No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II

by Robert Cowley

Book Overview

This collection of forty-four essays covers a wide range of World War II subjects and is written by bestselling and award-winning historians. Some highlights include Caleb Carr on Poland in 1939, the only campaign that Hitler won; Stephen E. Ambrose on a pivotal battle to take the Rhine; John Keegan on the siege of Berlin; Victor Davis Hanson on the charismatic and controversial Gen. Curtis LeMay; William Manchester on Churchill's failure to influence...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039914711X
• ISBN13: 9780399147111
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Length: 688 Pages
• Weight: 2.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

This Volume II is a Collection of 9 Essays (only a part of the 44 Essay work)

I'm always ready for more military history and have been since a boy for some reason. This was a great series to listen to and I like the format of selected essays. Just to let you know: this volume II has only 9 of the total 44 essays. Other reviewers have covered essays that just aren't included in this one. Here is a list of the essays in this volume II (I provide it only because the Product Description does not): Undaunted by the Odds, William Manchester The Turning Points of Tarawa, Joseph Alexander The Day the Hornet Sank, Alvin Kernan The Last Picture Show, George Feifer Beachhead Labrador, W.A.B. Douglas Gott Mit Whom?, David Balme Patrolling Guadalcanal, William Whyte Peppermint and Alsos, Ferenc Szasz The Myth of the Saipan Suicides, Haruko Cook I think the best essays are the ones that you remember most vividly long after listening to them. The leadoff, Undaunted by Odds, was longer than the others but incredibly memorable. The essays concerning the fight in the Pacific islands were all riveting in my opinion. The Last Picture Show is also very good and completely bizarre. These are all great essays. Each gives both descriptions of the action at hand along with background commentary to give meaning. I feel certain I will love the entire series if I am fortunate enough to collect it.

Illuminating Collection Of Essays On World War Two!

What a wonderful gift editor Robert Crowley has given us with this treasure trove of individual essays from individual contributors in this spellbinding book covering a number of different aspects and experiences during World War Two! As one of the authors, the late popular historian Stephan Ambrose has shown us with many of his own works, the history of the Second World War was such a massive and variegated plethora of anecdotes, campaigns and experiences that it is nearly impossible to exhaust the steady stream of captivating stories that spring from its loins like bouncing babies, fully formed, into the waiting reader's lap. This is a particularly attractive package of essays, perfect for people who want something relatively short, as each individual offering within is, something one can read on a plane flight in its entirety and then pick up later without trying to remember the context or story thread where he had left off. And each of the stories makes for fascinating reading indeed. The list of authors included is both impressive and eclectic, ranging from Ambrose, who weighs in with the taut and stirring tale of a platoon of paratroopers attempting to take and control a bridge key to the initial thrust of the first few hours of the Normandy landing, to Caleb Carr, better known for his success as a novelist ("The Alienist") but quite an eminent historian as well, to William Manchester to John Keegan to Antony Beever to Stanley Weintraub to David M. Glantz. And this is only some of the luminary historically prominent authors gathered together in what can only be described as a bravura collection of stories and perspectives on the total war effort, ranging in topics from the island hopping effort in the South Pacific to the desperate hours of the first few hours leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in the French Ardennes in December of 1944. Despite my own wide reading of similar historical sources over the last thirty years, I found several of the articles quite illuminating and educational, as with Caleb Car's treatment of life on the ground as the invasion of Poland proceeds in September, 1939 in the precipitating event that quickly served to trigger the advent of the Second World War as such. Similarly, articles by Charles Berges, Sir David Fraser, and Carlo D'Este proved both fascinating and edifying in illuminating aspects of the war only poorly understood and studied in the existing literature. This monograph especailly serves the interested private scholars like me who wants to know more about various different aspects and perspectives of the war that are not adequately or fully treated elsewhere, and used in conjunction with marvelous other resources such as Gerhard Weinberg's masterful "A World At Arms", Richard Spector's terrific ""Eagle Against The Sun", and William Shirer's eye-witness testimony in "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich", gives us a much richer and more comprehensive understanding of the signal historical event

Great Compilation.

A great collection of articles by recognised authorities. I got it as a bargain book but would be more than happy to pay full price - or more!

"Color" Commentary on WWII

This book is an excellent companion piece to any conventional history of the Second World War. This compilation of essays represents a "best of the best" of previously published articles from the magazine MHQ, and each provides unique "color" commentary on snap-shot events of the war, some well-known, some not. Obviously, some of the contributions are better than others, but there are none that I didn't enjoy reading.The more noteworthy ones include novelist Caleb Carr's look at Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland. The author of two works in the book (the second is a look at the "Black Knight"-Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt; an interesting piece marred by poorly substantiated and thus unfair criticism of Gen. Eisenhower's strategy in 1944-45), Carr makes a good case in his first essay that the conduct of the often forgotten Polish campaign which started the war is worthy of a lot more study and attention than it has generally received. Similarly, David Glantz gives us a good look at Operation Mars, the gigantic offensive designed to push the Germans away from Moscow in 1942. The offensive was a colossal failure but Soviet suppression and the victory at Stalingrad allowed this battle to be shrouded in obscurity for most of postwar history. David Shears provides two interesting looks at the possibilities surrounding Operation Sea Lion, Germany's half-hearted (and ultimately junked) plan for invading England. In this same theme, "The Turning Points of Tarawa" by Joseph H. Alexander gives a startling reassessment of the bloody battle for Tarawa, from predominantly a Japanese point of view.For stories from the Home Front, Theodore F. Cooke Jr. gives readers a very illuminating look at Japanese reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor in "Tokyo, December 8, 1941," while George Feifer's "The Last Picture Show" gives an account of Joesph Goebbels' bizarre film project in the dying days of the Third Reich to rally German morale to face the final cataclysm. Interesting "I Was There" pieces include "The Day the Hornet Sank", a memoir by a nineteen year old petty officer "Airedale," and "A Kamikaze's Tale," the first account published in the West by a surviving Kamikaze flier.Worthwhile assessments of wartime leadership include Alistair Horne's "In Defense of Montgomery", an apology for the often disparaged British field marshal by an historian worthy (if name-recognition wasn't such a marketing factor) of front-cover billing, but unfortunately he's trumped by the overrated William Manchester (who does have a good, if somewhat disjointed account of the Battle of Britain in this book), as well as the ubiquitous Stephen Ambrose. While I did not agree with many of Horne's conclusions--I would say that von Rundstedt's description of Rommel also fit's Rommel's nemesis Monty: "a brave man, and a very capable commander, but not really qualified for high command" (besides, Monty was a pompous [jerk], a point Horne willingly concedes)--this essay is still highly r

Historical Essays highlighting the untouched

No End Save Victory provides the reader with interesting and insightful short essays highlighting some of the most overlooked periods of an often overplayed part of history.Covering the lesser know battles and looking at the performance of the other side, No End Save Victory offers the reader a view at history through the eyes of some of our most famous historians. How many books or articles have been written about the French defense after Sedan? How many movies show the confusion and tenacious fighting qualities of our Phillipeano allies as they fell back onto the Bataan Penisula? These are some of the essays which fill this great volumn. If you sick of "popular" history books and want to hear from some of the best writers on less often written essays, No End Save Victory is the book for you.Sully