Christian Ingrao, “Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine” (Polity Press, 2015)
How did a generation of Germany’s best and brightest become radicalized? What convinced young intellectuals to join the SS and perpetrate genocide in pursuit of a racial utopia? Find out in our conversation with Christian Ingrao about his book Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine (Polity Press, 2015). Christian traces the experiences of the war youth generation from defining events in childhood, through their student activism, into the Reich Security Main Office, and abroad where they could finally realize their ideas. The resulting portrait reveals how a generation of intellectuals came to believe, and how those beliefs led them to destroy. Christian Ingrao is the former director of the Institute of Contemporary History (IHTP) and their current director of research. He teaches at the Catholic University of the West (Angers). His most recent book La promesse de l’Est : Esperance nazie et genocide, 1939-1943 (Le Seuil, 2016) explores Nazi dreams of victory and visions of the Thousand Year Reich. Ryan Stackhouse is a historian of Europe who specializes in modern Germany and political policing under dictatorship. His debut chapter in Interrogation in War and Conflict suggested that terror remains overstated in our understanding of routine investigation practices in Nazi Germany. Ryan’s research exploring Gestapo enforcement practices toward different social groups is nearing completion under the working title Policing Hitler’s Critics. He also cohosts the Third Reich History Podcast. He tweets @Staxomatix and can be reached at john.ryan.stackhouse@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
26 Okt 201757min
Ricardo A. Herrera, “For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861” (NYU Press, 2015)
Citizenship, identity, and legitimacy are the cornerstones of Ricardo A. Herrera’s book, For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861 (New York University Press, 2015). Drawing from hundreds of letters, memoirs, editorials, and contemporary books, Herrera examines why America’s first generations of soldiers–regulars, volunteers, and militia–were compelled to serve, and how they drew significant lessons about the Republic and their place in it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
17 Okt 20171h
Leigh Straw, “After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I” (UWA Publishing, 2017)
In her new book, After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I (UWA Publishing, 2017), Leigh Straw, a Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies and History at the University of Notre Dame, explores the history of repatriation and return of WWI soldiers to Western Australia. The soldiers’ physical and mental scars, including tuberculosis and what we today call PTSD, did not end with the armistice, as soldiers and their families struggled with the consequences of wartime trauma well into the 1920s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
13 Okt 201715min
Alexander Prusin, “Serbia under the Swastika: A World War II Occupation” (U. Illinois Press, 2017)
In Serbia under the Swastika: A World War II Occupation (University of Illinois Press, 2017), Alexander Prusin delineates the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia during World War II. He starts from the medium-term background, reaching back to the unification of Yugoslavia, and covers both the chronological process and its wide thematic breadth, with issues ranging from collaborationism to resistance. The book is important, therefore, both for historians of Yugoslavia and Southeastern Europe and to historians of World War II and the Holocaust in general. Orel Beilinson is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Eastern Europe, particularly the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. His research interests include the encounter of communism, religion, and modernity; the social history of law and religion under communism; and the comparative history of communism. He can be reached at orelb@mail.tau.ac.il. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
11 Okt 201754min
Steve Sheinkin, “The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights” (Roaring Brook, 2014)
On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (Roaring Brook Press/Square Fish, 2014/17) is a fascinating story of the prejudice and injustice that faced black men and women in America’s armed forces during World War II, and a nuanced look at those who gave their lives in service of a country where they lacked the most basic rights. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum, including history and social studies. Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of fast-paced, cinematic nonfiction histories for young readers. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights was a National Book Award finalist and received the 2014 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Nonfiction. The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery, won both the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award and the YALSA award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon was a Newbery Honor Book, a National Book Award Finalist, and winner of the Sibert Award and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War was a National Book Award finalist, a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award winner, and a Boston Globe/Horn Book Nonfiction Award winner. His most recent work is Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team. Sheinkin lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife and two children. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
6 Okt 201756min
Harry Bennett, “The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity, 1919-1922: Naval and Foreign Policy under Lloyd George” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016)
Great Britain’s victory in the First World War brought with it the competing challenges of defending an expanded empire while reducing military expenditures. In The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity, 1919-22: Naval and Foreign Policy under Lloyd George (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), Harry Bennett details how British policymakers responded to the quandary that the postwar strategic and political situation posed to them. Though triumphant against the German High Seas Fleet, the British faced the prospect of a new naval arms race against the United States and Japan at a time when the British electorate sought cuts in wartime levels of taxes and spending and the reduction in naval construction threatened to add to the problem of industrial unemployment. With divergent demands on domestic, naval and strategic policy, the Lloyd George government sought to resolve their dilemma with their participation in the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-22, which established limits on the tonnage of capital ships that effectively mitigated against construction sprees while maintaining a degree of warship-building capacity. As Bennett demonstrates, the decisions taken during this period not only shaped policy for years afterward but determined events in the Second World War, offering lessons about the intersection of politics, strategy, and policy formulation that remain valuable today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
27 Sep 201750min
Paige Bowers, “The General’s Niece: The Little-Known de Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France” (Chicago Review Press, 2017)
When Charles de Gaulle issued his famous call in June 1940 for the French people to continue fighting Nazi Germany, among those within Occupied France who took up the cause was his young niece Genevieve. In The General’s Niece: The Little Known de Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France (Chicago Review Press, 2017), Paige Bowers tells the story of her life, one lived in perilous times. The daughter of Charles’s oldest brother Xavier, when war broke out Genevieve found herself buffeted by the dislocations that resulted. In the aftermath of the German conquest, she moved from small acts of individual defiance to full participation in the burgeoning Resistance movement, where she helped to educate her countrymen about her previously obscure uncle. Though her possession of the de Gaulle name often drew unwanted attention from the Occupation authorities, she found daring ways to use it to her advantage. Genevieve’s arrest in June 1943 led to her detention in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, an experience which as Bowers shows fueled her postwar activities on behalf of her fellow Resistance detainees, as well as her subsequent activism to fight to end chronic poverty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
19 Sep 201754min
Tom Carhart, “The Golden Fleece: High-Risk Adventure at West Point” (Potomac Books, 2017)
If you were a cadet at West Point and knew with virtual certainty that upon graduation you would be sent into the teeth of the Vietnam war, what would you do? Well, if you were Tom Carhart and five of his buddies, you’d decide to have one last hurrah and steal the Navy’s mascot before the Army-Navy game. Students at West Point had stolen said mascot–“Bill the Goat”–once before, namely in 1954. To avoid further embarrassment at the hands of its arch-rivals, the Navy thereafter placed “Bill” in a high-security facility under Marine guard. No matter, Tom and his fellow cadets said. Even if they were caught (and they knew they would be found out eventually), what could the Army do? Send them to Vietnam? That was in the works anyway. So, as Tom explains in his terrific book The Golden Fleece: High-Risk Adventure at West Point (Potomac Books, 2017), off they went to steal the goat…and off they went to Vietnam. Tom’s a great storyteller, and his book is at moments funny and touching. Moreover, he offers deep insight into what it was like to be a cadet in the 1960s, to know that you were going to war, and to go to war and come back. Not everyone did, of course. I highly recommend you pick up The Golden Fleece. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
15 Sep 201757min
