Perhaps no Civil War General is surrounded by more controversy than Nathan Bedford Forrest and yet his life and campaigns are to a large extent ignored or lightly skipped over as they are lost in the large battles of that conflict. This book, written by a man of the South, is pro-Forrest and yet, it is difficult to refute most of the history as told when reviewed against other contemporary and non-contemporary accounts. 

General Longstreet served as Robert E. Lee’s solid right hand, commanding the First Corps. of the Confederate Army during most of the Civil war.  A strong believer in states rights (but not necessarily slavery) before the war, afterwards he was a strong Republican, believing that having been defeated during the war, the Southern states needed to work to be fully accepted back into the Union.  His post war political beliefs earned him the scorn of many Southerners, especially the old ruling class which hoped (and succeed) to place themselves back in power.

I have read biographies of Mussolini and military books, trying in vain to find out why Mussolini was so adored by his I have people.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, I could understand as they tapped into the needs of the people, promised them what they desired and delivered on many of the promises (although at a huge, terrible price).  Mussolini, aside from killing off (or their fleeing to the US) the Mafia and making the trains run on time, seemed to stagger from one disaster to another.  It must have been the pomp and uniforms that kept many people enthralled and we need to remember that FDR and Churchill both had favorable opinions of the Italian dictator for quite a while.

DeGaulle was a major figure for almost two decades in post-World War II Europe.  After being the lone voice for a free France after its collapse in the face of the German invasion, he managed against all odds to create a movement which was often at loggerheads with the very forces (the British and Americans) who paid for, fed, equipped, and supplied his small forces (most of French rescued at Dunkirk had decided to return to France rather than stay in the U.K. and continue the fight).  He was egotistical, dogmatic, tightly controlled, and he shaped Europe more through his inactions than through his actions. 

Orwell was a keen and brutally honest observer of poverty which he experienced firsthand during the early 1930’s.  His descriptions of poverty and the struggle to survive in two of the most famous and richest cities of the world read more like something from the Middle Ages as individuals scurry from place to place hoping to find a meal, a crust of bread or a place of shelter.  In fact, one is tempted to keep looking at the copyright date to make sure it is not a work of historical fiction set in some dark, dismal land and time.

This classic of political writing features essays by some of the brilliant intellectual minds from the 1930s through the mid-1950s.  The studies include those of Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Andre Gide, Richard Wright, Louis Fischer and Stephen Spender.  All had joined (some for only a few days) their local Communist parties and all had rejected it for a variety of reasons.  Each sought to find a solution to the problems they faced, such as the fall of Capitalism (often predicted, none accurately yet), artistic freedom, someone to stand against Fascism, the end of racism, etc.  Each found that while the theory was supposedly “scientific”, the practical application of the theory in fact worked against the solutions they sought and were run by humans with the same emotions, fears, etc. that have always existed

Although Valentin Berezhkov was not Stalin’s primary interpreter, he did attend many important meetings with Stalin during the Second World War, including Yalta and in Moscow.  With a natural flair for languages, Berezhkov found that he was chosen for important work by Molotov and was suddenly thrust into the middle of history making events.  His memoirs are interesting as they reflect the mind set of suspicion, fear and ambition at the very highest levels of Soviet government. The leaders of the State were constantly looking over their shoulders and testing the ground beneath their feet as their leader, Stalin, the consummate politician watched them for any inking of disloyalty or lack of duty.

One of the joys of visiting New Orleans is the ability to wander in wonderful book stores; not the chain stores that are in malls, but in quirky little hide shops where you have to walk sideways through stacks and columns of books that can tower above you.  There you find treasures that have been passed down from reader to reader, sometimes with their names on the inside cover, sometimes with a birthday wish or a wish for recovery from some momentary disaster.  It was in one such book shop where I ran across a 1935 edition of this book which I had seen mentioned in both fiction and non-fiction historical volumes.  The illustrations are pen and ink and the editor takes care to place each section in proper context so that you feel you are getting the essence of the writer’s thoughts and feelings.

In 2008, Tim Tzouiadis wrote a book entitled, The Forsaken, An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia in which thousands of Americans left for jobs and security in the Soviet Union during the Depression.  Led to believe the stories of American journalists (such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times) and “intellectuals” like George Bernard Shaw, they saw the Soviet Union as the wave of the future after the “failure” of Capitalism.  Hundreds were also offered positions on a contract by Henry Ford who was helping the Soviets build auto plans; they were skilled tradesmen and their skills were lacking in that war-torn land.  Of all the thousands who took the trip, only a handful survived and returned to the U.S.; most of those were children who were sent home for some reason or some workers who quickly turned around and returned. Later, having lost their U.S. passports, most were arrested and sent to the Gulags or executed outright as being “spies” and “wreckers”.  Only one man and one woman survived terms in the Gulags to return to the U.S.

History is replete with lost wars, often caused by rivalries between top decision makers over strategies, type of munitions, tactics, and of course, political turf wars.  It is refreshing to read a book which outlines how five different men, all driven (by patriotism, some also by glory) managed to create the most powerful navy in the history of the world and use it in a manner which contributed to the total victory over the forces of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.  As the book focuses on these five men, the actions of the hundreds of thousands who served under them and were at the “sharp end of the stick” are not covered, but one is struck by the force of their personalities and how those personalities much have inspired many of those lower down the ladder.