Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Modern War Studies) [Hardcover]

David M. Glantz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2005 | Series: Modern War Studies

In Stumbling Colossus, David Glantz explored why the Red Army was unprepared for the German blitzkrieg that nearly destroyed it and left more than four million of its soldiers dead by the end of 1941. In Colossus Reborn he recounts the miraculous resurrection of the Red Army, which, with a dazzling display of military strategy and operational prowess, stopped the Wehrmacht in its tracks and turned the tide of war.

A major achievement in the recovery and preservation of an entire nation's military experience, Colossus Reborn is marked by Glantz's unrivaled access to and use of Soviet archival sources. This allows him to illuminate not only Russian victories in the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk, but also to rescue a host of major "forgotten battles," many of which had been suppressed to preserve reputations and national pride. As he reveals in unprecedented detail, disastrous defeats vied with resounding victories throughout the early years of the conflict, as the Red Army struggled to find itself in the "Great Patriotic War."

Beyond the battles themselves, Glantz also presents an in-depth portrait of the Red Army as an evolving military institution. Assessing more clearly than ever before the army's size, strength, and force structure, he provides keen insights into its doctrine, strategy, tactics, weaponry, training, officer corps, and political leadership. In the process, he puts a human face on the Red Army's commanders and soldiers, including women and those who served in units-security (NKVD), engineer, railroad, auto-transport, construction, and penal forces-that have till now remained poorly understood.

The world's top authority on the Soviet military, Glantz has produced a remarkable study that adds immeasurably to our understanding of the one part of World War II that's still struggling to emerge from the shadows of history.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Praise for David Glantz:

"A superb historian and a brilliant detective."-New York Review of Books

"Indisputably the West's foremost expert on the subject."-The Atlantic

"Glantz's unrivalled command of Soviet sources has produced a body of work that has fundamentally revised our knowledge of the Eastern Front in World War II." -Slavic Review

"The world's top scholar of the Soviet-German War."-Journal of Military History

About the Author

David M. Glantz is founder and former director of the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office. His many books include Stumbling Colossus, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat, The Battle of Kursk, The Battle for Leningrad, and When Titans Clashed.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 807 pages
• Publisher: University of Kansas Press (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700613536
• ISBN-13: 978-0700613533
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David M Glantz is a former US Army intelligence specialist with a unique knowledge of the Russian army and Russian military history. His WHEN TITANS CLASHED is the standard single volume account of the war in Russia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustively detailed study with no equal, March 11, 2005

By 

Dimitrios (Greece) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

David Glantz is today the top Western authority on the Red Army and the Great patriotic War and this massive volume is the latest product of a long process which saw his works to become ever lenghtier, more analytical, more precise and less readable unfortunately. The book leaves no unturned stone in the sparsely explored field of Red Army in the period 1941-43 and is full of statistics, tables, details and expert analysis. Although some of the chapters present little interest, like those of the rear support services and other have been the subject of thorough studies (like the tank formations and the artillery), I found the most interesting part to be that of the top military leadership and the fate of the various commanders from the level of the Corps upwards. One must be warned though that this book is not for the layman, nor for someone who has only a passing interest in the subject. For readers that want a more readable work on the Red Army I would suggest Mackintosh's "Juggernaut" and for those that love the wealth of details and are fascinated by the hard facts of statistics but do not want to pore through 700 pages, Walter Dunn's excellent book "Hitler's Nemesis: The Red Army 1933-45".

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing amount of information!, April 3, 2005

By 

T. Kunikov (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

Excellently detailed book! Some of the information is rehashed from previous Glantz books but put into very good context, especially with the enormous amount of details, tables, statistics, and facts. For those who are interested in learning more about the Eastern Front, and by more I mean really in depth like how many tanks per division/brigade/corps at certain periods during the war, what type of nationalities made up some of the rifle divisions/corps, or how many men were some divisions down to at one time or another (one guards division had 80!!! out of a required paper strength of over 10,000!!), this is a very good investment and you will not be disappointed! He also addresses some of the 'what if's' and 'myths' that have been created around the Eastern Front for the past few decades, so a big help in that respect as well.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nearly Perfect, June 23, 2007

By 

Scot L. Heminger "Franziskaner lieber" (Southern Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

Although hundreds of histories of Soviet-German war have been published in the last decade or so, they have for the most part either focused on large-scale operations, told the story from a predominantly German perspective, or, most likely, done both. Another unfortunate result of this has been the number of revisionist works, in some degree or another based on Viktor Suvorov's Icebreaker. In part this was out of necessity due to a a number of factors, including the lack of access to former Soviet archives as well as the repression of histories deemed embarrassing to important wartime heroes. David Glantz has once again answered this dearth of reliable Soviet-perspective war history with his newest volume Colossus Reborn. Using a massive number or Soviet primary sources he has written the comprehensive history of the Soviet-German war.

Glantz' book is divided into three parts to tell this story. The first is a chronological discussion of the first 30 months of war, subdivided into the initial period, which covers the war up to the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad and then the second period, which covers the remaining 12 months. This first part of the book not only discusses the conventional view of the war but also clearly exposes the many Soviet operations that have lay hidden in virtual obscurity since war's end. Glantz also does a fine job showing how the Soviet-German war affected the course of WWII in general. Perhaps out of necessity this part of the book is rather concise. In any case it is still eye opening to have the vast number of counterstrokes, counteroffensives and strategic offensives laid out as they are here. As he himself points out, prior histories of the war have led to an almost constant and simplistic portrayal of operations as smooth periods of Wehrmacht offensives in the summer and Soviet offensives in the winter. He also clearly dispels the myth that the Red Army was simply along for the ride after the surprise attack and shows how Stalin and the Stavka repeatedly during the initial period of war attempted to organize counterstrokes as well as full counteroffensives.

Part two of the book is a very thorough look into the force structure of the Soviet army. This section is as comprehensive as one could possible ask for and retain a modicum of readability. Even as such, it is certainly the most difficult section to work through as it is basically a detailed look into how every aspect of the Soviet forces were reorganized from Front down to battalions in some instances. As such is feels at times to be comprised of endless tables of organization. This should not be overstated however, as this type of attention to detail is what most readers of Glantz have come to expect. Furthermore, it is this level of detail that sets him apart from most other widely published WWII historians. He does not simply explain to the reader that a particular type of unit was employed in a particular defensive or offensive action. He thoroughly explains how that type of unit came to be and gives the prior organization of similar units and why they failed to work.

Part three is a thorough analysis of the leaders of the Red Army and those that they led. The first subsection is broken up primarily into mini biographies of every major general, commanding every Front, Army, and Corps and all of their variants. It does so and gives a very interesting breakdown and percentages by year of the surviving and thriving general staff as well as command failures and traitors. Glantz then gives a very enlightening look into the soviet soldiers; who they were (ethnicity and gender are investigated here) how they survived, why they fought and what methods were used to keep them toeing the line, particularly after the hideous and demoralizing losses of the first six months. This section is probably the most readable of the three and is a very well written look into the human aspects of the war.

Finally, Glantz has once again written a history of the Soviet-German war that is groundbreaking, to say the least. Using sources that only he seems to be able to gain access to, he has delved more comprehensively into the factors that allowed the Red Army to first survive and eventually defeat Hitler's Wehrmacht, than anyone else before him. Yes, this volume reads quite dryly at times and the tables of organization can seem daunting but it must clearly be understood from the beginning that this is not a book for the casual history reader by any stretch. This book is meant for the dedicated historian of the Soviet-German war-those who need more than a basic overview of the military operations and geopolitical ramifications of the war. With all that said the only weakness that this book has are some instances of sloppy writing and subsequent poor editing. At times-particularly in Part I-this poor editing is truly frustrating and frequent. For the most part though, this is never more than a minor irritation. As a whole Glantz can, once again, be said to be the undisputed master of Soviet-German war history.