A delightful account of a crucial piece of the Allied victory.
The rollicking tale of an eccentric but talented British military officer who deceived the Nazis on an unprecedented scale.
Journalist Hutton has written a second book describing a little-known aspect of British secret operations as entertaining as his first, Agent Jack. His hero is Dudley Clarke (1899-1974), who enlisted in 1916 and remained in the service. By the outbreak of World War II, he had served under leading generals who appreciated his skills in military intelligence. He played a role in creating the British Commandos but came into his own in the North African campaign, where British forces were outnumbered by the enemy and then—with the arrival of Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Corps—outfought. Energetic and imaginative, Clarke assembled a talented following that included magicians, stage designers, and technicians as well as warriors. He convinced the German high command that the British army possessed more divisions and tanks than they actually did; when retreating in disorder, they were actually luring Rommel’s forces into a trap. In the run-up to the great battle of El Alamein, Clarke employed a small army of builders and artists to create fake tanks and bases in the southern desert, where the British did not intend to attack, and to disguise an equally enormous number of genuine tanks and bases in the north, where they did. Hutton has hit the jackpot with his subject, a vivid character who kept a revealing diary. Despite the traditional portrayal in Hollywood depictions, deception was not the work of brilliant rebels opposed by unimaginative generals. An ambitious career officer, Clarke impressed superiors, especially Montgomery, who was supportive. “The British army spent the first half of the war losing,” writes Hutton. “Commanders were eager to hear ideas that might help them win.”
A delightful account of a crucial piece of the Allied victory.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781639367160
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.
The Harvard historian and Texas native demonstrates what the holiday means to her and to the rest of the nation.
Initially celebrated primarily by Black Texans, Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when a Union general arrived in Galveston to proclaim the end of slavery with the defeat of the Confederacy. If only history were that simple. In her latest, Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and numerous other honors, describes how Whites raged and committed violence against celebratory Blacks as racism in Texas and across the country continued to spread through segregation, Jim Crow laws, and separate-but-equal rationalizations. As Gordon-Reed amply shows in this smooth combination of memoir, essay, and history, such racism is by no means a thing of the past, even as Juneteenth has come to be celebrated by all of Texas and throughout the U.S. The Galveston announcement, notes the author, came well after the Emancipation Proclamation but before the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Though Gordon-Reed writes fondly of her native state, especially the strong familial ties and sense of community, she acknowledges her challenges as a woman of color in a state where “the image of Texas has a gender and a race: “Texas is a White man.” The author astutely explores “what that means for everyone who lives in Texas and is not a White man.” With all of its diversity and geographic expanse, Texas also has a singular history—as part of Mexico, as its own republic from 1836 to 1846, and as a place that “has connections to people of African descent that go back centuries.” All of this provides context for the uniqueness of this historical moment, which Gordon-Reed explores with her characteristic rigor and insight.
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-883-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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