Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2013/Book reviews: Difference between revisions
add external review |
m Minor ce -- tks for the contribution, Storm! |
||
| Line 7: | Line 7: | ||
{{Rating|1|5}}<br> |
{{Rating|1|5}}<br> |
||
:<span style="font-size: 85%">''By [[User:Sturmvogel_66|Sturmvogel_66]]''</span> |
:<span style="font-size: 85%">''By [[User:Sturmvogel_66|Sturmvogel_66]]''</span> |
||
''The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service'' purports to be a popular history of the Imperial Naval Air Service, but it covers much more than that, to the detriment of its nominal subject. It devotes considerable space to the development of aircraft by the [[Imperial Japanese Navy]] (IJN) and somewhat less space to cursory descriptions of the various carriers operated by the IJN. Over half the book is devoted to the interwar development of the IJN's aviation service and the author gives a lot of space to various conspiracy theories about the start of the [[Pacific War]] as well. This doesn't leave much |
''The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service'' purports to be a popular history of the Imperial Naval Air Service, but it covers much more than that, to the detriment of its nominal subject. It devotes considerable space to the development of aircraft by the [[Imperial Japanese Navy]] (IJN) and somewhat less space to cursory descriptions of the various carriers operated by the IJN. Over half the book is devoted to the interwar development of the IJN's aviation service and the author gives a lot of space to various conspiracy theories about the start of the [[Pacific War]] as well. This doesn't leave much room for the wartime history; for example, the author covers the [[Battle of Midway]] in five pages and the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] in two. |
||
The fundamental problem of this book is that Edwards died in 1992 and his manuscript was prepared for publication by his son, apparently without significant revision as no use has been made of any of the scholarship covering aerial operations during the Pacific War in the last quarter-century or more. This is simply inexcusable as the work of John Lundstrom, Ikuhiko Hata, Mark Peattie, Jon Parshall, Anthony Tully and others has revolutionized our understanding of what actually happened during the war |
The fundamental problem of this book is that Edwards died in 1992 and his manuscript was prepared for publication by his son, apparently without significant revision as no use has been made of any of the scholarship covering aerial operations during the Pacific War in the last quarter-century or more. This is simply inexcusable as the work of John Lundstrom, Ikuhiko Hata, Mark Peattie, Jon Parshall, Anthony Tully and others has revolutionized our understanding of what actually happened during the war; they have tapped previously unutilized sources from both sides while Edwards simply condenses the one-dimensional accounts produced by the first generation of historians who wrote about the war. This book is not without redeeming virtue as Edwards provides a number of intriguing charts and tables covering strength figures and organizational structure for various dates, but the total lack of footnotes reduces their value considerably as the reader simply does not know where they came from and thus cannot assess their reliability. The aircraft descriptions and histories have some value as they seem to be cribbed from René Francillon's ''Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War'', but most readers would be better directed to any number of books that better cover the aircraft. |
||
This book cannot be recommended for use for any article related to its topic as the battle accounts are so cursory as to be virtually useless for citing purposes and do not reflect the latest scholarship. Even the organizational details covered in the book rely on older English-language sources and cannot be deemed fully reliable. |
This book cannot be recommended for use for any article related to its topic as the battle accounts are so cursory as to be virtually useless for citing purposes and do not reflect the latest scholarship. Even the organizational details covered in the book rely on older English-language sources and cannot be deemed fully reliable. |
||
Revision as of 00:11, 12 April 2013
|
Title |
The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service - Peter J. Edwards |
The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service purports to be a popular history of the Imperial Naval Air Service, but it covers much more than that, to the detriment of its nominal subject. It devotes considerable space to the development of aircraft by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and somewhat less space to cursory descriptions of the various carriers operated by the IJN. Over half the book is devoted to the interwar development of the IJN's aviation service and the author gives a lot of space to various conspiracy theories about the start of the Pacific War as well. This doesn't leave much room for the wartime history; for example, the author covers the Battle of Midway in five pages and the attack on Pearl Harbor in two.
The fundamental problem of this book is that Edwards died in 1992 and his manuscript was prepared for publication by his son, apparently without significant revision as no use has been made of any of the scholarship covering aerial operations during the Pacific War in the last quarter-century or more. This is simply inexcusable as the work of John Lundstrom, Ikuhiko Hata, Mark Peattie, Jon Parshall, Anthony Tully and others has revolutionized our understanding of what actually happened during the war; they have tapped previously unutilized sources from both sides while Edwards simply condenses the one-dimensional accounts produced by the first generation of historians who wrote about the war. This book is not without redeeming virtue as Edwards provides a number of intriguing charts and tables covering strength figures and organizational structure for various dates, but the total lack of footnotes reduces their value considerably as the reader simply does not know where they came from and thus cannot assess their reliability. The aircraft descriptions and histories have some value as they seem to be cribbed from René Francillon's Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, but most readers would be better directed to any number of books that better cover the aircraft.
This book cannot be recommended for use for any article related to its topic as the battle accounts are so cursory as to be virtually useless for citing purposes and do not reflect the latest scholarship. Even the organizational details covered in the book rely on older English-language sources and cannot be deemed fully reliable.
- Publishing details: Edwards (2010). The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-84884-307-3.
{{cite book}}: Text "first-Peter J." ignored (help)
Recent external reviews |
Glass, Charles (2013). Deserter : The Last Untold Story of the Second World War. London: HarperPress. ISBN 978-0007345922.
- Ascherson, Neal (28 March 2013). "Deserter: The Untold Story of WWII by Charles Glass – review". The Guardian.
Richard, Breitman (2013). FDR and the Jews. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN 0674050266. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
- Oshinsky, David (5 April 2013). ". . . Congress Disposes". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
|
