I’m not much interested in World War Two.

Or, to be precise, I’m not really all that interested in reading about World War Two.

Now part of that is, in grade school, I read all 33 volumes of Colonel Dewey’s “Young People’s History of World War II”. At least that’s what my memory says it was called. I’ve never been able to actually find any reference to such a series. [Update: I discovered, in a bookstore last week, that this series was not by Colonel Dewey but Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy. It was the 18 volume Military History of World War II and not intended for just juvenile readers. What does it say about my memory that 18 books became 33?]

In high school, I read some of Time-Life’s series on World War Two.

As an adult, though, I can’t remember any books I’ve read solely on World War Two. The books I’ve read that touch on the subject deal mostly with espionage: John Keegan’s Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda, various biographies of Kim Philby, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB by Christopher Andrew.

Part of my disinterest in reading about the subject is that American culture has a lot of information about the war that can be absorbed casually via tv documentaries, magazines, and even movies.

Part of my disinterest is that I simply don’t come from a family with a large military tradition. Continue reading →