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Best Factual Books on War (More specifically; WW2 and beyond)

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C

Cindres

Vied for a tag related to cocks, so here it is.
So I just started watching Band Of Brothers (finally) as my housemate got it for christmas and we're all watching it together. I was thinking, as I've spent a bit of time on Wikipedia before on the WW2 pages, that I'd love to pick up some books on the subject.

In GAF's opinion, what are the best books detailing WW2 and extending that; any other major (modern, i.e. WW1 onwards) wars?
 
W

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
Not WW2 but I loved this book:

George Crile - Charlie Wilson's War

tumblr_lq2vpotoWQ1qeo2az.jpg


Just delete the movie from your mind if you've seen it as they are very, very different.
 
G

Guerrillas in the Mist

Member
Antony Beevor is superb for non-historians. His book on Stalingrad is pretty much compulsory if you're reading into WW2. His other stuff is excellent as well (Including a recent book on the Normandy Invasion), but I'd start there. Better than Ambrose by a mile.
 
R

Rapstah

Member
Anthony Beevor is absolutely a required read. Stalingrad in particular is great, although I'm no historian so I can't really comment on that aspect of it.

EDIT: Dude, what the hell.
 
U

Uncle

Member
I was going to recommend The Unknown Soldier, but learned that "Unfortunately, the only English translation of The Unknown Soldier is faulty, with scenes removed and added for unspecified reasons, and is stylistically misleading as well".
 
S

Salazar

Member
John Toland's The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 is pretty damned special.

I would recommend Richard J. Aldrich's recent history of GCHQ as a survey of the development of intelligence-gathering.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
Another WWII book mainstay, and for good reason, is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It's massive, absolutely definitive in its analysis of the facts of the rise of Hitler's regime.

I always tell people who are getting big into WWII to start with this, since it acts as a great foundational piece to explain motivations for the war on the Western Front.
 
R

Rapstah

Member
Amir0x said:
Another WWII book mainstay, and for good reason, is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It's massive, absolutely definitive in its analysis of the facts of the rise of Hitler's regime.

I always tell people who are getting big into WWII to start with this, since it acts as a great foundational piece to explain motivations for the war on the Western Front.
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Oh, isn't this the one that all the other books credit as a big inspiration and sometimes source? I think I've read its name several times in special thanks tos and similar.
 
S

Sibylus

Banned
Amir0x said:
Another WWII book mainstay, and for good reason, is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It's massive, absolutely definitive in its analysis of the facts of the rise of Hitler's regime.

I always tell people who are getting big into WWII to start with this, since it acts as a great foundational piece to explain motivations for the war on the Western Front.
Click to expand...
I'll second this recommendation. He has some laughable ideas about gay people that surface a time or two, but the work is solid aside from that.
 
S

Salazar

Member
I would also recommend Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke - a commonplace book of WWII quotations and observations (from a pacifist - indeed Quaker - perspective).
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
Rapstah said:
Oh, isn't this the one that all the other books credit as a big inspiration and sometimes source? I think I've read its name several times in special thanks tos and similar.
Click to expand...

All the time. It was an exhaustive project with such meticulous documentation and research that it remains a shining example for all other factual historical works, and is frequently cited in the grand realm of WWII books. Some of the stuff that was discovered as a result of researching for this work still to this day impact new WWII historians.
 
L

Loxley

Member
Amir0x said:
Another WWII book mainstay, and for good reason, is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It's massive, absolutely definitive in its analysis of the facts of the rise of Hitler's regime.

I always tell people who are getting big into WWII to start with this, since it acts as a great foundational piece to explain motivations for the war on the Western Front.
Click to expand...

We have a winner.



It's fucking massive, but there's no better comprehensive guide to the history of the Nazi regime. Easily one of the best historical books of the 20th century, much less best WWII books. Granted the giant swastika on the cover doesn't exactly make this an ideal book for reading in public, but it's worth it.
 
L

Llyranor

Member
Only read Ambrose (if you must) for the human aspect of the war, not for the facts. There's controversy about him re: plagiarism, or making up stuff (eg. his time spent interviewing Eisenhower). This is a deal-breaker for a historian. I've never read anything by him.

I can't comment much on Beevor yet. I didn't like his book on Crete that much, but haven't read his Stalingrad one yet (apparently his best); I probably will once I get around to the subject.

I love WW2 books. One of my favorite reading topics. I like to read up on specific topics and plan trips around them (gone to Market-Garden and Normandy so far; but this is just the beginning!).

I don't have general WW2 books yet. There is a 6-volume series by Churchill himself('The Second World War' that is apparently pretty comprehensive (though I suspect biased), which I might want to read at some point.

For the Eastern front, David Glantz is one of the foremost authorities (or so I've been told on some WW2/wargaming forums). When Titans Clashed is a single-volume book on that front if you want a starting point.

Currently, my favorite WW2 historian is Cornelius Ryan. His 'A Bridge Too Far' book is magnificent. Good military details, good approach to the human aspect, but more importantly, very enjoyable reading. This covers Operation Market-Garden. He also wrote 'The Longest Day' (not as detailed, since it only covers June 6th and not all of Normandy), and 'The Last Battle' (approach to Berlin - haven't read this yet).

My 2nd favorite historian is Charles MacDonald. 'Time For Trumpets' is fabulous from an operational viewpoint, while capturing the atmosphere and human aspect really well. A great read. This is about the Battle of the Bulge (I want to go to the Ardennes some day!). He also wrote 'Company Commander', which is a memoirs of sorts from when he was leading a company.

While there may be books which have more strategic/tactical/logistical details (which I love too; some of them are just chock-full, but I just eat it up as long as it's not too dry), I'd highly recommend first and foremost 'A Bridge Too Far' and 'A Time For Trumpets'. Both have such an excellent balance of readability, capturing the human aspect of the battles, and military detail. Both battles are also featured in Band of Brothers, so that may be an extra plus.

Bonus: here's a pic I took of the 'Son' landing zone (for the 101st Airborne) in Holland.
9Qwfa.jpg
 
G

Gordon0Freeman

Member
Kind of off topic but has anyone read "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson? It's about Hitler and before his reign. My Aunt recommended it to me and said its really good just want to know what GAF thinks.
 
D

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
Gordon0Freeman said:
Kind of off topic but has anyone read "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson? It's about Hitler and before his reign. My Aunt recommended it to me and said its really good just want to know what GAF thinks.
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I kind of want to read it because his book Devil In the White City was fantastic, but I've heard it's kind of got a lot of fluff. I get the impression there are better books to learn about the Nazi regime from. I'm sure it's an entertaining read though.
 
B

blanky

Member
I'll third A. Beevor, really great books that are in depth and read real easy.
Alistair Horne has a nice book on the battle of Verdun 1916, price of honour.

For the last 10 years i'd recommend Thomas Ricks, The Gamble & Fiasco are very insightful. Also War by Sebastian Junger is worth picking up for sure.

Christian Appy - Patriots and another book called something like the long war if you want something about Vietnam. First one is a bit more on a human perspective, 2nd one is more historical. For a journalist's experience read Michael Herr Dispatches, Matterhorn is supposed to be good as well. Bao Ninh's Sorrow of War is also very interesting.

Two other books which are not necessarily related are Post War by Tony Judt and Buda's Wagon by Mike Davis. First one is thick but amazing book about europe after the 2nd world war till about early 2000's. 2nd one is a chronicle of the car bomb, I thought it was pretty cool.
 
F

Fritz

Member
I am not sure if this fits, but these are interesting takes on modern wars:
munkler_9780745638713_middle.jpg


41BH8V4MKTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg


I took his class back at uni and he is really well versed, albeit the books are a tad "shallow".
 
M

Maklershed

Member

Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose

Amazon synopsis:

Stephen E. Ambrose combines history and journalism to describe how American GIs battled their way to the Rhineland. He focuses on the combat experiences of ordinary soldiers, as opposed to the generals who led them, and offers a series of compelling vignettes that read like an enterprising reporter's dispatches from the front lines. The book presents just enough contextual material to help readers understand the big picture, and includes memorable accounts of the Battle of the Bulge and other events as seen through the weary eyes of the men who fought in the foxholes.
 
H

HarryHengst

Member
Not really about wars per sé, but much more interesting imo, as it directly influences our lives in the here and now

Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism

Cities are the new battleground of our increasingly urban world. From the slums of the global South to the wealthy financial centers of the West, Cities Under Siege traces the spread of political violence through the sites, spaces, infrastructure and symbols of the world’s rapidly expanding metropolitan areas.

Drawing on a wealth of original research, Stephen Graham shows how Western militaries and security forces now perceive all urban terrain as a conflict zone inhabited by lurking shadow enemies. Urban inhabitants have become targets that need to be continually tracked, scanned and controlled. Graham examines the transformation of Western armies into high-tech urban counter-insurgency forces. He looks at the militarization and surveillance of international borders, the use of ‘security’ concerns to suppress democratic dissent, and the enacting of legislation to suspend civilian law. In doing so, he reveals how the New Military Urbanism permeates the entire fabric of urban life, from subway and transport networks hardwired with high-tech ‘command and control’ systems to the insidious militarization of a popular culture corrupted by the all-pervasive discourse of ‘terrorism.’
Click to expand...
 
S

SteveO409

Did you know Halo invented the FPS?
Subscribing to this thread...been looking for something similar to this a year ago but never got around to it
 
C

Cindres

Vied for a tag related to cocks, so here it is.
Gonna make a list of the recommendations so far. Also looking for WW1, Vietnam and Cold War stuff if anyone can recommend that?
 
Guileless

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
Military historian John Keegan wrote a short book about WW2 historiography called The Battle For History: Re-fighting World War II where he discusses the voluminous WW2 literature and makes recommendations. Find a copy of that and you'll be set.

I read Andrew Roberts's recent one volume history of WW2 called The Storm of War and enjoyed it a lot. He has style.

For WWI I recommend a novel called To the Last Man by Jeff Shaara. REading that gave me a much better sense of what fighting was like than all of the nonfiction I've read on the subject.

Cold War: The Dead Hand by David Hoffman. Focuses on the arms race.
 
N

Nairume

Banned
Check out Michael Adams's The Best War Ever
9780801846977.jpg


It's not a running narrative of the war as much as it is an attempt to cover the process by which the pop culture version of the war was created, while also dispelling a lot of myths about the war itself.

One of my friends actually had the whole war "ruined" for him after reading this book.
 
L

Llyranor

Member
Cindres said:
Gonna make a list of the recommendations so far. Also looking for WW1, Vietnam and Cold War stuff if anyone can recommend that?
Click to expand...

For WW1, Guns of August (Barbara Tuchman) is apparently pretty good for how the war started. She also wrote about other interesting topics; Proud Tower ("A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914"), and the Zimmermann Telegram (which plays a role in how the US joined the war).

If you're interested in the naval race between UK and Germany pre-WW1, Dreadnought by Robert Massie. Castles of Steel by the same author for the same naval relationship during the war.
 
S

Stealth

Member
102036668.jpg


Big but easy to read and full of supporting photos. Great breakdown of the success and failure of major junctions in the war as well.
 
C

CrunchyB

Member
How about a book on the Korean War?



Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter the best book he ever wrote, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history.The Coldest Winter changes that. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures -- Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway.
Click to expand...

It's an intimidating book to be sure, but it's worth the effort. The average person knows next to nothing about the Korean War, compared to WW2 or Vietnam. Douglas McArthur, the American commander, was brilliant yet completely irresponsible. It's a fascinating read.
 
M

Megasoum

Banned
While maybe more of a reference book (I think it's even "coffee table size") than an actual thing you would want to read from beginning to end I remember really liking the book "2194 days of war: An illustrated chronology of the Second World War" by Cesare Salmaggi. It's a Reader's Digest published book.

http://www.amazon.com/2194-days-war-illustrated-chronology/dp/1566190673

The book goes day by day (for all 2194 of them...duh) and tell you what happened on that day. Goes from the first day Germany entered Poland to the day the Japanese officialy surrendered.
 
C

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Guys, here's the absolute best single-volume general history of World War 2. It's not even close, in my opinion. (Note that the two titles--"Inferno" and "All Hell Let Loose"--are just alternate US/UK versions of the same book).

001e708b_medium.jpeg

inferno-world-war-1939-1945-max-hastings-paperback-cover-art.jpg


Max Hastings is a journalist, not a historian. This manifests itself in three ways in his book.

First, he's big on writing about the small-scale perspective of the individual. He liberally uses fascinating anecdotes about ordinary individuals caught up in the war (like the Korean soldier who fought for the Japanese, then was captured and conscripted into the Soviet Red Army, then ended up fighting for the Germans before being captured by the Americans during D-Day). The book also has tons of well-chosen primary source excerpts talking about the experience of the war from the people who were in it.

Second, Max Hastings' work is extremely accessible and doesn't get caught up in boring minutiae. His book has plenty of interesting detail, but that detail is always important and relevant to the larger picture. Don't expect tons of focus on the finer points of a given piece of military hardware; but do expect tidbits that are both fascinating on their own and help understand the war as a whole. If you're a beginner to reading about WW2, this book is absolutely the best starting point I can recommend. If you're a WW2 wonk, you'll still find lots of unusual, overlooked details that you won't find in most other works.

Finally, as a journalist, Max Hastings isn't afraid to make grand, sweeping statements and draw big insights about the war. I've found that many WW2 historians are overly conservative in this regard, perhaps because they don't want to dismiss the work of colleagues or open themselves up to attack from those same colleagues. Not Max Hastings. Simply put, no WW2 book gives a better "big picture" perspective than this one. Even if you're an experienced WW2 buff, this book can help organize and cohere your view and really grasp the whole war in a comprehensive way.

To summarize: this book is a must-read; even more so if you're a beginner. It's well-written, well-researched, accessible, emotional, and very different from any other WW2 history I've read.
 
C

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I've also been reading Antony Beevor's recent general history of WW2: "The Second World War".

secondworldwar_beevor4.jpg


It's good. Really good. If it had been released a couple of years earlier, I'd be lavishing praise on it. The problem is, Max Hastings set a new high watermark for WW2 history and, set against Inferno, Beevor pales in comparison. Worth reading, for sure, but only after you've started with the superior work.
 
T

TestMonkey

Member
The Nuremberg Interviews and The Rape of Nanking if you want to learn the evils of the Axis. Hiroshima and Farewell to Manzanar if you want to learn the evils of the Allies.
 
R

relaxor

what?
My favorite must be Gabriel Kolko's Anatony of a War about the American war in Vietnam. It's a very detailed history that examines the war on many many levels.
 
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