Military History Books
When I took over the buying of books from Cliff & Chris more than ten years ago (that is, everything except children's which is Maria’s speciality), I never would have guessed how many military type books there are! I say type as many end up on the history shelves as opposed to the military shelves, also the aviation shelves, and the maritime shelves… It is hard to know where to draw the line when military becomes history. I try to stick to a rule of thumb that our military shelves are from World War I subjects onwards, anything before that goes into history or, sometimes, our transport shelves but it doesn’t always work out that way!
As a shop, we find we are offered many, many military books, whether they are modern books about World War II, the Vietnam war and today’s defences or books about the American Civil War and Custer’s Last Stand. Never have I seen so many books about Custer and Little Bighorn, the Boer War and Rorke’s Drift, World War I & II and so on! You might imagine… boring! Yawn! On the contrary - I have spent quite some time reading the synopsis of many military books to catalogue them in our database and found myself engrossed! This is amazing in itself as I generally LOATHE history.
Just browsing our shelves, I have picked out a few titles of military history that stood out to me and had me re-reading the synopsis:
‘Waterloo’ by Bernard Cornwell: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles
This is Bernard Cornwell’s first work of non-fiction and he combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting account of every dramatic moment, from Napoleon’s escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath…
‘Sister Janet: Nurse and Heroine of the Anglo-Zulu War’ by Brian Best & Katie Stossel
In an age when convention dictated otherwise, Janet Wells (or Sister Janet as she became known) embarked on two perilous ventures. She was only 18 years old when decorated for her nursing service during the 1878 Balkan War. Undeterred by the experience, the following year she became the only nurse to serve at the front during the Anglo-Zulu War.
Following a period in Northern Zululand, she arrived at Rorke’s Drift shortly after the legendary action. Revered by the soldiers, she worked tirelessly in appalling conditions with minimal medical supplies. Undaunted she refused to bow to either these difficulties or the prejudice that her gender and youthfulness provoked…
‘Kick the Dead Lion’ by Charles G. du Bois. This one aroused my curiosity by the title - why would you kick a dead lion???!
A Casebook of the Custer Battle… the author states: “General George A. Custer died a hero’s death in the service of his country. His was a soldier’s death, quick and violent. Mourned by his friends, and they were many – reviled by his enemies, and they were many – he emerges today, in the light of truth, an honourable man worthy of his country’s adulation… Perhaps we may then agree with General Nelson A. Miles, one of the greatest of the army officers who served on the Western Frontier, when he said, ‘I have no patience with those who would kick a dead lion’.” And so, there we have it… that is where the title came from!
Death Was Our Companion: The Final Days of the Third Reich by Tony Le Tissier
In the closing months of the Second World War, Hitler’s dreams of a Thousand-Year-Reich crumbled in the face of overwhelming assaults from both East and West. Even so, the heavily outnumbered German armed forces were still capable of fighting with a tenacity and professionalism at odds with their desperate circumstances. While Hitler fantasized about deploying divisions and armies that had long since ceased to exist, boys of fifteen, officer cadets, sailors and veterans of the First World War joined the survivors of shattered formations on the front line.
Leading historian Tony Le Tissier deploys fourteen arresting accounts by survivors to give a German perspective to the mayhem and bloodshed of the last desperate months of the war in Europe. Teenage Flak auxiliaries recount their experiences alongside veteran Panzergrenadiers attempting to break out of Soviet encirclement. Struggles between the military, industry and the Nazi party for influence over the defenders of Berlin contrast with a key participant’s account of Goebbel’s abortive attempt to conclude a cease-fire with the Soviets…
These are just four military/military history books I have picked off the shelves at the time of writing. I hope I have whetted your appetite to explore our military section containing over 1600 books.
Contributed by Sonia
(Published 3rd Oct 2023)
