Customer Reviews

Patton And Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Content (5 Stars) - Showalter's parallel biography captures the brilliance and complexity of two controversial military leaders. Of particular interest are the author's accounts of both men's upbringing; Rommel's experiences and heroism during the First World War; context to and ellaboration on the "slapping incidents" in Sicily; and balance to both men's outspokenness, especially later in WWII. The book does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting Rommel and Patton's personal lives and command philosophies, tendencies, treatment of subordinates, etc. while weaving broader themes and events. Tangents, where found, are drawn together in failry concise conclusions. The author knows his subject. The style is conversational and authoritative. Descriptions of equipment, topography, tactical situations, timelines, maneuvers, and unit organization are informative but not heavy.

Execution (0 Stars) - The book, however, suffers by the absence of maps, diagrams and, to a lesser extent, pictures. There are none. This shortcoming obscures full understanding and appreciation of the challenges and accomplishments of the principals as well as the author's own perspective. Publishers Weekly says the "research is thorough, the quality of the writing superb." Booklist cites, "Showalter's research has been thorough..." The research may be there, but is not documented. There are two (2) footnotes in nearly 450 pages. There is no bibliography. No subtle nuances or diving into the primary sources here. As such, the work lacks a scholarly polish. The writing suffers from occasional gaffs in style and deplorable execution. Several climatic passages conclude with a German, French or Latin idiom, or an esoteric phrase, that obscures clear meaning (one is often left asking, "Huh?"). Finally, Dr. Showalter fails to acknowledge any editorial assistance, regrettably for good reason. Ubiquitous spelling and grammatical errors break the flow of an otherwise enthralling work. I found myself re-reading sentences for meaning or guessing what word was really intended rather than the one just read. This must embarrass "a distinguished American scholar..." not to mention his publisher, college and professional associates.

Atrocious editing and the absence of maps aside, I recommend the book as a fine, concise biography of Patton and Rommel, suitable for the military novice or general interest reader.

No maps. No photos or illustrations of any kind. No footnotes. No bibliography. I was very disappointed in this book. When it came out I eagerly sought it because I am a huge Rommel fan, and always wanted to know more about Patton. As I have read everything on Rommel, I can address that issue best, but I assume the same goes for the Patton "research."

First, there is nothing new in this book. All Showalter did was paraphrase Rommel's own books! And Rommel was a better writer!

Second, as an historian myself, no notes of any kind make a non-fiction book suspect. It makes it worthless as a research source. How much is opinion? With all the German archives now accessible since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, there is wonderful new material that should be the basis for any current books.

I cannot recommend this book. I do recommend readers seek out Rommel's own 2 books, and Patton's as well, for the real insight into these two men. Historians too often think they know more about the people they never met than those people themselves. And I find too many current histories are churned out as need to publish "fast food." Another good Rommel book is Discovering the Rommel Murder by Charles F. Marshal.

Go to the horse's mouth for the real stories.

I read this book last night and I think that this is a well-researched book about two of the Second World War's famous commanders, George Patton and Erwin Rommel. I really like the fact that the book explores thier similarities and their diffrences in personality, command style, and circumstances in which they found themselves under.

The one weakness that the book has is that I couldn't use the bibliography all that much in looking up instances and I found myself somewhat frustrated.

Despite this flaw, I think that this is a very good book about Patton and Rommel which should be read.

Showalter is to be commended first for attempting to write a history that he claims as "reader-friendly, by eschewing the academic apparatus that so often gets in the way of the story." On the other hand, to anyone with a bit of knowledge of the era and the personalities, Showalter may have a greater desire to obscure the origin of much of his work. Large parts of Showalter's history are literal quotes of earlier works. He does provide proper attribution once or twice, but for the most part the works he borrows from are unattributed.

His declared goal is to depict "two complex personalities in the contexts of their military cultures and the countries that sustained them. Focusing on the generals, it compares the U.S. Army and the Wehrmacht as military instruments, and American and German ways of war." Showalter never acheives this objective.

Instead he has written summary biographies of Patton and Rommel, occasionally inserting his own opinions of what made each man tick. There is nothing new in his observations, nothing that hasn't been previously opined.

Showalter writes in a disconcertingly colloquial way. Happily there is little of the academic style, which is a plus. But occasionally he throws in a little-used archaic word or, worse, slings jargon that many will not be familiar. He particularly uses a tired baseball cliche that I haven't heard in several decades.

The editing and proofreading are amazingly poor. Take this sentence that appears on page 409: "The other was in Paris, where another more group of officers . . ." Yeah, "another more." Huh?

There are no maps or photographs in the book. Military history without even simple diagrams? It doesn't work.

Ultimately this history doesn't really illuminate either Patton or Rommel beyond what is available elsewhere in more vivid detail. As to providing a comparison between the two men, it never even begins the task. Neither general could be said to embody the warrior's ethos of the age. Both men were unique and had strong personalties and favored what were considered unorthodox ways. Showalter could have done a much better job of examining how the men's individual idiosyncracies played out, but it still would not have fulfilled his original objective.

Overall, I can't recommend this history to the serious student of military history. It is, as I noted above, dully repetitious of earlier works. It brings no revelatory insights to bear on either general or on warmaking in general. Except for the awful editing and proofreading and the occasional lapses of the author into slang and archaic language, it is readable, but it is not overly interesting.

Jerry

This is not a bad book if you realize what it really is: a nice light-reading history. This is not for those who already have dozens of books about these two men. It is a book for those who haven't read much history, but would like to get a nice introduction to these two great generals. For that, it's a really good book.

I found that the author of this book seems to favor Rommel over Patton. Whereas Rommel is depicted as a competent professional soldier, Patton is often depicted as someone who is more concerned with his career and rank rather than military issues. The author paints Patton as a man on the verge of mental breakdown, and as a bit of a whiner. If you're a Patton fan, you might want to avoid this book.

A great,well written book and well descibes the two men.The only mistake I know of in the book was where the author,Shoemaker,gives the date of the invasion at Salerno,Italy as Sept 8th 1943.It was Sept 9th 1943.I know I was there.You do not forget those dates.I also believe more could have been said about the battle at El Guettar,the only time Patton engaged Rommel.The author only gave it several lines and felt it was not important.Patton's aide was killed there.A very bloody affair.I know. I was also there.

Several others have already commented on the curious and total lack of maps and photos. How can you have a book on battles and omit maps? Plus, the textual descriptions of key battles, like El Alamein, Tobruk, Kasserine Pass and the Allied invasion of Sicily are good but abbreviated. You can find far more detailed accounts elsewhere. For example, there are numerous books devoted to El Alamein or the Battle of the Bulge. Still, Showalter must be clearly aware that his book adds little new to the existing accounts of the battles it describes. Perhaps this was the reason for the omission of maps?

The purported value of the book is in its comparison of the experiences and, to some extent, the personalities and motivations of Patton and Rommel. Here, other reviewers have also remarked that this is quite a hard task. But Showalter seems to have done a reasonable job, including, I presume, interviews with Manfred Rommel, the general's son.

But at least for me, there were a few new snippets that I have not found in other texts. First was the deliberate decision by the US to restrict the size of the army to 90 divisions. In part because the navy and marines have to be built up to fight the Pacific war. But also, this let the US arm as heavily as possible those army divisions. So the US took advantage of its industrial prowess, to minimise its casualties. Fair enough. But in many other accounts of the war, I've never run into mention of this 90 division limit. I'm not saying it's a secret. Undoubtedly, there must be books mentioning it; perhaps even the official histories of the US army. Still it's surprising to know. Especially because Showalter asserts that one consequence was that after Normandy, Eisenhower was restricted in how aggressively he could march across Europe. Whereas with more troops, he might have been able to attack earlier into Germany.

Another useful insight was about how Patton and Rommel were regarded after the war, by the militaries of the US and West Germany. Books on World War 2 tend to end their accounts shortly after the end of the war, naturally. So it was interesting to read that ironically, Patton was more highly regarded than Rommel by the Bundeswehr. While the reverse tended to be true in the US. Typically, it is not easy to get any detailed accounts of the Bundeswehr, written in English. Partly because peacetime militaries generate less interest than wartime. But perhaps also because the Bundeswehr deliberately kept a low profile after the war, to discourage militarism. So Showalter's descriptions of Bundeswehr assessments, if accurate, are quite interesting and fill a gap in the general knowledge.

I bought this book at an airport bookstore, and really enjoyed it. For those that don't have the time to read full biographies of Patton and Rommell, this is the book for you. If you've already read separate biographies of the two, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book.

I just finished reading Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century. The author, Dennis Showalter, is the former head of the Society for Military History, and is a professor of history at Colorado College who has written several books and has a long resume. He is an expert on the Prussian military establishment, and is well-qualified, in particular, to address the life of the Desert Fox.

Given the author's pedigree and the fascinating subject, I had very high expectations for this book. Having finally finished it last night, I unfortunately am left with the conclusion that this book is really a mixed bag. The book's overall quality is spoiled by two of my biggest complaints: not a single photograph and not a single map.

Rommel performed some really remarkable deeds in the Tirolean Alps of Italy during World War I. Showalter spends a lot of ink and a lot pages describing these episodes in detail, but there is not a single maps. Personally, I had almost no familiarity with this theater of World War I, and REALLY would have liked to have seen some decent maps that portrayed these events to help me to understand them. Likewise, I would have liked to have seen maps of Rommel's role in the invasion of France in 1939, and in North Africa during his tenure as commander of the Afrika Korps.

Likewise, I would have liked to have seen maps of Patton's campaign in North Africa, his role in the invasion of Sicily, and finally of the dash across France, including his remarkable movement of a major portion of his Third Army to come to the aid of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. Again, I was left to try to recall, from memory, the geography of Europe and of Patton's movements, and while my memory is pretty good, it's not THAT good.

In addition, the only two photographs are images of Patton and Rommel that appear on the dust jacket to the book. There is not a single photo anywhere in the book, even though images of both of these military giants abound. There are plenty to go around, but either the author or the publisher, or, perhaps, both, dropped the ball, and left them out altogether.

Thus, while I think that the book was well-done-it's pretty well researched, and written in a readable, conversational style that draws solid conclusions-I would have been significantly more impressed by, and ultimately more favorably inclined to recommend it to other readers, if it had contained good maps and good illustrations on top of the decent material that constitutes the book.

It's a shame. It could have been a really great book, but without the inclusion of maps and illustrations, I can't say that it is. Without maps and illustrations, it is, at best, a decent read that is ultimately disappointing. I hate that.

And, as other reviewers have noted, the production values for this book are just atrocious. How a book got into print with this many typos and grammatical errors mystifies me, especially when a distinguished academic historian is the author. Apparently, the publisher's editorial/proofreading staff took that week off, because there simply is no evidence that they did their job. It's sad, because these types of things really distract the reader and really harm the overall credibility of the book.

Although the book is called Patton and Rommel it really is less one book detailing and comparing two of the most famous generals of the Second World War, than it is two biographies, riffled together in one cover.
It also seems to put far more emphasis on Rommel than Patton rather than treat them as equals. In each man's case it details their lives, experiences and their struggles with the development of mobile warfare following the stalemate of the First World War's trenches. But still the two lives do not interact. In reality the two warriors never faced each other across a battlefield but the author does not draw parallels or conclusions. He merely trots out the lives to be displayed on the pages and lets the reader make his or her conclusions.

In telling Rommel's story Showalter details how Rommel could support Hitler without being a Nazi. He explores Rommel's infamous lack of knowledge in using a staff or logistics in an overall theme of the German army and the development of Rommel's near fatal hubris. While exploring Rommel's success in the western desert he in detail pulls down the popular alternate history theory that Germany could have won the war by invading Russia via Palestine.

With Patton he details Patton's family history and his early growth and development in the prewar, contact ladened army and how Patton's personality and married into wealth gave him opportunities and access a less wealthy officer would have missed. The reader is given an explanation for the army's way to choose commanders during the war that leads away from the common view that it was a prejudice against `loose cannon' Patton.

One serious weakness is the fact there is almost no real explanation as to the mental unraveling of Patton from a social butterfly in his early days who was put forward as a scholar and poster boy of the charming army officer to the infamous image of a man who in effect could shoot himself in the foot with this mouth and became viewed by commanders as someone who has to be handled. There is a brief reference to a fall while playing polo and a mid life crisis but otherwise what could be viewed as the single most intriguing element of Patton's life is just passed over with an all too familiar litany of his missteps in his later career.

For the book itself, the editing is bad, this NOT the author's fault but several typos make the reader pause to think "what was that?" There are virtually no footnotes and no bibliography. To guide the reader to see what Showalter's sources were.

Visually the book is very weak. There are no maps. OK we can probably all find France and Germany and Italy on a map but it might help to have a more up close view of parts of Africa where much of the fighting takes place, or Lorraine where Patton's army bogged down or the Italian passes where young Rommel first won his spurs.
There are no photos apart from the half face shots on the cover. So one is left to wonder what young Rommel looked like with his Blue Max or young socialite Patton who invariably is otherwise imaged like George C Scott. Both generals were popular with reporters and national PR machines and so there is no dearth of material.

The author says he does not want to be academic but approachable; however he often throws out terms in Latin or French that the reader may well not know. "It was retiarus against secutor" springs to mind.

Overall for the reader who did not know anything about the Generals apart from the old movies and odd documentary, this is a good introduction. It spells out the lives and explores and explodes some of the myths around each man but for more experienced scholars it is weak with the author neither drawing conclusions himself or inviting the reader to do so. There is little enough explanation why the two names are together in one book since they are not compared or contrasted. The book could have as easily been Patton and Hodges or Rommel and Kesselring for all the principal subjects are related within the text.