S2 Actual reading list

Book of the Blockade

Alieś Adamovič

Leningrad was under siege for almost three years, and the first winter of that siege was one of the coldest on record. The Russians had been taken by surprise by the Germans' sudden onslaught in June 1941. This book tells the story of that long, bitter siege in the words of those who were there. It vividly describes how ordinary Leningraders struggled to stay alive and to defend their beloved city in the most appalling conditions. They were bombed, shelled, starved and frozen. They dug tank-traps and trenches, built shelters and fortifications, fought fires, cleared rubble, tended the wounded and, for as long as they had strength to do so, buried their dead. Many were killed by German bombs or shells, but most of them died of hunger and cold. Based on interviews with survivors of the siege and on contemporary diaries and personal memoirs. The primary focus is on three a young mother with two small children, a boy of sixteen at the outbreak of war, and an elderly academic. We see the siege through their eyes as its horrors unfold and as they struggle to survive.

Churchill on The Home Front, 1900-1955

Paul Addison

Pimlico · 1993

Winston Churchill's place in history as an orator, war leader and international statesman is secure. Far less attention has been given to his ideas about the development of our national life at home. No other politician has crossed the floor of the House of Commons twice and gone on to become Prime Minister. Yet it is the narrow view, Addison argues, to see Churchill's performance on the home front as merely that of an egoistic opportunist, employing his gift for rhetoric to keep centre stage regardless of principle. In his youth an Edwardian liberal, in middle age a supporter of the far right, few regarded him as anything but an old-fashioned figure when, unexpectedly, he returned to the centre of British politics in 1940. Yet few today can deny the impact made by his vision of Britain.

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Herbert P. Bix

Harper Perennial · September 4, 2001

Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeIn this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultranationalist movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly was: a man of strong will and real authority. Supported by a vast array of previously untapped primary documents, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is perhaps most illuminating in lifting the veil on the mythology surrounding the emperor's impact on the world stage. Focusing closely on Hirohito's interactions with his advisers and successive Japanese governments, Bix sheds new light on the causes of the China War in 1937 and the start of the Asia-Pacific War in 1941. And while conventional wisdom has had it that the nation's increasing foreign aggression was driven and maintained not by the emperor but by an elite group of Japanese militarists, the reality, as witnessed here, is quite different. Bix documents in detail the strong, decisive role Hirohito played in wartime operations, from the takeover of Manchuria in 1931 through the attack on Pearl Harbor and ultimately the fateful decision in 1945 to accede to an unconditional surrender. In fact, the emperor stubbornly prolonged the war effort and then used the horrifying bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with the Soviet entrance into the war, as his exit strategy from a no-win situation. From the moment of capitulation, we see how American and Japanese leaders moved to justify the retention of Hirohito as emperor by whitewashing his wartime role and reshaping the historical consciousness of the Japanese people. The key to this strategy was Hirohito's alliance with General MacArthur, who helped him maintain his stature and shed his militaristic image, while MacArthur used the emperor as a figurehead to assist him in converting Japan into a peaceful nation. Their partnership ensured that the emperor's image would loom large over the postwar years and later decades, as Japan began to make its way in the modern age and struggled -- as it still does -- to come to terms with its past. Until the very end of a career that embodied the conflicting aims of Japan's development as a nation, Hirohito remained preoccupied with politics and with his place in history. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan provides the definitive account of his rich life and legacy. Meticulously researched and utterly engaging, this book is proof that the history of twentieth-century Japan cannot be understood apart from the life of its most remarkable and enduring leader.

Home Front Soldier: The Story of a GI and His Italian American Family During World War II

Richard Aquila

State University of New York Press · 1999

While other collections of letters and memoirs from World War II have dealt with upper-class individuals, officers, or college-educated people, Home Front Soldier is the first to explore the life of an ordinary, working-class, first-generation American. This gripping story of a young soldier, Philip L. Aquila, and his Italian American family during the Second World War includes a detailed introduction, providing historical context to the more than 500 letters that this sergeant wrote to his family back home in Buffalo, New York. Like an epistolary novel, the letters offer an intimate personal history of how a large immigrant family with four sons in the military coped with the daily traumas of World War II. Each of the major and minor plots relates to larger questions in American social history of the 1930s and 1940s, offering fresh insights about family history, gender relations, ethnic and immigration history, and everyday life on the home front. The book also fills a gap in military history by providing detailed information about soldiers stationed in the United States during the war.

I Lived Under Hitler: An Englishwoman's Story of Her Life in Wartime Germany

Sybil Bannister

Penguin · 1995

In 1933 Sybil Bannister, a young British woman, set up home in Danzig with her new husband, a German medical student. This is an account of the hardship of her war experience. Her marriage broke up, she was separated from her son, and endured Hamburg's bombing raids and the Wuppertal firestorm.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

Marcus Luttrell

Little, Brown · 2007

On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers. A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow-by-blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich , moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare-and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Major General George H. Sharpe and the Creation of American Military Intelligence in the Civil War

Peter G. Tsouras

Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC · 2018

This biography of the Civil War officer who established the Union’s intelligence network “is an absolute treasure trove of . . . operational information” (Military History Magazine).   In this biography of George H. Sharpe, acclaimed historian Peter Tsouras recounts the significance of Sharpe’s grand contribution to the Union war the creation of an all-source intelligence operation known as the Bureau of Military Information. Tsouras contends that, under Sharpe’s leadership, the BMI was the combat multiplier that ultimately brought the Union to victory.   By early 1863, in the two-and-half months before the Chancellorsville Campaign, Sharpe had compiled a thorough and accurate Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield. His reports identified every brigade and its location in Lee’s army, provided an order-of-battle down to the regiment level, and a complete analysis of the railroad. Beyond this, Sharpe assembled a staff of thirty to fifty scouts and support personnel to run the military intelligence operation of the Army of the Potomac. He later supported Grant’s armies operating against Richmond during the Siege of Petersburg, where the BMI played a fundamental role in the victory.   After the war, Sharpe became one of the most powerful Republican politicians in New York State, had close friendships with presidents Grant and Arthur, and was a champion of African American civil rights. With a wealth of newly discovered primary documents, including the diaries of Sharpe’s deputy John C. Babcock, Tsouras sheds significant new light on the evolution of Civil War intelligence reporting.

Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death"

David G. Marwell

W. W. Norton Company · 2020

A gripping account of the infamous Nazi doctor, from a former Justice Department official tasked with uncovering his fate. One of the most notorious war criminals of all time, Dr. Josef Mengele has come to symbolize both the evil of the Nazi regime and the failure of justice in the postwar world. Drawing on new scholarship and sources, historian David G. Marwell examines Mengele’s life and career, chronicling his university studies, which led to two PhDs and a promising career as a scientist; his wartime service, in combat and at Auschwitz, where his “selections” determined the fate of countless innocents and his “scientific” pursuits resulted in the traumatization and death of thousands more; and his postwar refuge in Germany and South America. Mengele describes the international search in 1985, which ended in a cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the dogged forensic investigation that produced overwhelming evidence that Mengele had died―but failed to convince those who, arguably, most wanted him dead. This is a story of science without limits, escape without freedom, and resolution without justice.

Night Letters: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Afghan Islamists Who Changed the World

Chris Sands

C. Hurst and Company (Publishers) Limited · 2019

In 1969, several young men met on a rainy night in Kabul to form an Islamist student group. Their aim was laid out in a simple typewritten statement: to halt the spread of Soviet and American influence in Afghanistan. They went on to change the world. 'Night Letters' tells the extraordinary story of the group’s most notorious member, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the guerrilla organisation he came to lead, Hizb-e Islami. By the late 1980s, tens of thousands were drawn to Hekmatyar’s vision of a radical Islamic state that would sow unrest from Kashmir to Jerusalem. His doctrine of violent global jihad culminated in 9/11 and the birth of ISIS, yet he never achieved his dream of ruling Afghanistan. The peace deal he signed with Kabul in 2016 was yet another controversial twist in an astonishing life. Sands and Qazizai delve into the secret history of Hekmatyar and Hizb-e Islami: their wars against Russian and American troops, and their bloody and bitter feuds with domestic enemies. Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews carried out across the region and beyond, this is the definitive account of the most important, yet poorly understood, international Islamist movement of the last fifty years.

Notes of a Sniper

Vasili Zaitsev

2826 Press · 2003

true story of one of the greatest snipers of all time, the hero of Stalingrad.

Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck

Hans von Luck

A stunning look at World War II from the other side... From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front--von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers. Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman. Told with the vivid detail of an impassioned eyewitness, his rare and moving memoir has become a classic in the literature of World War II, a first-person chronicle of the glory--and the inevitable tragedy--of a superb soldier fighting Hitler's war.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Winner of the Lincoln Prize Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires. It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war. We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through. This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.

The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom

Bantam Books · 1974

Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's concentration camps. But she survived and was released—as a result of a clerical error—and now shares the story of how faith triumphs over evil. For thirty-five years Corrie's dramatic life story, full of timeless virtues, has prepared readers to face their own futures with faith, relying on God's love to overcome, heal, and restore. Now releasing in a thirty-fifth anniversary edition for a new generation of readers, The Hiding Place tells the riveting story of how a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's death camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt, #1)

Edmund Morris

Selected by The Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time This classic biography is the story of seven men—a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician—who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in history. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt begins at the apex of his international prestige. That was on New Year’s Day, 1907, when TR, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, threw open the doors of the White House to the American people and shook 8,150 hands. One visitor remarked afterward, “You go to the White House, you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk—and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes.” The rest of this book tells the story of TR’s irresistible rise to power. During the years 1858–1901, Theodore Roosevelt transformed himself from a frail, asthmatic boy into a full-blooded man. Fresh out of Harvard, he simultaneously published a distinguished work of naval history and became the fist-swinging leader of a Republican insurgency in the New York State Assembly. He chased thieves across the Badlands of North Dakota with a copy of Anna Karenina in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. Married to his childhood sweetheart in 1886, he became the country squire of Sagamore Hill on Long Island, a flamboyant civil service reformer in Washington, D.C., and a night-stalking police commissioner in New York City. As assistant secretary of the navy, he almost single-handedly brought about the Spanish-American War. After leading “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders” in the famous charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, he returned home a military hero, and was rewarded with the governorship of New York. In what he called his “spare hours” he fathered six children and wrote fourteen books. By 1901, the man Senator Mark Hanna called “that damned cowboy” was vice president. Seven months later, an assassin’s bullet gave TR the national leadership he had always craved. His is a story so prodigal in its variety, so surprising in its turns of fate, that previous biographers have treated it as a series of haphazard episodes. This book, the only full study of TR’s pre-presidential years, shows that he was an inevitable chief executive. “It was as if he were subconsciously aware that he was a man of many selves,” the author writes, “and set about developing each one in turn, knowing that one day he would be President of all the people.”

The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Kim Barker

Doubleday · 2011

A true-life Catch-22 set in the deeply dysfunctional countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents. Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.