OT - Book (Non Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[Legbreaker]

You assume I haven't read it or plenty more just because I'm referring you to somebody who can detail the arguments better than I can and take much less time doing it

[Raellus]

You assume I haven't read it or plenty more just because I'm referring you to somebody who can detail the arguments better than I can and take much less time doing it

Yes, because I flat out asked you if you read any of the books I mentioned and you didn't answer. Instead, you kept harping on the Youtube videos that you linked to.

Firstly Beevor missed some very important facts, although overall the book is good.

This is the only indication that you read the book, and, coincidentally (), your one-line "review" is exactly the same as Mr. Youtube's opening thesis for his book review/hot-take expose video.

You are certainly entitled to your opinions, but the fact that you accept a Youtuber's analysis rather than multiple renowned military historians' also suggests that you have not actually read any of their relevant works.

Then there's the important matter of context. You have a well-documented history of trolling and have been banned from this forum twice for said (and other online venues as well). Let's take a look at your first and second posts in the preceding "debate".

Monty was not at fault when you look at the actual evidence.

(emphasis added) This to two forumites who had recently read a 443-page book (including notes and bibliography)- as if the book we were recommended/discussing was not based on any "actual evidence".

Oh dear. You didn't watch any of that did you.
FYI, he's an actual historian who's probably put more time into researching WWII than pretty much all the rest of us here combined.
I suggest you watch the videos I suggested, then perhaps a few more and THEN get back to me.

When you pop into a thread and immediately start arguing with people, in a deliberately condescending tone, it calls into question your intentions, if not your sources.

The fact that you didn't respond to any of the opposing arguments presented in this debate (of which there were several) with anything other than "watch the videos" also smacks of trolling. At the very least, it strongly indicates that your knowledge of the subject derives exclusively from said videos.

If you have actually read the relevant Beevor, Ryan, Hastings, and/or Atkinson (Pulitzer winner), and/or any other scholarly books on the subject, then I'm sorry.

Now let's move on and use this thread for what it was intended- non-fiction book recommendations.

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[Olefin]

I own all three of Atkinson's books on the US Army during WWII and have read them repeatedly - I HIGHLY recommend them for those who are interested in WWII history - and they are great reads that you can use for Twilight 2000 as well (especially the books on Italy and Africa showing how the US Army went thru a very painful process of learning the art of war)

Also have several of Cornelius Ryan's books as well and also recommend them as well for those interested in Market Garden, D-Day and the Battle of Berlin

Raellus - thank you for the recommendation on Beevor - have to check those out

I recommend Max Hastings book on the Falklands War as well

FYI I agree about Monty and is over-reliance on set piece battles - he was lucky to have General Horrocks under his command - without him Monty might not have ever had the reputation he had against the Germans - Atkinson pointed that out in his book about the war in Tunisia

[Legbreaker]

Found this while looking for resources and seems somewhat relevant to current events. Haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.

https://www.amazon.com/Plague-Wars-Terrifying-Reality-Biological/dp/0312203535

[comped]

I'm honestly surprised that the following pair of books has yet to be recommended here - while I've seen the first one discussed in a different thread around when it came out, the latter I couldn't find anything on.

First is - This Is Only a Test. (https://www.amazon.com/This-only-Tes.../dp/1403965544) One of two excellent books on nuclear preparedness during the cold war, this book in particular doesn't just talk about facilities, it talks about plans - everything from the Presidents, to SCOTUS, and even 9/11. I have, for a while now, been attempting to find more research on SCOTUS' part in COG to send his way, as it's rarely mentioned the book - I emailed the author and he even admitted that I basically found as much as he did in terms of modern-ish research on that particular topic - given it was published only 5 years after 9/11, he probably had even less at the time of writing. It's a really good book though. Harder to find.

Raven Rock (https://www.amazon.com/Raven-Rock-Go.../dp/1476735409) is a far easier to get ahold of book, that treads much of the same ground as the other, while also being quite a bit more of a commercial success. It's really long, and quite detailed, giving a real sense of how the COG machine built up from the early days of the bomb on forward - and how sometimes, things didn't always go to plan. It also includes far more on the period after 9/11 (since it was published 15+ years after), and it benefits from this distance, and release of additional documents in the decade since the previous work, to expand the picture greatly. It's is not, unlike This Is Only A Test, written by a history professor, but is still worth reading particularly if you're interested on the more modern, post-cold-war side of things.

[Legbreaker]

Found this while looking for resources and seems somewhat relevant to current events. Haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.
https://www.amazon.com/Plague-Wars-T.../dp/0312203535

Finished it a couple of days ago. What an eye opener!
Loads of good info which could be easily used in T2K as well. There's a section detailing many of the biological weapons which looks almost in the same format as the diseases in the BYB!

[Legbreaker]

Whole bunch of book reviews in this newsletter.

[Raellus]

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

I recently read Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, by Mary Roach (2016). I focuses on science's efforts to help the fighting men and women of the US military deal with explosions, heat, loud noises, diarrhea, shark attacks, and damaged... members. It's tone is light and humorous, for the most part, but it does get serious at times (when discussing soldier's wounds below the belt, in particular). Nothing in the book screamed Twilight: 2000! but it was a pretty fun, somewhat informative read nonetheless. The focus is on contemporary military needs and interests, but it includes some interesting stuff on historical military R&D as well.

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[Homer]

Some of Dan Bolger's books are excellent for small unit vignettes and possible scenarios. "Dragons at War" and "The Battle for Hunger Hill" are about NTC and JRTC rotations, but give a lot of insight on Army operations. "Death ground" showcases each type of infantry with a vignette and some analysis. We used the ranger raid in desert storm as a basis for a one off merc cadre scenario with the PCs taking the roles of leadership in a platoon sized force.

[Raellus]

Merc 2000

Osprey has a new Elite series title out, Soldiers of Fortune: Mercenaries and Military Adventurers, 1960-2020

The author addresses both foreign volunteers in military units (mostly in regards to Rhodesia and South Africa) and mercenary companies/PMCs. The illustrator, Peter Dennis, is one of the better ones (IMHO) currently working for Osprey, but his work here looks a little rushed, and some of the color plate subjects seem like poor choices (lacking in interesting and/or distinct details).

Still, for one interested in mercenaries, or thinking of running a historical merc campaign, it's probably a worthwhile resource.

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[Raellus]

Alpha

It's an upsetting read, but I recommend Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy. It's about a rogue SEAL team chief accused of war crimes. It exposes a "pirate" sub-culture in the SEAL teams- a group of operators who value killing just for killing's sake, pretty much above all else. It also highlights the institutional cultures of "brotherhood" and "loyalty" that allows said pirates to literally get away with murder, and the Navy's attempts to restore genuine honor to the teams.

It doesn't seek to excuse such behavior, but the book does posit that America's never-ending War on Terror- in which SOF troops are deployed again and again, and are exposed to violence (both as witnesses and direct participants), and trauma (physical, like TBI, and psychological)- often creates callous killers who are no longer of capable from differentiating between right and wrong (or just don't care to).

I'd never thought about it before, but the book made the point that SOF often attracts people who, quite simply put, want to kill. In a warrior, this isn't necessarily a bad trait, but when said individual is more interested in killing than rules, law, and morality, it's a problem.

I think it's a valuable book because it illustrates how "marauders" are usually made more often than born, and how easily they could appear in any national army, not just the forces of the bad guys, in a T2k scenario.

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[Adm.Lee]

Completely agree on Alpha. I read it last fall, and should have posted it here earlier.

[Raellus]

Tribe

Tribe, by Sebastian Junger (author of War, a previous rec here, and A Perfect Storm) is short (about 150 pages ) and thought-provoking.

Most salient, re T2k, is an examination of the phenomenon of societies in crisis (London during the Blitz, New Orleans during Katrina, and others) tending to show more social cohesion instead of less*. Violent crime rates go down, so do rates of mental illness (especially depression) and suicide. Class divisions tend to blur. Instead of hoarding, most people share.

This well-documented historical trend tends to belie Hollywood's portrayal nihilistic post-apocalyptic scenarios where people are inherently selfish, unethical, and violent (think, Walking Dead, Mad Max).

The truth is, shared hardship creates a sense of community that simply doesn't exist any more in modern western societies. We may be materialistically rich, but we are relationally poor (a good chunk of the book focusses on how and why this sad social state came about).

Junger also examines why combat vets (combat being the ultimate community builder, at the small unit level) often struggle after returning to "The World" (which increasingly deemphasizes, or even undermines, community).

*Another book that I read not so long ago that examines this theme is Human Kind (A Hopeful History) by Rutger Bregman. It doesn't discuss war much (if at all, really), so I didn't mention earlier, but I recommend it to anyone who needs an uplifting non-fiction read.

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[Tegyrius]

Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell explores similar themes, though I'm not sure I recall it as being particularly academically-sound writing.

Rae, how would you say Junger's observations line up with the postwar societal issues we see in Savage Continent

- C.

[Raellus]

Rae, how would you say Junger's observations line up with the postwar societal issues we see in Savage Continent

It's been a while since I read Savage Continent, but I don't think the two book premises are incongruous.

Junger's point is that there is more social cohesion, more solidarity during a crisis, but usually only during, not after. He points out (and I neglected to mention) that as soon as the crisis is over, that social cohesion is usually lost pretty quickly. He gave an example of a town in Peru that was hit by a devastating landslide in the 1990s (IIRC). With road links to the outside world severed, the survivors, of different classes and ethnicities that, traditionally, hadn't gotten along, put aside their differences and worked together to stay alive. They didn't turn on each other. Once the road links were reestablished, cooperation ceased and old divisions reappeared. He interviewed several survivors of the siege of Sarajevo who looked back at that time almost wistfully, and bemoan the state of the city today, because, to paraphrase the pervading sentiment, "back then, everyone was in it together and now, everybody's out for themselves".

In Savage Continent, we're seeing the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Nations were recovering, or forming, and the immediate mortal danger of bombings and battle were gone. The machinery of state still existed (or was hastily constructed) and, in the case of the USSR, took advantage of the devastation of the war to seize and consolidate power. Refugees existed in a sort of liminal state- often, they were stateless- and were frequently used as pawns in the emerging geopolitical struggle of the nascent Cold War. There was still a lot of bad blood between war enemies, scores to settle. For example, the Soviets didn't care about German or Polish DPs. Also that cohesion is intra-community. No examples of embracing outsiders were given. During the Blitz, Londoners felt and demonstrated increased solidarity with one another, but they had very little sympathy for Dresdeners in 1944 (and vice-versa). In Savage continent, DPs were often considered outsiders and so didn't benefit from any increased, crises-derived social cohesion in their respective "host" countries.

I'm not sure either another explicitly made this point, but I think they would agree that there are different degrees of crisis. The immediate aftermath of the WWII, which much of Europe in ruins and millions of DPs is clearly a crisis in and of itself. But I think Junger would argue that it is a crisis of less magnitude than the war itself- i.e., the closer to existential the crisis, the greater the community cohesion. As the danger lessens, so does the cohesion.

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