Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2002-04-07
Dewey code: 355.331092
Price: £8.99
Review The Full Monty: Montgomery of Alamein, 1887-1942 Vol 1 / Penguin Books Ltd:There may be worse titles for a biography of Lord Montgomery of Alamein than The Full Monty, but none readily come to mind. At best it suggests a few laughs that most certainly aren't to be found, and at worst a staggering insensitivity when the book's central thesis is Montgomery's confused and complex sexuality. Nigel Hamilton has already written an acclaimed three-volume biography of Monty, published in the 1980s, which reclaimed the honour and reputation of the British soldier that had been savaged by earlier generations of American historians, and now asks his readers to wade through 800 pages of what is only the first of two planned volumes of his reassessment. Inevitably, a great deal of the material is much the same-Hamilton is a scrupulous archivist-and the only critical difference is that this time round Monty's homosexuality takes central stage. Monty's sexuality wasn't exactly a secret among World War II historians when Hamilton began his research in the early 1980s, and he makes some special pleading for his reasons for having omitted it first time round. He was too young a biographer to enter "these dark waters", his father would have been aghast; homosexuality in the military wasn't tolerated in the 1980s: all these facts conspired the young Hamilton to largely conceal an important part of his subject's personality. There have been several biographies of Monty that have been published after Hamilton's magnum opus, all of which have openly dealt with his sexuality, so why, apart from an understandable desire-as Monty's official biographer-to put the record straight, would Hamilton want to rake over an old story? The answer appears to be that Hamilton is such a Montyphile that, having come to terms with his hero being outed, he wants to annexe his sexuality to his own ends. So rather than seeing Monty's homosexuality as just another facet of his personality, Hamilton seeks to make a virtue of it by claiming it was this that made him such a brilliant and charismatic general. Hamilton suggests that being gay was what made Monty so empathetic with his troops, which in turn inspired their loyalty; this is both specious and deluded sexual stereotyping. Is it not possible that Monty's success owes more to an astute military mind? Inevitably, perhaps Hamilton's fondness for his subject also blinds him to some unpalatable truths. [+]Monty's attraction for young boys is explained away as an "affectionate and platonic" bond motivated by the highest sensibilities. This, at the very least, is a highly suspect argument. Whether there was physical intimacy or not-and the jury is out-using his power and influence on impressionable young men and boys in such a way verges on the abusive. Hamilton has already proved himself a distinguished historian; as a psychotherapist he's distinctly amateur. The Full Monty that emerges here is anything but. -John Crace.
Publication date: 2001-03-15
Dewey code: 940.547243
RRP: £19.95
Price: £9.99
Review Moonless Night: Wartime Diary of a Great Escaper / Pen & Sword Books Ltd:
Authors
- Alan Bennett
- Norman L.R. Franks
Dewey code: 940.44943092
RRP: £14.99
Price: £31.92
Review The Red Baron's Last Flight: A Mystery Investigated / Grub Street:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2007-10-02
Dewey code: 340
RRP: £11.69
Price: £3.01
Review Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made / Riverhead Books:
Edition: illustrated edition
Publication date: 2006-01-20
Dewey code: 940.542193480922
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.96
Review Into the Dragon's Teeth: Warriors' Tales of the Battle of the Bulge / Whitston Publishing Company Inc:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 1995-11-10
Dewey code: 332.6
RRP: £10.95
Price: £7.76
Review The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor / John Wiley & Sons:
Publication date: 1999-03-22
RRP: £16.99
Price: £21.00
Review The Ice Road / Mainstream Publishing:The plight of the one-and-a-half million Poles deported as "enemies of the state" to the labour camps of the frozen Soviet Union has often been forgotten. Stefan Waydenfeld lived in the town of Otwock, 30 kilometres south of Warsaw, with his father, his mother and his older brother Jurek. Their idyll was broken in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and Stefan, aged 14, was forced to flee with his parents to safer territory. Unfortunately to the east were the Russians, casting a colder shadow under Stalin than the so-called "civilised" Nazis from whom they were fleeing. Overcrowded trains, hard physical labour, squalid living quarters, perpetual hunger and for nine months of the year the bitter Soviet winter, sought to crush a spirit within them that somehow remained resolute. 1941 and the German attack on the USSR brought a "liberation" of sorts, but they were still herded like cattle across the Soviet Union, deemed "unreliable" and kept subjugated by deliberate starvation. Eventually, and only with a sadistic reluctance, the authorities allowed them to leave, but the awful ordeal still had consequences it would bring to bear. Stefan Waydenfeld settled in London, where he followed in his father's footsteps and became a GP. Now retired, in this, his first book, he renders the narrative with an emotional stoicism in stark relief to the misery he is often describing and while he never allows it to be forgotten that it is also the story of a boy's, of his, adolescence, the panoramic sympathy he brings to bear is indicative of the man who emerged from it all. Shot through with a love and incorrigible comradeship that Stalin's communism idealised but could never realise, The Ice Road's grim twist is that given what happened to those who stayed in their region of Poland, the interminable journeying they endured probably saved their lives. [+]-David Vincent.
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 1996-06
Dewey code: 973
RRP: £11.95
Price: £6.58
Review Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff / Louisiana State University Press:
Creator: Rodney M. Bennett
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2002-05-30
Dewey code: 355
RRP: £7.99
Price: £0.27
Review Nelson the Commander (Penguin Classic Military History) / Penguin Books Ltd:
Edition: N.e.of 2r.e.
Publication date: 1990-05-17
Price: £3.99
Review These Men Are Dangerous: S.A.S. at War (Special Forces Library) / Grafton:
Authors
- Anne C. Rehill
- James E. Wise
Dewey code: 791.43028092273
RRP: £22.50
Price: £13.66
Review Stars in the Corps: Movie Actors in the United States Marines / Naval Institute Press:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1990-08-02
Price: £3.99
Review Fly for Your Life: Robert Stanford Tuck / Arrow Books Ltd:
Creator: Jane Robinson
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 1997-08-28
Dewey code: 200
RRP: £8.99
Price: £4.99
Review Angels of Albion: Women of the Indian Mutiny / Penguin Books Ltd:
Creator: Anthea Bell
Publication date: 2005-08-01
Dewey code: 940
RRP: £14.99
Price: £0.87
Review Almost a Childhood: Growing Up Among the Nazis / Granta Books:
Publication date: 2004-10
Dewey code: 940.547252092
RRP: £16.99
Price: £24.03
Review Lost Souls of the River Kwai: Experiences of a British Soldier on the Railway of Death / Leo Cooper Ltd:
Creator: Markus Wolf
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2002-09-09
Dewey code: 327
Price: £16.99
Review Ultimate Spy / Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd:Historian H. Keith Melton is a specialist in 20th-century espionage; he's also quite a fan of espionage gadgetry. Both interests make strong showings in this heavily illustrated glimpse into the shadowy world of modern spying. Melton examines the role of clandestine intelligence in revolutionary Russia and Nazi Germany, analyses modern spy rings, and profiles a number of important figures in the demimonde of spooks, among them British code breaker Alan Turing and Yugoslav double agent Dusan Popov. He also showcases some astonishing hardware, ranging from suitcase radios to shirt button microphones and mechanical pencil pistols. Former CIA director William Colby and former KGB general Oleg Kalugin, who recruited the American traitor John Walker, contribute forewords.
Authors
- Deborah Durland DeSaix
- Karen Gray Ruelle
Dewey code: 940.5318092244595
RRP: £16.78
Price: £11.04
Review Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon / Holiday House:
Publication date: 2005-10-25
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.52
Review Thirty-odd Feet Below Belgium: An Affair of Letters in the Great War 1915-1916 / Parapress Ltd:
Publication date: 2009-01-01
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.59
Review My Father's Country / Arrow Books Ltd:
Creator: Christine Burls
Publication date: 2000-06-01
Dewey code: 940.5318092
RRP: £10.99
Price: £3.65
Review From a World apart: A Little Girl in the Concentration Camps / University of Nebraska Press:
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The Full Monty: Montgomery of Alamein, 1887-1942 Vol 1, Moonless Night: Wartime Diary of a Great Escaper, The Red Baron's Last Flight: A Mystery Investigated, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made, Into the Dragon's Teeth: Warriors' Tales of the Battle of the Bulge, The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor, The Ice Road, Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff, Nelson the Commander (Penguin Classic Military History), These Men Are Dangerous: S.A.S. at War (Special Forces Library), Stars in the Corps: Movie Actors in the United States Marines, Fly for Your Life: Robert Stanford Tuck, Angels of Albion: Women of the Indian Mutiny, Almost a Childhood: Growing Up Among the Nazis, Lost Souls of the River Kwai: Experiences of a British Soldier on the Railway of Death, Ultimate Spy, Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon, Thirty-odd Feet Below Belgium: An Affair of Letters in the Great War 1915-1916, My Father's Country, From a World apart: A Little Girl in the Concentration Camps |
