Where to start? A lot depends on how serious you want to be and how much cash you're prepared to shell out. For cheap and easy to get works, I'd suggest looking out for: "Crucible of War" by Barrie Pitt, recently re-published in 3 volume paperback edition, Vol 1 "Wavell's Command", Vol 2 "Auckinleck's Command", and Vol 3 "Montgomery's Command". Also available 2nd hand in either original 3-part paperback or 2-part hardback versions. "Rommel's North African Campaign" by Greene and Massignani. Good info on Italians, good bibliography. "Rommel's War in Africa" by Heckmann Wolf is very good, some good German insights. Maybe out of print. There are numerous others. Michael Carver's "Tobruk", "Alamein" and "Dilemmas of the Desert War" are worth reading. Buy Corelli Barnett's "Desert Generals" for an opposing view of Monty to Carver. After a while though, you may want to read the Official Histories that a lot of these books quote at you. Most are available........at a price. These are: British; "The Mediteranean & Middle East" Vols I, II & III Playfair, Vols IV & V by Molony et al (the latter 2 deal with pursuit post Alamein, Tunisia and Sicily/Italy) South African; "The Sidi Rezegh Battles" and "Crisis in the Desert" Agar-Hamilton and Turner (both excellent). Also Neil Orpen has done several volumes of a semi-official history covering Alamein and East Africa. New Zealand; "The Relief of Tobruk" Murphy (excellent), "The Battle for Egypt" Scoullar. There are other volumes covering Greece, Crete and Tunisia as well as Italy. Australian; "To Benghazi" Long, "Tobruk and El Alamein" Barton-Maughn. Italian; 4 volumes of the most recent study as well as a couple of older volumes. All very good but very difficult to get hold of. All in Italian. German; The "German Official Histories" (or the nearest thing to them) are currently being translated into English. Haven't seen them, but as books on the Germans abound this isn't a problem. The CW histories above make use of German source material in many cases (but not Italian). As a footnote its time Jentz's part II to be released, although there's no definite news. Last time I emailed Schiffer they said sometime last year. I'm planning pestering them again. I'd suggest any other interested parties do the same. Back to Frontline Vol. 2 Iss. 3 Table of Contents Back to Frontline List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Rolfe Hedges This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com