Book Reviews

Book review of the excellent account of the Soviet war in Afghanstan.

An excellent example of successful propaganda that should be of interest to historians and military officers.

On the topic of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, China’s India War is a revisionist text that re-examines the long standing opinion on this conflict that it was provoked by Indian intrusion into Chinese territory.

It must first be pointed out that this is not a factual book; it is a novel and, as such, is an unusual selection to be on Military Matters, which generally deals with factual sources. The reason for its inclusion is that Pressfield manages to convey something in this book that most writers never seem to get right – the sheer confusion, boredom and terror of war.

Yes. THAT Oliver North.

For anyone who may not know, Lt. Col. Oliver North, USMC, was one of the most controversial figures of the late Cold War and continues to be a deeply polarising figure – for some a traitor, for others a hero.

A book aimed as an introduction to Intelligence History for university students, Intelligence and Espionage: Secrets and Spies is understandably a thorough study of the subject. While it purports to provide only an introduction to the subject, the authors have written an excellent piece of work that provides great balance between high end academia and readability – two items that are quite often mutually exclusive.

Dealing with a subject that has had copious coverage - the astounding victory of the Israeli Defence Force over numerically superior Arab armies in the “Six-Day War” of 1967 - Pressfield adopts an unusual methodology in writing The Lions Gate, which he admits to immediately in the prologue.

Written by one of America’s most decorated combat soldiers and a candidate for the post of Commandant of the United States Marine Corp, War Is a Racket is a short book of only five chapters and forms an intriguing piece of history that warns of the dangers of American adventurism, the impeding disaster of the Second World War and of what became known of as the “Industrial-Military Complex” in later years.