Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History by Simon Winder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book in a series of three books by the author on the history of Central Europe; I have read them out of sequence, having finished “Danubia” before reading this book. The author is not kidding about the “wayward pursuit” aspect of the book. As I mentioned in my review of “Danubia” the narrative is very anecdotal and tends to jump from place to place geographically, though it does remain in roughly chronological order.

The main topic is Germany, which Mr. Winder covers from the Roman times up to 1933. Most of his personal stories are interesting and work with the narrative very well. This is especially true for the long stretch between the Thirty Years War and Napoleon when there were literally hundreds of small German states. Sure, we might be familiar with Austria, Prussia, Bavaria or Saxony but what about Hesse-Darmstadt and Schaumburg-Lippe?

There is a lot of history in here, and for the most part it’s a good read. There are many parts of the book where I thought the author did an outstanding job in explaining things, for example his discussion of the coming of the First World War is very good. But there are a few places where the personal stories kind of overwhelm the narrative, so I think this book is not quite as good as his next book “Danubia”. But overall I think it is a book that is well worth reading if you are interested in German history.

For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, the Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by Mitsuo Fuchida
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For That One Day is a very interesting memoir from Captain Mitsuo Fuchida who planned and executed the raid on Pearl Harbor and eventually wound up becoming a Christian missionary. He lived an interesting life to say the least!

Fuchida has written about the Pacific War elsewhere, so this is really more of a personal remembrance as opposed to a military history. It does contain a lot of interesting details about the Pearl Harbor attack and his experience at Midway. Because it is not a military history, Fuchida is not shy about offering his opinion on people and events. He is not too happy with most of the admirals that he served under – they were too timid.

I found the story of his conversion to Christianity to be fascinating. And his stories of his mission trips to the United States are very interesting as well – he was able to meet with many of his former adversaries, like Nimitz and MacArthur and also then President Eisenhower.

Fuchida never really completed this memoir – he had some serious medical issues and only wrote about a third of what he had planned to write. Even so, it’s a very compelling story. The editor and translators did a remarkable job. I strongly recommend this book.

Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe by Simon Winder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Danubia is, for me at least, a rather unusual history book. The author is not kidding about the “personal history” aspect! The narrative is very anecdotal and tends to jump from place to place within the former Habsburg empire, but it does remain in roughly chronological order. Although the personal stories form the places that the author visited can make for a choppy narrative in places, it also makes it easy to put the book down and pick it back up again a week or two later.

I found that the author’s personal stories about the places he visited in the course of his research really brought the Empire to life and added quite a bit of color to what can often be the tedious tale of the Habsburgs and their domains. There’s a lot of Central European history here, but by focusing on places and people and their stories, the book is much more enjoyable than most of histories of the Habsburg empire. I really enjoyed reading it, and if you’re interested in the history of Central Europe I recommend that you give it a try.

Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Appeasement is a history of British foreign policy in the 1930s. Beginning with the accession of Hitler to the German chancellorship, continuing through the Munich Conference of 1938 to the attack on France and the Low Countries in 1940 the author traces the complete failure of the policy of appeasing Hitler and Mussolini.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is the most well-known of the appeasers, but appeasement was a popular policy, not just within the Chamberlain government but within society as a whole, simply because nobody wanted another large scale conflict after the First World War. There were “anti-appeasers” as well – most famously Winston Churchill – but they were a small group without a large following. We often think of the Munich Conference when we hear the word appeasement, but that was neither the beginning nor the end of appeasement.

The author has crafted a compelling narrative of this period. I am familiar with this period of history but I learned quite a few things. Of course we know how it all turns out: appeasement was a disaster. But there were so many opportunities to avoid the looming disaster that it is a fascinating and tragic story.

Grant by Ron Chernow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grant is probably the current definitive biography of Ulysses S Grant. It is a comprehensive look at the life of the the 18th President and victorious leader of the Union forces in the Civil War.

If you have studied or read about the Civil War and the United States in the mid 19th century, you know the basic story. If not, there are spoilers here. Grant went to West Point and served in the Mexican War, along with a host of other officers who served on both sides of the Civil War. Grant struggled with alcoholism and eventually left the army. He was not successful in civilian life and when the Civil War broke out he joined the Union Army. He had a great gift for military leadership and lead the successful campaigns in the western theater, most notably leading to the capture of Vicksburg. When he moved to the eastern theater he lead the campaign that resulted in the capture of Richmond and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

After the end of the war and Lincoln’s assassination, Grant was pushed forward by the Republicans to replace the ineffective Andrew Johnson. Grant was elected to two terms and his administration was marked by a number of scandals, none of which directly involved Grant, but still reflect poorly on his ability to choose the right person for the job. After leaving office, Grant traveled extensively and made and lost a fortune. He completed his memoirs before dying from cancer.

Even though I knew the basic story of Grant’s life, there were still plenty of interesting things that I learned by reading this book. For example, Grant’s support of the rights of African-Americans, both as the leader of the Union Army and later as president was much more extensive than I had been aware of. I also learned a lot about the Reconstruction-era South and the rise of the “Lost Cause” mythology, which to some extent, is still with us today.

The author has written a very long book with a lot of detail in it, but it is an easy read: it’s very well-written and easy to follow. It took me a while to finish it, but I really enjoyed this book.

The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II by Antony Beevor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Battle of Arnhem is the latest book from Antony Beevor. This covers not just the battle for Arnhem involving the British 1st Airborne Division, but also the rest of Operation Market-Garden. This is a very detailed look at the entire operation, and provides a wealth of information about the operation and where it went wrong. It is very compelling story, of poor planning, wishful thinking and the courage of ordinary soldiers. Beevor continues the story beyond the battle and we learn what happened to the Dutch civilian population during the “hunger winter” of 1944-45.

If anything, there is perhaps too much detail. It is sometimes hard to follow the narrative as we jump from one unit to another, or one sector of the battle to another.

I do like the book, but I think it suffers somewhat in comparison to A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan. Though the Ryan book is fairly old at this point and new sources and information have come to light since it was published in 1974, it does have a very good narrative that helps the reader place people and events in their proper context.

Heads You Win by Jeffrey Archer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed emotions about this novel by Jeffrey Archer. On the one hand it is an interesting concept; a young man and his mother flee Leningrad at the height of Cold War, and it’s a matter of chance where they wind up – the United States or the UK. On the other hand, it’s kind of sloppily written, so it does not exactly compel you to finish reading it. But the advantage is that you can put the book down and pick it up days later without really losing your place.

The structure of the novel is that it alternates between the two options available to the Karpenkos on the docks of Leningrad. We follow the parallel stories of Sasha Karpenko in Great Britain and Alex Karpenko in New York. It’s an interesting concept and it serves the author’s purpose fairly well, except for the occasional editing error. If you separate out the stories, this is vintage Archer: lots of local color, many characters and the cameos by historical figures. But there are also odd leaps in both stories that are not adequately explained, and despite all of the exposition in the early going, the conclusion to both stories seems rushed.

The novel is entertaining but clearly it’s not Archer’s best work. Many of his earlier book, such as First Among Equals, are much better in terms of the storytelling.

Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hue 1968 is the story of the battle for the city of Hue during the Tet Offensive of 1968. The Tet Offensive began on the morning of January 31, 1968 with a series of attacks by the National Liberation Front across South Vietnam. The attack on Hue was main focus of the offensive, and within hours most of the city had fallen to the NLF. It would take nearly a month of hard fighting for the American and South Vietnamese forces to retake the city.

The author covers all sides of the battle, and it is a very interesting story. It is clear that the NLF expected to win a military victory, because they expected that the civilian population would rise up, not just in Hue but in South Vietnam. This did not happen. On the American side, senior commanders refused to believe that the NLF could appear in force and capture a major city like Hue. This disbelief lead to the commitment of the Marines to the battle for the city in a piecemeal fashion with tragic consequences for the Marines. Indeed it seems that until nearly the end of the battle, no American officer at the division level or above really had any idea of the size of the force their units were facing.

The author also covers the stories of the civilians who were trapped in the city during the fighting. Many civilians were killed during the fighting, some of whom were executed by the NLF because of their ties to the South Vietnamese government. It is difficult to estimate the number of civilian deaths.

Militarily speaking, Hue was a defeat for the NLF. But as Clausewitz reminds us, “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.” For over a year, American officials in Saigon and Washington had been talking about how well the war had been going and how the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces were nearly spent. The Tet Offensive, and in particular the battle for Hue, showed that they were completely wrong. And once this became widely apparent, the American political will to continue the Vietnam War began to diminish. So Tet was in some sense a strategic victory of the NLF. And it truly was a turning point in the war.

It’s a long book and it’s not an easy read, but in my opinion it is the definitive book on the battle for Hue. Using primary and archival sources, the author is able to tell a compelling story of what happened in Hue in 1968, and why it mattered.

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Fifth Risk is a set of true stories about the parts of the Federal government and some of the people who work for it. It is also the story of the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations. I found the book to be fascinating as it explains about the work done by the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce, especially NOAA. Very interesting stuff – some of the things that these departments are responsible for are surprising. Well, surprising to me at least.

One constant thread through the stories is the apparent failure of the Trump transition team to take the transition seriously. I won’t go into any details because of potential spoilers, though if you keep up with current events there is nothing here that would surprise you.

The author does a good job of telling the stories; I’ve enjoyed several of his previous works. I really enjoy his writing style. I recommend this book – it’s definitely worth reading if you are interested in politics or government.

Munich by Robert Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Munich is another historical thriller from Robert Harris. The setting is the Munich Conference of 1938 at which Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom agreed that Czechoslovakia must give up the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. It’s an important event in the build up towards World War 2, but it’s also something that is fairly well known, and I was curious as to how the author would approach it, and what kind of story he could create with this setting.

The first part of the book a little slow, but we meet two diplomats, one British and one German, who were friends at Oxford. We follow their stories in parallel as the crisis unfolds and eventually they meet again in Munich where each is a junior staff member of his respective delegation. There’s not much more that I can say without getting into spoilers.

The author has used some of the more recent historical research on Prime Minister Chamberlin. It’s always been easy, in retrospect, to condemn his policy of appeasement, but could Great Britain have gone to war in 1938 over the Sudetenland and been victorious? It’s not a simple question.

The Oster resistance group is also part of the novel. There was a plot among some officers in the German Army to arrest and depose Hitler if he tried to invade Czechoslovakia. How realistic this conspiracy was, and it’s actual chance of success are both debatable.

So with the constraints of history, he doesn’t really have a lot of room to maneuver, I think Mr. Harris has done a good job of story telling. I found the book to be a good read; yes it is a little slow in the first part of the book, but the twists and turns in the stories of the two protagonists kept me interested until the end. I recommend this book.