Danby's research efforts are superb. Not only does he rely upon a...

Chris Peers is a leading expert on African colonial warfare. This expertise is on full display in Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana - as is his extensive knowledge of the battlefield where these fascinating events took place. In addition, Peers offers more than a narrative. There is quite a bit of solid analysis provided, including a level headed approach to a subject matter that lacks the ample documentation and primary sources of, say, that available to a researcher studying the Second World War'...

One year ago I reviewed Volume I of Douglas E. Nash Senior's trilogy. That book was the first in a series of three examining the formation and combat history of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps (primarily comprised of the 3rd SS-Panzer Division Totenkopf and 5th SS-Panzer Division Wiking for all but a few weeks at the Second World War's end. That first volume looked at the formation of this elite corps. and covered in extensive detail its combat operations near Warsaw in the late summer and fall of 1944...

The 1944-1945 battle for the Hungarian capital of Budapest often gets overlooked by not only other great city sieges of the Second World War (like Leningrad), but also because of its timing (running contempanerously to other great campaigns in Europe like the Battle of the Bulge in Western Europe). However, from the perspective of those interested in examining why it was certain battlfield outcomes were achieved during the war or those interested in history's great military sieges then this...