Online Shop
|
Citizen Soldiers: From the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of GermanySnagging.org In association with Amazon.co.ukOnline Shop | Property Guides | Kitchen & Home | Garden Tools | Power Tools | Consumer Electronics Get the Snagging Checklist Here!  List Price: £8.99 Amazon.co.uk's Price: £6.99 You Save: £2.00 (22%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 940 EAN: 9780743450157 Edition: New edition ISBN: 0743450159 Label: Pocket Books Manufacturer: Pocket Books Number Of Pages: 512 Publication Date: September 02, 2002 Publisher: Pocket Books Studio: Pocket Books Related Items:
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - The war according to Ambrose.Stephen Ambrose starts to grate after a while, no doubt about it. There are some interesting nuggets of info here, thou some of Ambrose's 'facts' have been proven to be anything but recently. If you want a US biased and false view of WW2, read Ambrose's books. If you want good history and military facts read Beevor, Hastings or Ryan. Rating:  - The Best Ambrose Offering.This is the best book Ambrose has put out there. 'Band Of Brothers' is about one very small part of the allied effort and the Ambrose style of hero-worship soon becomes very sickly, 'D-Day' is totally mis-titled, riddled with errors and insulting to the non-US allies, but 'Citizen Soldiers' sets out to be a sweeping look at the men who fought in the US army in NW Europe and the result is very well worth while. Don't let the books mentioned above put you off reading this one. There is nothing in this book about the Pacific or Mediterranean Theatre of operations except the odd passing reference, usually to compare statistics. What Ambrose does is take quotes from written first hand accounts, quotes from oral histories at the Eisenhower Centre and then quotes from his own research and conversation with veterans. This book puts them all together in a largely chronological order to give the reader a very good idea of conditions and attitudes of GIs from D-Day to victory in Europe. The finished product is very readable and skips along at a good pace despite the almost 500 page length. My main criticisms of the book are these: * The maps are disappointing in both ease of reading and level of detail. Several pages are set aside for good quality glossy prints of photographs which would have been better used for quality map reproduction in my opinion. * Although Ambrose keeps his own opinions to himself more than in his other books, they are still present from time to time and it is fair to say that his selection of quotes often seems to have been made to back-up his own beliefs. * Ambrose's knowledge of the air war in Europe is certainly lacking and the book is weak in this area. * While the book is about American GIs, on occasion the lack of mention of other allied actions can leave the reader confronted with obvious questions going unanswered. Having said all that, I would recommend this book to those interested in the European theatre with the simple caveat that you must never take any Ambrose book as your single source of information about any single aspect of that war. Rating:  - Great BookThis book was wriiten well as Steven E. Ambrose does this has not been writen with just one troops in mind but with all. yes most of the memouirs of soilders are from the Amercain GIs. Also Ambrose was writting this book for the Amercain people so they will not forget the soliders that died not just European Theater of War but in all theateres of war this has to be the best war writer ever. this book and all books are coming from the people that were on the ground and in the airand also there making the decisions. Great book like all books he has wrote. Rating: - make up your mind steveI was surprised that Mr.Ambrose stated so clearly in this book that he considered the G.I. to be superior to the German soldier because I remember reading his introduction to Hans von Luck's "Panzer Commander" in which he states quite categorically that the German Landser was considered the best soldier of the War. The late author seems to have fallen under the spell of the current cabal of American revisionist historians that strain at the gnat to prove that the two armies, viz. the American and the German, were somehow fighting on "equal" terms (the idea being that since we were fighting them onequal terms and still beat them then we must have been better than them). I would be the last person to deny that American troops fought magnificently during that war. They proved time and again what they were capable of. To state that they were facing the enemy in the E.T.O on comparable terms, however, stretches ones credulity to the limit. One is tempted to hypothesise how the Americans would have performed if the cream of their fighting force were dead or captured on the Russian steppes, if their crack units had been reconstituted with an assortment of foreighers, prepubescent teenagers, and old men with stomach ailments, if they were subjected to continuous bombardment, if they fought for months and months without an air umbrella, if they were faced with chronic fuel shortages with the resultant upshot of making do with tank crews with less training time, and a host of other disadvantages. One wonders. Still a very readable book however, well researched and well presented. The statement that democracies produce better soldiers than dictatorships, however, is a piece of crude, unsubstantiated propaganda (however undeniable the merits of a democracy over a totalitarian system may be) and in my view cost the late writer a couple of points in this review Rating: - The Drive on Germany Seen from a Cold, Miserable FoxholeCitizen Soldiers begins the day after D-Day in Normandy and continues through the surrender of Germany in May 1945. While there are many history books about this period, all of the ones I have read take the perspective of either the big picture as seen by the politicians and generals or the little picture as seen by individual units. Citizen Soldiers is unique in my experience in combining both perspectives in one book. Citizen Soldiers is the only book I have read about World War II that contains every single negative story about the GI experiences that I have heard from individual veterans over the years. As such, Citizen Soldiers is a cautionary tale about grim realities of war. If you are easily offended by inhumanity, you will not enjoy this book. Combat is full of such, and Citizen Soldiers honestly captures everything from mass murder to random cruelty. I learned a lot from this book. Did you know that soldiers were often as likely to become casualties because of trench foot as with a bullet wound? Despite this, the recruits and draftees were never taught how to avoid trench foot. Other training errors cost lots of lives and wounded, such as not preparing the soldiers for the raised hedgerows in Normandy. The Germans were well prepared, but the Americans were not. Although no one can know what combat is like without experiencing it, Citizen Soldiers does a fine job of giving a flavor. The remorseless statistics of how many casualties were taken gives a grim sense of the fatalism that many soldiers must have felt. If 200 percent of a unit became casualties, and no one was released without becoming a casualty, what do you think you would assess your chances at? Where in the big picture histories, the cities and regions are mostly names. Here, there is a strong sense of place. You will know the difference between one forest and another, and from one river crossing to another. Important criticisms are aimed here at both the American and German leaders. Atrocities done by both Americans and Germans are handled openly and honestly. I hope these lessons will not be forgotten. I was pleased to see that Professor Ambrose made an effort to interview German soldiers as well. The mutual perspective on the battles and on the overall war experience is much more powerful than it would be by just hearing how it was for the winners. I came away from this book with a greatly heightened respect for the ordinary infantry soldiers of both the American and German armies on the northwestern front. I think you will, too. More than The Greatest Generation, this book made me realize the incredible character involved in winning World War II in northwestern Europe. I was also fascinated by the stories of how important innovations occurred, such as the coordination artillery, aircraft, tanks and infantry using radios and developing methods for breaching hedgerows in Normandy. It was the ordinary soldiers who usually came up with the good ideas, not the heavy thinkers. After you finish this book, think about where else lack of training and preparation needlessly wastes lives. How about people who have trouble learning in school, and feel humiliated in the process? At the same time, examine what the lessons are here for dealing with the escalating terrorism aimed at Americans. Look squarely in the face of violence and evil intentions with honesty!  Try searching the Internet for "Citizen Soldiers: From the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany" or Ebay for "Citizen Soldiers: From the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany". You might also be interested in the following great products:
|