In Case You Didn’t Buy the ‘New York Times’ Yesterday: New Military Histories

The  Sunday New York Times Book Review ran my semi-annual survey of new books on military history. Some highlights for youse:

MY LAI: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent Into Darkness (Oxford University, $34.95).

“Likely to become the standard reference work on My Lai.”

THE SECOND WORLD WARS: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won (Basic Books, $40).

“Full of … novel perceptions…. The book might have been better called ‘A Classical Historian Assesses World War II.’”

STANLEY JOHNSTON’S BLUNDER: The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret Behind the U.S. Navy’s Victory at Midway (Naval Institute Press, $29.95).

“Perhaps the biggest single intelligence leak to a reporter in American military history came in June 1942.”

HANNIBAL’S OATH: The Life and Wars of Rome’s Greatest Enemy (Da Capo, $28).

Provides “context, both strategic and political.”

VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION: The Global Idea of the Communist Party (Princeton University, $35).

“It made me think that Communism arose in reaction to the Industrial Revolution, became a major force during the era of heavy industry, with all those spewing smokestacks — and then ended along with it. So, I wondered, will there be a similar political reaction to the Information Age? If so, is that new ideology already being born?”