Mike Carlton is now distinguished by his own efforts with the pen as an able chronicler of the Royal Australian Navy, in two World Wars and in the brief interregnum of peace, 1919–1939. In both …
Historians still argue about the winners and losers of the Vietnam War, but there were two undoubted losers: the Republic of Vietnam—commonly known as South Vietnam—and its army, generally known as ARVN. The soldiers of …
The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s 1932-1943, edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky. Fitzroy MacLean’s superb autobiography, Eastern Approaches, is most famously recalled for his exploits in the Balkans, during the Second …
The New Spymasters: inside espionage from the Cold War to global terror, by Stephen Grey Despite the continuing value of intelligence methods like telecommunication interception and satellite imagery, when operating against a shadowy terrorist group—especially …
Part of my summer reading has been British naval historian Geoffrey Till’s excellent 2014 book Understanding victory: naval operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands. At first glance it doesn’t seem to offer much to anyone …




