I bought these at Foyles a few hours before my plane was due to depart, and had them mailed to me. Not necessarily the cheapest way to go, but I was in a hurry!
Jeremy Black. Rethinking Military History. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2004. Probably nobody is better qualified to write a book with this title -- I've only got 60 or 70 books to go before I've got his entire opus.
Bob Clarke. Britain's Cold War. Stroud: The History Press, 2009. Looks like a useful overview of, well, Britain's Cold War -- civil defence, the American presence, the Royal Observer Corps, and so on.
Sebastian Cox and Peter Gray, eds. Air Power History: Turning Points from Kitty Hawk to Kosovo. Abingdon and New York: Frank Cass, 2002. A collection of essays on diverse topics by historians such as Tami Biddle, John Ferris, James Corum and John Buckley.
Michael D. Gordin. Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Having said I needed to add this book to my reading list, I couldn't not buy it when I saw a copy!
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge and London: Belknap Press, 2005. An important and controversial book which I seem to run into frequently in various threads and blogs, so again something worth reading so I can stay abreast of the debate.
Samuel Hynes. A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture. London: Pimlico, 1992. Another gap in my library filled. As much about the fifteen years after the war as the war itself.
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Bob Meade
Have you read any biographies of Harry S. Truman? David McCullough's Truman is worth a read for background on Truman's relationship with Stalin, the A-bomb decision and the Marshall Plan.
McCullough's bio of Truman is masterful and while it is no hagiography McCullough certainly loves his subject. He researched it when many of the players were still alive for interview. Not written for the academic audience.
If you're interested, you can have my copy.
Brett Holman
Post authorThank you, but the uni library has a copy and I wouldn't want to relieve you of yours! I do find Truman's choice of reading material interesting: he kept a copy of Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" in his wallet (predicting aerial warfare leading to a 'Parliament of Man') and as a young man was a fan of magazines like McClure's which sometimes carried science fiction and future war type stories. Imagination-wise, at least, he was well prepared to be the first president of the atomic age.
Bob Meade
His hobby was reading - but I did not know the two points you mention.
Brett Holman
Post authorP. D. Smith's book Doomsday Men has some more information.