Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic., July 11, 2002
This is the definitive history of US Naval ops in the second world war. It is very well written. Morison was a Harvard history professor interested in maritime matters who FDR appointed in April 1942 as official naval historian and comissioned in the USNR. During the rest of the war Morison worked on the history full time, spending about half the time at sea with various elements of the fleet. The series was published volume by volume until completed in the early 1960s.When these books were written, the allied successes in breaking axis codes were still secret, so the full reasons behind many command decisions could not be discussed. On occasion this forced Morison into a little obsfucation. So long as the reader is aware that some crucial signals intelligence could not be mentioned, it makes little difference to the work as a whole.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Debt of Gratitude is Owed, December 19, 2005
Back in the 60's while still in high school I found this set in my local library. At that time I was very interested in naval history and especially during the World War II period. I was continuously checking out these volumes, wishing I had the hundreds of dollars to possess my own set. I eventually graduated and enlisted in the Navy during the heights of the Vietnam War. I was married during my 6-year enlistment and then entered the routine of daily life, raising a family, occupation, and the rest. A health issue resulted in my recent retirement which left me with some free time to pursue current and dormant interests. While visiting a local discount bookstore I ran across a single new copy of a long ago remembered blue and gold slip cover. To my delight it was a volume 6 of this new edition of this work. Costing only $5.00, I could not pass it up. I eventually looked up this set on Amazon.com and was surprised to see that the price had dropped to what I could now scratch together. This complete set has now been adorning my library for two months and I am taking up again my studies that were interrupted by 48 years of living in the fast-lane.
With the maturing of the years I can now appreciate the wonderful writing style and sincerity of the writer. After doing a little arithmetic I came to see that he must have been about 4 years my junior (54) when he took on this assignment. I admire anyone who would take on such a monumental task at that age. His credentials seemed perfect for this work and I feel have proven to be so. His humor seems a little trite now, but does not seem out of place for the period in which he was writing. The thing that continually strikes me is the graciousness with which he handles the errors and mistakes of those taking part in the history he is recording. There is nothing of what is so common among writers trying to make a place for themselves through their criticism of others; making up for their lack by focusing on what they lead others to believe concerning writers of much higher accomplishments and esteem than themselves. Here is a man who, to the extent to which he could, was wearing the shoes of those of whom he was writing. Even when he was an eye-witness to seeming incompetence, he would still attempt to look beyond the surface to the underlying circumstances that contributed to the actions. Yet he was quick to point out character flaws that lead some commanders to take credit for victories where no credit was due. His writing style is his own in keeping one focused on the fact that they are reading history yet keeping it flowing in an easy style, and where appropriate, even entertaining. He keeps it from becoming dry history by skillfully weaving the lives of the participants into the events. It took the more recent and expanded writings to portray the depths of carnage and suffering inflicted upon sailors, soldiers, and airmen in combat. But even with his PG rated violence one is still left with the understanding that war is awful in the price paid by those in the front lines. He was better at pointing out how war brought out the best in human character than in how it brought out the worse. This seems consistent with his tendency of looking deeper than just what appeared on the surface.
In his writing, I have only one complaint; I wish he didn't give away the outcome before the battle. Being that his style sometimes leaves you thinking that you are reading a novel, I found a slight feeling of disappointment when he would state or hint at the final outcome while he was building up to the battle. This was only a disappointment when I did not know or remember the outcome, myself. He covers so many of the smaller conflicts that few could know or remember all the outcomes. He can be forgiven this since he was a historian and not a novelist. Another area, but of support, would be in the maps and charts. Maps providing the details of important engagements were adequate but maps revealing how these areas came together on a larger scale were not. Personally, being one who needs to get a handle on the big picture as well as the details, this many times left me having to find other sources for what I feel should have been available within the particular volume. This is especially true in the Solomon Island area where even searches on the Web left me without what I felt was satisfactory maps.
The particular edition that I purchased, by Castle Books, 2001, cannot be commended for its quality in paper, hardcover, and edge cutting, but I definitely cannot complain about the value. I feel I "got what I paid for" and am well satisfied. The jagged, irregular page widths make for a rough surface opposite the binding. This doesn't affect the turning of pages but it sure is ugly. For a reprint, the photos, maps, and charts, which are printed on the same paper as the text, are better than most found in reprints. The only thing that really suffers is the very small items and text in the maps and charts, and even this may be the result of the detail in the originals. The most obvious shortcoming is in the appearance of the jacket covers. The glossy heavy paper and color printing is on par with the best but the cutting leaves too much variation over the 15 volumes. A 4-mm variation doesn't seem much until you line them up on your bookshelf. Three wide parallel horizontal gold lines on a blue background magnifies those 4-mm's out of all proportion. Overall, I am very satisfied with this edition and grateful that the price was brought down to an obtainable level for me.
These volumes were completed and edited in the 1940's into the 1960's, and as such are limited to what was known or resources could gather and collate. As the years went by and more researchers focused on this period, information from documents and interviews have added to what was then known. But this new material must be critically analyzed before being established as history. Morison's driving fear in pushing forward this task was to get history while it was happening rather than waiting for time to obscure its context and memories. More detailed writings have since been written on many battles and campaigns than was possible in this work, but they lack the eye-witness and first hand input that was an integral part of this work. Because of this work we now have a balanced source of history for those wishing to gain the best possible understanding of the people and events of this period. I feel that any criticism aimed at the bond between Morison, his staff and the Department of the Navy as an obstacle to truthful recording of the facts is unfounded and reeks of the post-war distrust of anything connected with the government or military. The background and moral character of Samuel Eliot Morison should make such charges die in their tracks. If he withheld any information because of its classification he cannot be held accountable for distorting history. If it can be proved that he misrepresenting the facts and this resulted in the recording of history that never was then his life's work in American History goes for naught. The younger generation of readers may find it hard to conceive that just a short while ago mainstream history was not manipulated for profit, political correctness, or to undo social injustices. Battles were fought to establish and maintain truth in the history books. Morison lived and worked during the waning years of this period and can be trusted to have recorded this history in complete accordance with his convictions. This is not to say that he wasn't infallible and limited in his understanding or comprehension of details and context of events, or even that he may have been blind to personal weaknesses that could affect his interpretations of the facts. This is a common limitation in anyone who pursues to teach the facts when there remains any subjectivity in the material written upon. But I feel that I have justifiable reason to believe that any errors in judgment or in recording of the facts that Morison can be exonerated of any accusation of purposeful manipulation for ulterior motives. In other words, I feel that this history can be trusted to represent the truth as seen by a man and staff who were able to collect information from first-hand sources and compile it using the best resources available at that time.
It is clear that Morison was a man driven by a purpose and that purpose was what he had originally proposed to FDR shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack. He was a man that knew history and the importance of the gathering of all possible facts to make the recording of history true to the actual events. He seems to have collected a staff of quality like-minded individuals who shared the same vision.
It seems that few works that touch on this area of history do not in some way make reference to this set. In my reading of several that do, I am disgusted to read some of the criticisms made, especially when those doing the criticizing are in some way pushing something "newly revealed". Fortunes are made on promises of newly revealed sources that later are proven to be without solid grounding. The reading public is greedy for anything that might prove cover-up and the harshest critics of truth are those who want to replace it with their own personal version. By doing so they often have a period of fleeting glory and the accompanying riches. I am content to accept what I read in these volumes as history, recognizing that many things are open for true historians to add or edit as time and true research brings things unrecorded or missed to light. But I doubt that any of these discoveries will prove Samuel Eliot Morison to have been anything but a first rate and uncompromising historian and writer of the history of United States naval operations in World War II. Students of the history of this period will always have a debt of gratitude owed to this man and his team.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Complete, July 9, 2002
This is a great set of books and the only thing you need to reference any Navy operation during World War II. I've only recently completed reading two volumes, but I am amazed at the detail and how completely researched these books are. Morison is a true master of the history of the U.S. Navy. Not only does he cover WWII in detail, but he references other Naval battles and clues you into some great secondary sources. I am most interested in operations around the Mediterranean (Salerno and Anzio) and Morison has covered that area better than any other books on the subject. The books look great on a book shelf. There is a volume for reference as well and it is very easy to find what you are looking for. Amazon.com does a good job of packaging this heavy set and I received the books with no damage.
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