1. "The Hebrides at War" by Mike Hughes, Cannongate Books Ltd. Edinburgh. ISBN 0.86241.771.6 £ 9.99 Pbk.
This, and the two following books, popped up from Santa's sack for me. My bewildered relatives trying to keep up with my varied interests. This is basically a book about the battle for the Atlantic and how it was fought by the RAF from bases such as Oban, Tobermory, Tiree, Benbecula and Stornoway. From such bases they protected vital Atlantic convoys from the U boat threat of Nazi Germany. This book is full of photographs, many taken by veterans and is a real labour of love over many years of research. The Luftwaffe air photo of Oban "See flugplatz" is so good it's a wonder flying boats managed to go on operating from there. Maybe it was something to do with N. Connel airstrip? There is no index but the writing is clear and uncomplicated. Recommended.
2. "The Pity of War" by Niall Ferguson. Allen Lane. The Penguin Press. ISBN 0.713.99246.8 £ 18.99 Hardback.
"For by my glee might many have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The Pity of War, the pity war distilled."
--Wilfred Owen.
This is not just another book about the Great War. The author is Fellow & Tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford and brings some bright lights to bear on "The War to End All Wars". It didn't. It wasn't inevitable and, turning a continental conflict into a world war Britain wasted her economic power and superiority. The Germans and Allies killed more men than they lost but lost the war. Russia was condemned to seventy year of Communism. Why did hundreds of thousands of young men go on killing each other over several years when they'd had enough in the first three months?
This is a book of over 600 pages and not one is wasted one of the most percipient questions in the book must be, who won the peace? In other words, who paid for the war and how? This is a book about the social, economic and psychological aspects of WW1 and may change the way you look at the conflict, or even the aftermath which continues today.
3. "The Regeneration Trilogy" by Pat Barker, Penguin fiction, ISBN 0.14.025768.3 £ 9.99 Paperback.
This is a collection of three books about WW1, "Regeneration", "The Eye in The Door" and "The Ghost Road". The first centres on a real life encounter in 1917 between W.H.R. Rivers, an army psychologist and Siefried Sassoon a decorated young officer who had "had enough". I remember my English teacher at school, J.V. Parry saying, "Luckily for him his father was a millionaire, so they didn't shoot him!" Sassoon became a famous war poet and conscientious objector. This is "faction" with both real and fictitious characters.
"The Eye in The Door" (sounds painful) is about the terrible traumas suffered by young First World War veterans and it's also about class, truth, survival and love. It's also funny in parts dark humour. The Eye in the Door refers to a prison door spyhole.
"The Ghost Road" won "The Booker Prize". "The Times Literary Supplement" called it, "tender, horrifying and funny, it lives on in the imagination like the war it so imaginatively and so intelligently explores".
These three novels seem to capture the effects of the War on men and women and the mores of the time.
Now a magazine: "The Age of Napoleon" #29, £ 3.50 UK, $7.00 USA, CA $8.95. Published by Caliver Books, 816-818, London Road, Leigh on Sea, Essex, SS9 3NH, England. Editor Richard Partridge.
This number has a spurious "Christmas" article, "Eylau Slaughter in the Snow" pp20-30. Apart from that bit of bad taste, the magazine is, as usual, very good. There's an interview with Peter Hofschroer by the Editor about the former's book "1815 The Waterloo Campaign: Wellington, his German Allies and the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras" pub. Greenhill Books.
It seems Peter is giving some of the Establishment's "Colonel Blimps" apoplexy daring to suggest The Duke tricked his Prussian Allies into fighting at Ligny on 16 June 1815. Actually if one reads even "faction" books about the period (like "The Infamous Army" by Georgette Heyer) one gets the idea that various senior German generals did not trust the Duke anyway and it took some persuasion by Blόcher and the German liaison officers to get the German army to Waterloo at all. I don't think Gneisenau thought much of Wellington's veracity. Good stuff. Other articles are Field Artillery, Life in the Russian Infantry (short, brutish and uncomfortable!), Maida Revisited, Columns vs. Lines, Almeida, Pitt the Unholy Terror (that's the Younger) and all the usual Notes and Queries, reviews etc. etc. A must for the Napoleonic "buff" I should have thought.
Lastly, "Slingshot, The Official Journal of The Society of Ancients". November '98. Issue 200. ISSN 1355.2880. Published every two months by NLWG Publications, 20, The Briars, Cheshunt, Herts, EN8 8SW, UK, USA add: Slingshot, Royal Mail International c/o Yellowstone International, 2375, Pratt Boulevard, Elkgrove Village, IL 60007-5937.
A nice fat 62 pages full of interesting stuff for Ancients. Some writers still seem to be taking themselves a bit seriously but there's a fund of information there for the reading, for instance one "ancient" has ten thousand Ancient figures on his database! The variety of writing is very cheering articles on Medieval Portuguese, Meso Americans, Feeding the Roman Army, Solo campaigning The Angevin Empire, Quin faces, A report on Historicon '98, Quick and Simple 15mm Campaign Rules, Reviews, Letters and a great deal more. [I enjoy it. Kenn] I hope you find something to interest you in this little lot.
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