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What are you reading?

D

Dewse5150

Member
Flash said:
I finally got through it and I thought it was an excellent book, tied together the big picture of the war at sea during WWI much better than anything else I have come across. It also gave a thorough and detailed but easily understandable description of the Battle Of Jutland. Most of the histories I have read of that were almost too detailed and focused on many of the individual actions while Castles of Steel focused on the bigger picture.

A couple of observations; Germany comes across as the bad guy again just like in Dreadnought (except for Bismarck they really don't seem to do 'big' strategy very well at all and they were really arrogant), Jellicoe comes across much better by far than Beatty even on a personal level, Churchill learned some hard lessons but I think he came out better for it when his country needed him 20 years later and command and control in in the thick of a naval battle is really hard (a lesson from Neptune's Inferno too).

If you have the time I highly recommend both Castles of Steel and Dreadnought, I read them in chronological sequence and they fit together well.
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Do these books assume a decent knowledge of the events surrounding WWI ? Also, have you read Sleepwalkers or Guns of August?
 
Flash

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Dewse5150 said:
Do these books assume a decent knowledge of the events surrounding WWI ? Also, have you read Sleepwalkers or Guns of August?
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Pags said:
Dreadnaught covers the world stage leading up to WWI in exhaustive detail. It assumes nothing.
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What Pags said, a general knowledge of WWI and what led up to it was helpful for Castles of Steel but not necessary. If you knock both out chronologically you will be fully informed, at least after 1400 pages or so I sure hope you would be.
 
D

Dewse5150

Member
Flash said:
What Pags said, a general knowledge of WWI and what led up to it was helpful for Castles of Steel but not necessary. If you knock both out chronologically you will be fully informed, at least after 1400 pages or so I sure hope you would be.
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Both books look like pretty girthy reads, ill put them in queue for my studies of WWI, thanks.
 
Randy Daytona

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Just out by Peter Zeihan. The Absent Superpower.
https://www.amazon.com/Absent-Super...7313701&sr=8-1&keywords=the+absent+superpower

The American shale revolution does more than sever the largest of the remaining ties that bind America's fate to the wider world. It re-industrializes the United States, accelerates the global order's breakdown, and triggers a series of wide ranging military conflicts that will shape the next two decades. The common theme? Just as the global economy tips into chaos, just as global energy becomes dangerous, just as the world really needs the Americans to be engaged, the United States will be...absent.

EDIT: Just finished the book in the last 48 hours. Great read. Best line of the book: "For the Americans, free trade wasn't about economics at all, it was a security gambit that was designed to solidify an alliance in order to fight a war. But that war ended three decades ago."

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Recovering LSO

Recovering LSO

Suck Less
pilot
Contributor
You should give the book a try.... Also, he didn't write it - he's listed as an editor. It's a compilation of essays.
 
nittany03

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Griz882 said:
Chuckle...nobody who made it past E-7/O-6 should ever write a book about how civilians view our military. They are too close to one subject and too far from the other.
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If only we had a group of people with a foot in both worlds. :)
 
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