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chriscole's review against another edition
3.0
I never, ever DNF books but this one had me as close as I've ever came.
Case White is incredibly heavy on military detail which I'm sure is great to those who have at least a base knowledge of military history or just any general military knowledge. For me, as someone who had practically no prior knowledge, this just felt like pages and pages and pages of numbers and weapon listings.
So, I guess that's partly my own issue because without that prior knowledge it's a difficult read but I will say that Case White is still incredibly informative. I'm sure actual historians can better confirm the accuracy of everything detailed here but as a "general" reader of WW2 non-fiction, there was a lot here that I had never known that I found fascinating and would love to learn even more about (perhaps more on the political events) and so I am glad I stuck with it.
Thanks to Osprey Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy for review.
Case White is incredibly heavy on military detail which I'm sure is great to those who have at least a base knowledge of military history or just any general military knowledge. For me, as someone who had practically no prior knowledge, this just felt like pages and pages and pages of numbers and weapon listings.
So, I guess that's partly my own issue because without that prior knowledge it's a difficult read but I will say that Case White is still incredibly informative. I'm sure actual historians can better confirm the accuracy of everything detailed here but as a "general" reader of WW2 non-fiction, there was a lot here that I had never known that I found fascinating and would love to learn even more about (perhaps more on the political events) and so I am glad I stuck with it.
Thanks to Osprey Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy for review.
elphaba78's review
2.0
DNF.
I'm so disappointed in this book -- I preordered it back in June and eagerly awaited its release, and couldn't get past the first few chapters. My biggest issue is that it reads like someone's thesis -- the writing is extremely stilted and clunky -- and has NO primary source quotes to liven up the fact-reporting text, other than the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. The author's background is in military and security history, which should have made Case White a worthy read.
At the same time, Roger Moorhouse (a protege of the leading Western expert on Poland, Norman Davies) published a superb study (First to Fight: The Polish War 1939) of the September campaign, the same subject matter as Case White, and it is leagues better than Forczyk's.
I'm so disappointed in this book -- I preordered it back in June and eagerly awaited its release, and couldn't get past the first few chapters. My biggest issue is that it reads like someone's thesis -- the writing is extremely stilted and clunky -- and has NO primary source quotes to liven up the fact-reporting text, other than the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. The author's background is in military and security history, which should have made Case White a worthy read.
At the same time, Roger Moorhouse (a protege of the leading Western expert on Poland, Norman Davies) published a superb study (First to Fight: The Polish War 1939) of the September campaign, the same subject matter as Case White, and it is leagues better than Forczyk's.