WWI

Hardcover. NY, New York University Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, pages. The GI War Against Japan recounts the harrowing experiences of American soldiers in Asia and the Pacific. Based on countless diaries and letters, it sweeps across the battlefields, from the early desperate stand at Guadalcanal to the tragic sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at war's very end. From the daunting spaces of the China-India theater to the fortress islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Schrijvers brings to life the GIs' struggle with suffocating wilderness, devastating diseases, and Japanese soldiers who preferred death over life. Amidst the frustration and despair of this war, American soldiers abandoned themselves to an escalating rage that presaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 24-foot-long black-and-white drawing printed on heavyweight accordion-fold paper and packaged in a deluxe hardcover slip-case. From "the heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman" (Economist) comes a monumental, wordless depiction of the most infamous day of World War I.Launched on July 1, 1916, the Battle of the Somme has come to epitomize the madness of the First World War. Almost 20,000 British soldiers were killed and another 40,000 were wounded that first day, and there were more than one million casualties by the time the offensive halted. In The Great War, acclaimed cartoon journalist Joe Sacco depicts the events of that day in an extraordinary, 24-foot- long panorama: from General Douglas Haig and the massive artillery positions behind the trench lines to the legions of soldiers going "over the top" and getting cut down in no-man's-land, to the tens of thousands of wounded soldiers retreating and the dead being buried en masse. Printed on fine accordion-fold paper and packaged in a deluxe slipcase with a 16-page booklet, The Great War is a landmark in Sacco's illustrious career and allows us to see the War to End All Wars as we've never seen it before. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 373 pages. Color and b&w photographs. Water stain on back cover. Dust jacket has some small tears. A pictorial record, with accompanying text, of German society, culture, and politics, from the Weimar Republic to Hitler's last public appearence, detailing the rise of Nazism and Hitler's public and private lives.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Since 1945 there have been more than one hundred biographies of Hitler, and countless other books on him and the Third Reich. What happens when so many people reinterpret the life of a single individual? Dangerously, the cumulative portrait that begins to emerge can suggest the face of a mythic antihero whose crimes and errors blur behind an aura of power and conquest. By reversing the process, by making Hitler's biographers--rather than Hitler himself--the subject of inquiry, Lukacs reveals the contradictions that take us back to the true Hitler of history. Like an attorney, Lukacs puts the biographies on trial. He gives a masterly account of all the major works and of the personalities, methods, and careers of the biographers (one cannot separate the historian from his history, particularly in this arena); he looks at what is still not known (and probably never will be) about Hitler; he considers various crucial aspects of the real Hitler; and he shows how different biographers have either advanced our understanding or gone off track. By singling out those who have been involved in, or co-opted into, an implicit "rehabilitation of Hitler," Lukacs draws powerful conclusions about Hitler's essential differences from other monsters of history, such as Napoleon, Mussolini, and Stalin, and--equally important--about Hitler's place in the history of this century and of the world.

Softcover. NY, American Italian Historical Association, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 244 pages, 35th Conference of the American Italian Historical Association . "'Italian Americans and World War II, ' explores many facets of the dynamic period of the 1940s and the consequences of war and peace. Scholars within AIHA and outside the academy have been slow to recognize the significance of World War II, now recognized as a seminal event in Italian-American life and culture. . . . "This volume is dedicated to all Italian Americans who lived and died, fought and prayed during World War II." Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Volume XI in The History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. 360 pages, illustrated with maps (one fold-out) and b&w photos. Gilt on spine with light fading, lacks dust jacket, dj flap copy pasted inside front cover, otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 364 pages. The Second World War's Pacific conflict was one of the most complex in history. It embrioled peoples from opposite sides of the globe; it was fought in China, across the expanses of the Pacific, and in the jungles of Southeast Asia; and it was devastating in its consequences for civilians and servicemen alike. It saw the first use of atomic weapons, hastened the end of the Western empires in Asia, and marked America's rise to the position of the most powerful nation in the world.Christopher Thorne, whose previous studies of the war in the Pacific have become landmarks in the field, here weaves together both the entire network of international relations surrounding the war and the impact the war had on all the societies involved--Indian as well as American; Australian and New Zealand as well as Japanese; Korean, Chinese, and Southeast Asian as well as British, French, and Dutch. The Issue of War draws on material gathered over many years in the Far East, Western Europe, and the U.S.--material including wartime films, broadcasts, and newspapers,as well as countless private and offical papers. Representing a synthesis of military, diplomatic, economic, intellectual, and social history, it not only places the war in the context of developments before 1941, but illuminates various patterns that cut across the familiar distinctions between Asia and the West or between Japan and the Allies. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 310 pages. Jacques Adler (1927-2017) was born in 1927. Jacques brought his experience in the Resistance to the study of history and used it in his pioneering Ph.D. Jacques joined the Jewish underground in Paris and was active throughout the war. During the Liberation, Jacques was involved in the Resistance takeover of the offices of the Union generale des israelites de France (UGIF), the organization which the Vichy regime forced French Jews to create and pay for in order to control the Jewish community. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Simon and Schuster, 2nd pr., 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark gray boards with black cloth spine, gilt lettering on spine. 350 pages, b&w illustrations, color endpaper maps. INSCRIBED BY RYAN on half title page and dated Dec 59. In 1956 Ryan began to write The Longest Day,which tells the story of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, later published in 1959. It was an instant success, and Ryan helped in the writing of the screenplay for the 1962 hit film of the same name. Darryl F. Zanuck paid the author US $175,000 for the screen rights to the book. Lacks dust jacket, a clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Cambridge, Komatik Press, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, oblong format. In 1917, while still in art school, Edward Shenton joined Company B, 103rd Engineers of the Pennsylvania National Guard. He stocked up on art materials, including many canvas-bound sketchbooks and a watercolor set, and went off to train and fight. Much of the war he witnessed made their way into his sketchbooks. When Ed returned home, no one wanted to hear about the war, much less see images of the horrors of battle. He went back to art school and his sketches were put away and forgotten. He had a brilliant career as an illustrator. His drawings graced the cover of Scribner's Magazine for ten years and embellished books by, among others, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolf.Edward Shenton had a long career as an outstanding illustrator, author, and teacher and, after a very full life, died at the age of eighty-two. Nine decades after they were put away, his son came across Ed's sketchbooks and he and I decided that they, along with his father's wartime story, had to be shared with the world.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1st, 1918, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, textured blue cloth covers with gilt lettering and rule on front. B&w frontis. illustration. A story of personality exchange set during World War I. The same German bullet passes through the brain of one French soldier, killing him, but lodges in the head of another (his close friend), causing only a slight injury but transferring the dead man's personality to that second soldier. This produces great psychological consternation in the wounded man, especially when he returns home and courts the widow of the first soldier. Bookplate on front fly, otherwise clean and bright.

Softcover. Washington DC, The Infantry Journal, reprint, 1944, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Small softcover, 335 pages. "The primary purpose of this book is to provide a guide to the main forces, institutional and ideological, in the Nazi system." Published for the American servicemen. Name on front cover,mild wear to covers.

Hardcover. NY, The Century Co., 1st, 1917, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in gilt. 346 pages. Frontis. portrait, illustrated with b&w plates and folding facsimile documents. "Authoritative information as to how the soldiers of the Allies are transported, housed and trained, how a battle is prepared for in advance, etc. " Author observed British Postal Censorship and war, including trench-fighting, during WWI. Eric Fisher Wood, Sr. (1889 1962) was an American civil engineer, architect, author, and officer in the United States Army, retiring with the rank of Brigadier General. Book shows mild shelf wear, name and stamp to front endpapers, otherwise clean. Good plus.

Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st US, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 192 pages. The photos are breathtaking not necessarily for their quality - many are washed out and most of the subject matter is routine day to day military stuff - but for their rarity. While the Germans seem to have been at least as far advanced in the use of color photography as the Americans, there is still a paucity of color photography in the public record. That is being addressed by the various nations who took large amounts of color film in an official capacity, including the US, UK, Germany and Canada.The book's captions are adequate to the task, and there are good historical sections, as well as an introduction by Max Hastings as well as commentary by an actual German war correspondent. The strength of the book is in its ability to bring the participants of the subject campaign - the German invasion of Russia up to and including Stalingrad - to life. The use of a large format allows one to note small details of the photos, and relate to the subject matter on a personal level. Despite the lack of "action" shots, there is much to see in facial expressions, uniform details, and especially geography as the Russian steppe is shown in summer and winter, as well as the famous Russian mud (Rasputitsa) about which so much has been written.

Softcover. NY, Quill/ William Morrow, reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 432 pages, b&w illustrations. Dotted with stunning disclosures of crimes and cover-ups, this is a startling narrative of the way Japan conducted World War II: from Nanking to Pearl Harbor to the attempted assassination of Stalin to their final surrender. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket. A look at Britain in the period before the Battle of Britain - a world of gas masks, blackouts, rationing, evacuations and warnings about what to do if a German parachutist lands on your doorstep - a time when it was an offence to leave a car parked without disabling it and when signpost were torn down to confuse the enemy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, reprint, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Volume III in The History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. 411 pages, illustrated with maps and b&w photos. Gilt on spine with light fading, lacks dust jacket, otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st US, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in lightly worn dust jacket, 416 pages including index, bibliography and abbreviations. "The first adequately comprehensive history of the Resistance in Europe during Hitler's war to be published in any language." Name on frontfly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, reprint, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Volume V in The History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. 389 pages, illustrated with maps (one fold-out) and b&w photos. Gilt on spine with light fading, lacks dust jacket, otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, E. P. Dutton, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. David Irving's The Trail of the Fox is the best work on Rommel ever written. The circumstances around Rommel's involvement with the attempt on Hitler's life, which is the most speculated aspect of Rommel's life, and how the Gestapo came to believe Rommel was involved, have not been made clear in most of the historiography on Rommel. Irving pieces together what really happened most effectively. There are so many strengths of this book, of which the greatest is probably the fact Irving had access to Rommel's dairy and many of his letters, which he got permission from the family to view. Other items he found in collections in the United States, England, and Germany. Since he worked on this in the 1970's he also was able to interview a number of German officers who were still alive that knew and served with Rommel. The whole work is the way historical research should be done; totally reliant on primary source material, and ignores secondary sources that often use conjecture or just repeat incorrect narratives from earlier books. Every source is from people who fought the war; Germans, Italians, British, French and American officers who were in these campaigns and had either first hand observation of Rommel or were major participants like Eisenhower, Churchill, Goebbels, etc. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little Brown & Co., 1st US, 1942, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers with blacl title block, gilt lettering. Spine shows fading. 371 pages. Speeches, November, 1940 to the end of 1941. Many key speeches here including " All Will Be Well " made at the Guildhall , Hull, November 7, 1941. Clean copy.

Softcover. St. Paul MN, Pogo Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 158 pages, b&w illustrations. During World War I, soldiers in the American Expeditionary Force rarely fought in the newly developed tank, and those who did manned British and French tanks since American models did not become available until after the war. Harris joined the Tank Corps because it was considered the elite unit of the ground forces and had a certain amount of romance connected with it. Initially assigned as a driving instructor, he later saw action at the St. Mihiel salient and on the Meuse-Argonne front. This book, which offers an extensive preface, summarizing Harris's life before, during, and after the war, along with some penetrating insights into his character, collects 46 letters he wrote home while in service. As they show, Harris saw war as a game not unlike the football games he played in his youth. Although he spent only 18 months in Europe, he looked upon it as a bold adventure, surviving the bad periods and enjoying the better moments. He returned from war apparently unscathed in both body and mind. The letters provide an entertaining if hardly probing portrayal of World War I from a tank officer's point of view. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 395 pages, b&w illustrations. From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The War Beat, Pacific provides the first comprehensive account of how a group of highly courageous correspondents covered America's war against Japan, what they witnessed, what they were allowed to publish, and how their reports shaped the home front's perception of some of the most pivotal battles in American military history. In a dramatic and fast-paced narrative based on a wealth of previously untapped primary sources, Casey takes us from MacArthur's doomed defense on the Philippines and the navy's overly strict censorship policy at the time of Midway, through the bloody battles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Tarawa, Saipan, Leyte and Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, detailing the cooperation, as well as conflict, between the media and the military, as they grappled with the enduring problem of limiting a free press during a period of extreme crisis. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket. 739 pages, index, b&w illustrations. The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned headsacross Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the German general staff, Von Moltke the Younger; in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph, a man who tried, through sheer hard work, to stave off the coming chaos in his empire; in Russia, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife; in Britain, King Edward VII, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and British admiral Jacky Fisher, the fierce advocate of naval reform who entered into the arms race with Germany that pushed the continent toward confrontation on land and sea. Clean copy.