World War II (1931-1945)
“The Second World War presented a mirror to the human condition which blinded anyone who looked into it.” — Norman Mailer, “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster” (1957)
Of the endless ocean of books on the Second World War, we have dozens and dozens of new and carefully chosen titles. I define it as beginning with the Japanese Empire’s invasion of Manchuria and ending with not only V-E and V-J Days but also the immediate crises of displaced people, the Soviet Union’s creation of the Iron Curtain, and the growing revelations of the extent of the Holocaust.
In significant ways the Second World War was the defining crucible of the 20th Century. The First World War was prelude, the legacy of the 19th Century’s imperialism, and the Cold War was the sequel. Of the making of books about it there is no end — but the persistence of good research and good writing, and good publication underscores the war’s centrality of the world we live in today and the world our descendents will live in for the foreseeable future.
Invasion Diary
Invasion Diary
The Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943 were bloody and pivotal, securing the Mediterranean, capitalizing on the overthrow of Mussolini, and pinning down German troops that could have been used on the Russian Front or in France after D-Day. The men who made the Allied victories in Sicily and Italy possible-soldiers and officers, bombardiers and drivers, doctors and generals-are honored and remembered in these pages by famed war correspondent Richard Tregaskis. Fresh from his memorable days in the field on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal, Tregaskis shares an intimate and rousing diary of the Sicilian and Italian campaigns. His experiences take him from bomb-bay doors over Rome to one of the few hotels left standing in devastated Palermo, Sicily, to the chaotic front lines in Italy, where he nearly died from a shrapnel wound. The gleaming ivory grips of Gen. George Patton's pistol, the terrified face of a soldier engulfed by the hellfire of combat, the extraordinary skill of a military surgeon-the uniquely American features of the Second World War are unforgettably inscribed through the pen of Richard Tregaskis. Richard Tregaskis (1916-73) was a noted correspondent and writer who reported on several wars, including the Second World War and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. His books include Guadalcanal Diary. Flint Whitlock is a co-founder of the Colorado Military History Museum and the author of The Rock of Anzio: From Sicily to Dachau-A History of the Forty-fifth Infantry Division and Soldiers on Skis: A Pictorial Memoir of the Tenth Mountain Division.