I recently picked up two non-fiction ebooks that Amazon had offered at a reduced price:
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten War by Richard Rubin
Quote:
|
There may be as many as a million surviving veterans of WWII, and their stream of memoirs continues, contributing to their place as part of the “Greatest Generation.” But the last known American veteran of the Great War died in 2011. Determined to obtain and document the remembrances of the surviving “doughboys,” journalist Rubin began an effort to locate and interview many of them a decade ago. The result is this fascinating and deeply moving collection of individual stories. These veterans, between the ages of 101 and 113, tell their stories in sometimes halting ways; but aided by the patience and prompting of Rubin, they provide a vivid picture of their wartime experiences as well as the vastly different American society from which they sprang. Most of these men came from rural backgrounds, and they used horsepower rather than tractors to plow fields. Some describe their shock at their first exposure to industrial-scale warfare, while others stepped easily into the beginnings of aerial combat. Some recall the comradeship, while others emphasize the terror of trench warfare. This is an important and masterful tribute to those who participated in a conflict that continues to shape the world today.
|
Home Before The Leaves Fall: A New History of the German Invasion of 1914 by Ian Senior
Quote:
The German invasion of France and Belgium in August 1914 came within an ace of defeating the French armies, capturing Paris, and ending the First World War before the autumn leaves had fallen. But the German armies failed to score the knock-out blow they had planned. The war would drag on for four years of unprecedented slaughter.
There are many accounts of 1914 from the British point of view. The achievements of the British Expeditionary Force were the stuff of legend, but in reality there were only four divisions in the field; the French and Germans had more than 60 each. The real story of the battle can only be told by an author with the skill to mine the extensive German and French archives. Ian Senior does this with consummate skill, weaving together strategic analysis with diary entries and interview transcripts from the soldiers on the ground to create a remarkable new history. In addition, all previous classic histories on the subject either focus virtually exclusively on the British experiences or are now very out-of-date such as Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August (1962) or Sewell Tyng's Campaign of the Marne (1935).
Supported by up numerous sketch maps, extensive archival research and poignant first-hand accounts, Home before the leaves fall is an accessible, narrative account of the German invasion that came within an ace of victory, that long hot summer.
|