The New Spymasters: inside espionage from the Cold War to global terror, by Stephen Grey Despite the continuing value of intelligence methods like telecommunication interception and satellite imagery, when operating against a shadowy terrorist group—especially one hiding within a civilian population—one of the best sources an intelligence organisation can have is a trusted insider who’s…
Category: Book Reviews
Military History Book’s Worth A Damn: Pumpkinflowers
Matti Friedman, Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story (Algonquin Books, 2016). Iraq veterans finally have their book; a manuscript that really deals with the whole of the Iraq experience. After over a decade at war in Iraq, we now have the best first-person account, not only of fighting against the insurgency, but also what it felt like to come…
Curio and Relic Firearms Book Review: M91/30 Rifles & M38/M44 Carbines in 1941-1945
The full title is actually (deep breath) M91/30 Rifles and M38/M44 Carbines in 1941-1945: Accessories and Devices – History of Production, Development, and Maintenance, by Alexander Yuschenko and translated into English by Ryan Elliot. I saw this book mentioned a few weeks ago on a firearms discussion board, and figured I ought to get a copy,…
Book Review: Playing to the Edge, American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
by Michael V. Hayden Penguin, 448 pp When Michael Hayden was a young air force officer in the 1980s, the military stationed him as an intelligence attaché in Bulgaria. There, the man who would rise to the top of the American intelligence community in the post–September 11 era lived under constant surveillance: he and his…
Historical Fiction Book of The Month: The Revenant
Picador Publishing, 272pp I have been interested in the history of Mountain Men, the Old West and the American Indian since I was a kid. I remember watching movies such as the original Man in the Wilderness (Based on the life of Hugh Glass), The Mountain Men, Jeremiah Johnson and Death Hunt with my dad and…
Historical Non-Fiction and Fiction Books of the Month Selections
Military History Monthly Routinely publishes a “Book Guide” of recently released or soon-to-be released Historical Non-Fiction and Fiction Titles; here is their latest for all you hopeless book worms like me…. KITCHENER’S MOB: THE NEW ARMY TO THE SOMME Peter Doyle and Chris Foster Kitchener’s Mob tells the story of the raising of Kitchener’s Army, from the earliest days…
War Books Worth a Damn: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Although I obviously have not seen the movie yet, I can vouch for this book as being one of the best stories I have ever read of a soldier trying to make sense of life after War. You should definitely put this one on your reading list and make plans to see the movie, as…
Spy Books Worth A Damn: “Missing Man: The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran”
MISSING MAN: THE AMERICAN SPY WHO VANISHED IN IRAN By Barry Meier Farrar Straus Giroux, $27.00, 273 pp. The American public — especially the media — tends to demand, “Who’s to blame?” when a person vanishes in a foreign land with no explanation as to why, or whether, he is being held. Such is the…
Espionage Files: The Life of the Modern Spy
The days of spy vs. spy of the Cold War are over. The enemies changed and technology revolutionized the world … and not always for the better. But spies remained an important part of the modern battlefield. This week on the War College Podcast, Jamillah Knowles chats with Reuters reporter and author Stephen Grey about his…
Holocaust History & Book Review: A Guest At The Shooters Banquet
Lithuania’s Holocaust skeletons come to light in Rita Gabis’s book, which explores the 220,000 Lithuanian Jews killed during WWII — and the people who let it happen Five years ago, Rita Gabis, a poet and teacher based in New York, discovered a family secret: from 1941 to 1943 her grandfather had been the chief of…