February 2017 reading

Just finished an excellent Flames Across the Border: The Canadian-American tragedy, 1813-1814 by Pierre Berton.

Finishing up Independence Lost (B), which is essentially a history of the American Revolution in the south from the perspective of Spain and the First Nations and the resulting political and social implications.

>2 Shrike58: Thanks for posting about this book, I've put it on my various wish lists.

Finished reading a very interesting, informative and, it has to be said, entertaining Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach.

My pleasure...

Keeping with the theme of the First British Empire I finished up The Royal American Regiment (A) this evening, which is something of a debunking of both the American & British mythology that has grown up around this unit by a Canadian soldier turned intellectual. The author finds neither an elite unit of frontier rangers nor an instrument of British oppression but a useful formation that was a reflection of the Atlantic society of the day.

Finished The Dnepr 1943: Hitler's eastern rampart crumbles, your typical Osprey, as well as the excellent and highly recommended,
From the Marne to Verdun: The War Diary of Captain Charles Delvert, 101st Infantry, 1914-1916, day to day in the trenches with an erudite French infantry officer with a wry sense of humor. Full of insightful observations on the military bureaucracy, nature, and life in general.

Best book of the month was Admiral Bill Halsey (A+) which cuts away a lot of the mythology that grew up around the man and which winds up being something of a meditation on the pitfalls of what happens when high command runs into celebrity culture. There were also the short monographs The Mareth Line 1943 (B) and Fairey Flycatcher (A); the former is workmanlike Osprey which illustrates how it's past time for the Italian experience to be integrated into accounts of the the war in North Africa while the second is Mushroom Model/Stratus at its best.