Michael Molkentin. Flying the Southern Cross: Aviators Charles Ulm and Charles Kingsford Smith. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2012. Molkentin’s first book, Fire in the Sky, was an excellent history of the Australian Flying Corps; and this one looks promising too (not to mention the two he’s got planned, and he’s still got a PhD […]
Dan Stone. Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933-1939: Before War and Holocaust. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 [2003]. As in cultural and intellectual responses, more than diplomatic and military ones; and not just positive responses (e.g. from fellow travellers of the right) but negative ones too. The chapter on ‘the place of war
Philip Payton. Regional Australia and the Great War: ‘The Boys from Old Kio’. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2012. I was surprised to see that Philip Payton is giving a paper at AHA 2012 on ‘The 1916-17 Conscription Crisis in Regional Australia’ because I know him as a leading historian of Cornwall and Cornish emigration. That
Norman Stone. The Atlantic and its Enemies: A History of the Cold War. London: Penguin Books, 2011. After often picking up Gaddis’ The Cold War and then putting it down due to its obvious ideological biases, I bought this on a whim — not that Stone has ever hidden his own politics! Probably should get
Claudia Baldoli and Andrew Knapp. Forgotten Blitzes: France and Italy under Allied Air Attack, 1940-1945. London and New York: Continuum, 2012. Ask and ye shall receive! This is a groundbreaking book, as far as the English language is concerned: I know of no other treatments of the bombing of either France or Italy at this
William Feaver. James Boswell: Unofficial War Artist. London: Muswell Press, 2007. A few months ago Ruth Boswell emailed me about the Sudeten crisis posts I wrote in connect with a film script and novel she is working on. It turns out that not only was she the producer of the classic 70s SF show The
John Mueller. Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to al-Qaeda. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. I added this book to my bibliography just this week, tagged ‘get’; and then found a very reasonably-priced paperback while browsing in a bookshop. Who am I to argue with fate? There’s no doubt that there’s a
Ian Kershaw. The End: Germany 1944-45. London: Penguin Books, 2012. Decided to wait for the paperback edition when this first came out, a safe enough bet where Kershaw is concerned. Among other things, should be useful for placing Dresden in the wider context of what else was happening in Germany in these months. Marilyn Lake
Philipp von Hillgers. War Games: A History of War on Paper. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2012. Really only traces one strand of the history of wargaming, the abstract ‘German’ one which passes through 19th-century Kriegspiel and not the boardgame-style ‘American’ one or the ‘British’ miniatures one (not that these aren’t abstract, or purely American
Virginia Nicholson. Millions Like Us: Women’s Lives During the Second World War. London: Penguin, 2012. Disappointingly, not the novelisation of the film. I haven’t read her Singled Out — I think the ‘lost generation’ thing is a bit exaggerated — but the Daily Mail liked this one a lot, and that’s good enough for me.
