The Pentagon: A History; The Untold Story of the Wartime Race to Build the Pentagon--And to Restore It Sixty Years Later

by Steve Vogel

Book Overview

The creation of the Pentagon in seventeen whirlwind months during World War II is one of the great construction feats in American history, involving a tremendous mobilization of manpower, resources,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400063035
• ISBN13: 9781400063031
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 626 Pages
• Weight: 2.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The Pentagon: A very compelling history

Mr. Vogel has written a very interesting history of a unique and famous building. Of course, it isn't just the building, it's the people, the times, the purpose for the building at the time it was built, the unfolding drama of the United States taking its place in the world after World War II, the Viet Nam protests, and most compelling, the September 11 attack on the Pentagon. I must say that initially, I did not think I would want to read a 500 page book about a building, even if it was the Pentagon; but as I perused the pages and the pictures, I thought: this could be very interesting. And it was. The book was very readable, and very insightful. You will learn quite a bit about how people handle power and influence. The brief overview of James Forrestal and other early Defense Department leaders was quite interesting. I found myself quite taken by the descriptions of the courageous people who first built the Pentegon and later, the even more courageous people who, in one year, repaired the extensive 9/11 damage. I commend this book to all who seek to understand more, not only about the Pentagon, but about Washington in the 1940s, the military, and the transition of America to a world power after World War II.

Exciting read

This is a page turner, an exciting story. With all the evidence around of government screw-ups, it's restorative to read of not one but two spectacular successes, no, three: the building of the Pentagon in 1941-42, the reconstruction in the late 1990s, and the rebuilding after the attack of 9/11, which the reconstruction assured relatively minimal devastation. The people come to life as the author tells their remarkable stories.

The extraordinary life and times of a unique building and the men who built and rebuilt it

Brehon B. Somervell isn't a name you hear much. He was a Brigadier General in the months before America's involvement with World War II. He foresaw the need to consolidate the U. S. Army's command in a single structure rather than the seventeen locations it currently occupied in Washington, D.C. Over a weekend, he and his surprised aides created the basic plans for what was then the world's largest building, what we know today as the Pentagon. Somervell not only was responsible for the Pentagon, but ultimately managing the supply system that kept 13 million U.S. troops around the world supplied with bullets, beans and everything else they needed. General Richard Groves went on to manage the Manhattan Project which developed the first nuclear weapons. The story of the fulfillment of Somervell's vision is absolutely fascinating. Steve Vogel is an exceptionally able writer who brings to life the daily adventures of men and women who more than sixty years ago built and then populated the Pentagon. There isn't a dull page in the book as Vogel describes the race to complete the building, which Somervell had said would take a year. The enormity of task and how ordinary men rose to meet the challenge comes across powerfully in Vogel's prose. Vogel traces the decades of the building's life, how it was manipulated, expanded and altered to meet the needs of successive generations. (President Roosevelt, we are told, didn't forsee any military need for the building after WWII and had planned on it becoming an archive. As it turned out, that insistence was fortuitous.) The story includes an interesting retelling of the great march on the Pentagon in 1967. Vogel reminds us that Bill Ayers, a radical, succeeded in getting a bomb planted in the Pentagon which narrowly missed killing several cleaning women. An unrepentant Ayers published a book bragging about his exploits on September 11, 2001. Vogel tells the story of September 11 and the heroic efforts to rebuild the Pentagon. Overall, Vogel has thoroughly explored this bit of history and produced a compelling book about one of the largest structures ever created, the men and women who built it, occupied it and those who rebuilt it. A must-read for military, engineering and history buffs. Jerry

History Comes Alive

A brilliant achievement. Perhaps the finest history book I've read since David McCullough's "The Path Between the Seas" and "The Great Bridge." There isn't a dull page uninteresting paragraph in the entire book. What is most fascinating is you need not be interested in the military to find the book thoroughly engrossing.

WW2 Era Comes Alive!!

Vogel makes the WW2 era come alive in this enteraining and informative look at the history of the conception, design and construction of the largest office building in the world. While the front line guys were defending the free world from the axis powers, the Corps of Engineers and others were working just as hard in DC to get the headquarters building built. Also included is the 911 attack and amazing reconstruction from the devastation. READ AND ENJOY!