History Documented

This is a book I also Highly recommend. I would not put it on the site if I did not think it was worth your time. I had the pleasure of listening to the audio book of ” An Army at Dawn”. I was impressed and very satisfied to hear a book about the beginning of the United States fighting ( in Europe Theater of Operations) during World War 2. Many people forget how the Untied States army had to learn the hard lesson’s of war. This book does a wonderful job of showing how the army grew into a formidable fighting force. Please read the Amazon review below, they do a much better job than myself.

Amazon.com
In An Army at Dawn,, a comprehensive look at the 1942-1943 Allied invasion of North Africa, author Rick Atkinson posits that the campaign was, along with the battles of Stalingrad and Midway, where the “Axis … forever lost the initiative” and the “fable of 3rd Reich invincibility was dissolved.” Additionally, it forestalled a premature and potentially disastrous cross-channel invasion of France and served as a grueling “testing ground” for an as-yet inexperienced American army. Lastly, by relegating Great Britain to what Atkinson calls the status of “junior partner” in the war effort, North Africa marked the beginning of American geopolitical hegemony. Although his prose is occasionally overwrought, Atkinson’s account is a superior one, an agile, well-informed mix of informed strategic overview and intimate battlefield-and-barracks anecdotes. (Tobacco-starved soldiers took to smoking cigarettes made of toilet paper and eucalyptus leaves.) Especially interesting are Atkinson’s straightforward accounts of the many “feuds, tiffs and spats” among British and American commanders, politicians, and strategists and his honest assessments of their–and their soldiers’–performance and behavior, for better and for worse. This is an engrossing, extremely accessible account of a grim and too-often overlooked military campaign. –H. O’Billovich

Rick Atkinson

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