World History
I recently finished reading Unexplained Mysteries of World War II by William B. Breuer. It was a fun easy read book with lots of short stories that allow for a book you can put down and pick up again frequently without having any difficulty picking up with a new historical tale you can finish in a few minutes.
Here is the publisher description of the book, "From Germany's invasion of Poland to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, from D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge to Iwo Jima and Bataan, the legendary battles and encounters of the Second World War have been the subjects of innumerable books. Yet, within the history of World War II, a wide range of mysterious, baffling, oddly coincidental, and inexplicable events remain. Now, critically acclaimed military historian William Breuer presents the first comprehensive book to focus on this vast, intriguing, and unexplored area. Over a period of years, Breuer collected materials from newspapers, magazines, military reports, correspondence, and interviews with the participants. His painstaking research uncovered a wealth of fascinating, at times startling, true tales: captivating cases of strange coincidences, curious happenings, and peculiar premonitions - all as vital a part of the war's history as its great campaigns, strategic designs, and high-level decisions. "
It is this part ("captivating cases of strange coincidences, curious happenings, and peculiar premonitions") which bugged me about the book. I did not find the various prominition or coincidence tales "unexplained" at all. Examples of this are Churchill deciding to switch seats in a car saving his life, Mrs. Eisenshower's predictions of her husbands greatness, a sailor who begs to go on a mission and is refused saving his life, etc. There were millions of soldiers and civilians involved in World War II. The sheer numbers indicate statistically that by chance some coincindences, near misses, correct dreams, etc. would happen.
In a response I made to a comment on my Caesar Assassination post where a reader argued that soothsayers had acurately predicted Caesar' death, "And the National Enquirer makes lots of grim predictions too. Will future historians ignore the 99% of the time that the tabloid was wrong and claim the 1% successful predictions as great prophecy? And then as historical fact? How many times did those old soothsayers make inaccurate predictions? History ignores those and highlights that one successful guess!"
Of course, Breuer ignores the stories of soldiers who made predictions and had dreams which did not happen. He ignored the many times that soldiers had preminitions, acted on them, and got hurt while had they did what they normally did would have been OK. I would think that the majority of preminitions (which were wrong) were never written down or even orally passed on.
Again, I liked this book. I stated some of my reasons already. But this sort of preminition/coincidence type of tabloid history bugs me. I wish it had been left out. There are enough unexplained World War Two stories out there to have left this sort of content out.
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World History
Unexplained Mysteries of World War II
I recently finished reading Unexplained Mysteries of World War II by William B. Breuer. It was a fun easy read book with lots of short stories that allow for a book you can put down and pick up again frequently without having any difficulty picking up with a new historical tale you can finish in a few minutes.Here is the publisher description of the book, "From Germany's invasion of Poland to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, from D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge to Iwo Jima and Bataan, the legendary battles and encounters of the Second World War have been the subjects of innumerable books. Yet, within the history of World War II, a wide range of mysterious, baffling, oddly coincidental, and inexplicable events remain. Now, critically acclaimed military historian William Breuer presents the first comprehensive book to focus on this vast, intriguing, and unexplored area. Over a period of years, Breuer collected materials from newspapers, magazines, military reports, correspondence, and interviews with the participants. His painstaking research uncovered a wealth of fascinating, at times startling, true tales: captivating cases of strange coincidences, curious happenings, and peculiar premonitions - all as vital a part of the war's history as its great campaigns, strategic designs, and high-level decisions. "
It is this part ("captivating cases of strange coincidences, curious happenings, and peculiar premonitions") which bugged me about the book. I did not find the various prominition or coincidence tales "unexplained" at all. Examples of this are Churchill deciding to switch seats in a car saving his life, Mrs. Eisenshower's predictions of her husbands greatness, a sailor who begs to go on a mission and is refused saving his life, etc. There were millions of soldiers and civilians involved in World War II. The sheer numbers indicate statistically that by chance some coincindences, near misses, correct dreams, etc. would happen.
In a response I made to a comment on my Caesar Assassination post where a reader argued that soothsayers had acurately predicted Caesar' death, "And the National Enquirer makes lots of grim predictions too. Will future historians ignore the 99% of the time that the tabloid was wrong and claim the 1% successful predictions as great prophecy? And then as historical fact? How many times did those old soothsayers make inaccurate predictions? History ignores those and highlights that one successful guess!"
Of course, Breuer ignores the stories of soldiers who made predictions and had dreams which did not happen. He ignored the many times that soldiers had preminitions, acted on them, and got hurt while had they did what they normally did would have been OK. I would think that the majority of preminitions (which were wrong) were never written down or even orally passed on.
Again, I liked this book. I stated some of my reasons already. But this sort of preminition/coincidence type of tabloid history bugs me. I wish it had been left out. There are enough unexplained World War Two stories out there to have left this sort of content out.
- Book Review: The Mental Floss History Of The World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits
Over the Christmas break, I had the good fortune to read The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization's Best Bits. The book is by Erik Sass, Steve Wiegand, Will Pearson, and Mangesh Hattikudor. Although it has taken...
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I just finished reading Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future. It was written by Peter D. Ward. I found it interesting but somewhat hard to read due to some choices the author...
- Medicus: A Novel Of The Roman Empire
I recently finished reading the book Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire. It was written by Ruth Downie. Although I do not read a lot of historical fiction, I decided to give this book a try. And, I am happy to report, I liked it a lot. Here is Publisher's...
- Imperium: A Novel Of Ancient Rome
I just finished reading Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome. I am not a big fiction fan but I do read the occasional historical fiction or fantasy novel. I do not always like them. However, I found this book by Richard Harris to be excellent. The book tells...
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GENERATION KILL: DEVIL DOGS, ICEMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE NEW FACE OF AMERICAN WAR. This is a review by Michael Lorenzen of the book by Evan Wright. The author of the review has given me permission to reproduce it here. Thanks! Review: My favorite...