Customer Reviews

What They Didn't Teach You About World War II

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There is some interesting stuff in this book, but it's not the treasure trove of trivia that the back cover's reviews make it out to be. A lot of the information in the book can be found out by reading one of the large single-volume WWII books. And you get a complete history of the war with those, and without the editorializing.

And the editorializing in the book shows that Mr. Wright must have liberal leanings, since he writes from the perspective of today's political correctness with no regard for the times or for the simple fact that war is messy, and decisions need to be made in the heat of battle without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

If you are deeply concerned with what various second or third rate actors and television personalities of 5 to 10 years ago did during the WWII, this is the book for you. Otherwise, this is a throw away.

The most startling new information provided in this book are that Prescott Bush was a Senator from Maine and that Winston Churchill was prime minister of the United Kingdom during the 1939 German invasion of Poland. Of course, Prescott Bush was a senator from Connecticut, and Churchill became prime minister in the Spring of 1940 after the Anglo-French invasion of Norway was defeated by the simultaneous German invasion.


France and England did not really come to the "rescue" of Norway from a German invasion. They had planned their own invasion of Norway at the same time as the German invasion. They were delayed by several hours due to weather and claimed to be helping Norway against Germany. Paradoxically, Chamberlain fell because of the fiasco in Norway, and Churchill who was the architect of this disaster became prime minister! Of course, this is the kind of fact you are never told about the war, that someone like Wright could never tell you. I expected to find such things in this book.

Mike Wright's ignorance and the absence of any apparent fact checking by the publisher indicate that both are worthless as sources of serious information.

With no special knowledge or interest in World War II, Wright compiles a bunch of humorous or trivia-related vignettes about the war as he appears to do about as many subjects as he can publish books.

However,I feel sorry for someone like the author who believes people need to know how Swooze Kurtz--whatever she does???--got her name. I feel sorrier for someone who is bamboozled into thinking this is a book with new information about the greatest tragedy in human history. A war in which scores of millions of people died and many countries laid waste deserves more than drivel like that!

With the opening of the archives of the old USSR and the GDR, all sorts of information that was not known before is available for a serious author who really wants to tell us things that we weren't told about WWII. I expected this kind of information when I purchased this book. Yet, Wright is oblivious to the fact the major segment of WWII in Europe was fought between the USSR and Germany and its allies.

His goal is to provide quick, entertaining, light reading on a subject that is neither quick, entertaining, nor light.

The copy editing and fact checking in this book is simply not professional. While a bibliography which is useful is provided, there is absolutely no regular sourcing in this book, which may, in fact, be a tribute to adequacy of his sources, compared to the inadequacy of his history. As somone who teaches college students to discern which books to use for research papers and which to avoid, I would advise people to avoid any book brought out by this publisher for serious research or reliable knowledge.

This book does have its moments. He gives an interesting blow by blow picture of the draft process when it was launched in 1941. He also provides interesting information about the deportation of Japanese Americans and Canadians, and about German prisoners of war in the US.

However, though he condemns Japanese brutality to Allied prisoners, Wright is completely silent the attrocities the US and UK perpetrated against Japanese soldiers who wished to surrender. Allied policy was usally not to take Japanese prisoners, but to massacre them. A grisly trade in Japanese sculls and gold teeth sent back to the USA grew up during the War. This is the kind of fact about World War II that "They Didn't Teach You" that is light years away from anything Mike Wright knows.

For a better look check out "Why the Allies Won." For an even better set of information about the Pacific war that is NEVER TOLD consult War Without Mercy by John W. Dower which will tell you about Allied abuse of Japanese prisoners as well as Japanese crimes against other Asian peoples.

I found this book OK to read while I was sick in bed. I did not want anything demanding, although I must say that one driving factor in getting me to finish it was to see how many ignorances and errors the book contained. Like the one Harliquin romance I read under similar circumstances, I thought it was appropriate to throw the book away when I finished it.

It is unfortunate Amazon does not permit one to have 0 stars or negative quantites of stars.

Some interesting information, though I could tell that the author is a left-wing liberal. In the section "Leaders Who Went to War" he talks about all the presidents who served in WWII. When discussing any Republicans, he tends to be negative, and when dicussing any Democrats, he glosses over any failings they may have had. Also when dicussing the prejudices that minorities and women faced then, he criticizes from today's viewpoint. However much we may dislike a part of history that doesn't toe the line with our politically correct times, we must see them in relevance to that period in history. What happened then was wrong, but we have made great strides since then. I have always considered myself an indepedent in political terms and if I had written this book or one like it, I would tried tried a little harder than Mr. Wright to keep my biases out of it. When I read history, I want the facts, not subjective opinions based on someone else's political leanings.

This book departs from the tradition of reciting all the statistics and battle histories of the war and concentrates on the "human" side of things. Sure, there are some "hard facts" presented, but they are there to support the stories of how the folks at home fared under rationing, what the induction centers were like, what the various types of rations were (A-rations, B-rations, etc.), and so on. To someone fascinated by World War II but born long after it was over, this was a welcome insight into the "soft side" of the war.

What They Didn't Teach You About World War II

The criticism of academic history taught in schools is that it is an endless list of dates, battles, and important people. Because anything other than such strictly objective facts can create a controversy. Concentrating on the lives of the common people would not have been politically correct in other times. This book should be read as an overall guide to WW II history. Mike Wright's experience as a TV writer and producer allows him to pick interesting stories to educate and entertain the reader. The nine pages of Bibliography must have omitted most of the books published in the previous sixty years. He could have written many more books on WW II without any repetition.

The 'Introduction' says WW II "killed more people and did more physical and psychological damage than ever before in history". It was like no other war. It resulted in many changes in the country because of the travel of so many who would never have left their county (p.226). The 24 chapters discuss aspects of life that are not covered in official histories that only mention battles, dates, and the names of politicians and commanders. It is worth reading, but your interest may vary from chapter to chapter. The 'Epilogue' contains the author's reminiscences about WW II and contrasts that to today's world. Wright tells of the spontaneous celebrations at war's end (pp.320-322). The Bibliography lists many selected books, but no explanation as how they were selected. Some deal with a particular topic in English.

There are some minor mistakes in this book. On page 66 Wright says a Liberty ship "carried about 11 tons". That would be more like 11 thousand tons. That boxer's name was "Buddy Baer" (p.78). Wright doesn't mention Dusko Popov's book about his assignment to spy on Pearl Harbor in July 1941. The Japanese code 'Purple' was broken two years before the war started (p.213). This attack could not have been a surprise. Why did the Japanese wave to Doolittle's planes (p.274)? The American insignia then had a red circle, similar to Japanese planes! Doolittle's raid was a political act, but it led to a military victory at Midway (p.277). Allied troops invaded Italy in 1943, not 1944 (p.284).

While the "facts" in this book are interesting, it is such a difficult read. How any editor let this book by is beyond me. You can find out more about our society and the events of this period by visiting a retirement home as compared to reading this book.

Paraphrasing that switches from first to third person and overall rambling makes this a terrible read. This book reads like a high-school project.

I've got many other books about World War 2 on my shelf. I've got Ambrose, Keegan, Ryan, and the rest. What this book does though, is not analyse battles or strategy. It fills in the rest of the information that you don't get in history textbooks, and really gives all flavor to anyone's knowledge of World War 2.

The writing style makes one seem like one has a favorite relative or teacher telling stories about the war -- not that you're reading a book.

I enjoyed reading this book. It is entertaining and I especially like many of the "lesser known" stories conveyed by the author. However, one major problem that plagued this book are inaccurate facts. Just one for example, states that "A resolution to declare war on Japan, Germany and Italy passed with just one "no" vote." (p. 145) happened on December 8, 1941. In reality, war was not declared on Germany and Italy until December 11, 1941. Unfortunately for the author, that is "just one" error that should have been caught. There are several others that have been covered in other reviews of this book so I will not bother discussing them. An unfortunate biproduct of these errors are that I had to question almost every fact for it's accuracy. Let it be a lesson for you would-be-writers out there: Check your facts!

I am sure some history buffs out there after noisly clearing their throats of the dust they have inhaled after reading many a weighty volume of history will state that this book is light. Just shut them up in their moldy room and leave them alone.

This book is lively exploring the history of World War II in small painless (if not fun) chugs.

The book is broken down into themes and explores the war from the battle front to the homefront. What did celebrities do during the big one? How were women and child affected. How was it like to go to boot camp? These questions are answered along with many more in a quirky and fun style.

Verdict: A great book to get someone into history without scaring them off. A nice book to read on the train (you should never read while driving your car- you might miss a chapter).

I am going to seek out the other books in this series.

The title has it right. The things inside definitely did not make their way into my teachers' classrooms. Now I try to make them appear in mine. This book has a lot of interest in it, and the sections imply discussing notable people of today who were in the war I found very interesting. Few places focus on more than Clark Gable or Jimmy Stewart's roles, but this was more comprehensive.
Altogether, it's books like this that have fueled the explosion in historical learning the past few years, and should answer some long-held questions you may have had about the Second World War.