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(More customer reviews)"Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, The Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II" by Mark A. Stoler is a tour-de-force piece of military history, certainly of the highest academic standard. One can usually tell how 'serious' a work of military history is by what types of sources are used by the author for information and how many. Of the 380 pages of Stoler's book nearly 100 are set aside for 'notes' and bibliography - a more obvious sign of 'how much' research Stoler did would be pointless. So is this merely secondary sources and posturing? No not by a long shot. Stoler utilizes a variety of source materials, from unpublished works, to archival material, personal interviews, and published works (book and journal forms). As an academic scientist this reviewer can appreciate solid literature work and Stoler has certainly done that. Is "allies and Adversaries" merely a thoroughly researched book, or does it have literary flare and depth of new insight?
Let's address the literary competence of Stoler's work. The quick of it: solid but not lilting. Unfortunately many works of this 'academic' depth can be extremely dry and quite unreadable. Stoler's book is very readable. Yet, Stoler does a good job weaving an interesting story that brings together disparate sources into a prose that maintains the readers interest. This is not however to say this is a 'pick it up but can't put it down' book. The text is a bit dry but given the subject matter - strategy and statesmanship in the context of war - this may not be surprising. To his credit Stoler proves adept at keeping a good pace and telling a story that is enjoyable if not riveting.
So what about insights? Does Stoler's 'deep' research yield new information worthy of this depth? In short: probably. Clearly Stoler presents a thorough picture of how, when and why major (above theatre level) strategic decisions were made in the Second World War. Moreover, Stoler provides considerable information about who was making decisions and influencing those decision makers. Where the work suffers is from lack of much tangible information relative to the Soviet and British decision making processes. Stoler can probably be forgiven for the formers omission but certainly there is material to be had relative to the British side. A quick read of another work - "American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration" - centered on high strategy of WWII written shortly after the war by Kent Roberts Greenfield will clearly illustrate that the basic story presented by Stoler has been documented for decades. Where Stoler has added is in the depth of presentation. Plenty of new material is presented here, clearly justifying the legwork put into this study.
In the final analysis Mark Stoler has generated a very readable and extremely solid piece of historical literature. Serious students of WWII should consider picking up a copy of this book to see the bigger picture - that far beyond the foxhole that put men in the foxholes wherever and whenever they were. As a serious piece of historical work "Allies and Adversaries" is a 5 star effort.
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Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War IIDuring World War II the uniformed heads of the U.S. armed services assumed a pivotal and unprecedented role in the formulation of the nation's foreign policies. Organized soon after Pearl Harbor as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, these individuals were officially responsible only for the nation's military forces. During the war their functions came to encompass a host of foreign policy concerns, however, and so powerful did the military voice become on those issues that only the president exercised a more decisive role in their outcome.
Drawing on sources that include the unpublished records of the Joint Chiefs as well as the War, Navy, and State Departments,Mark Stoler analyzes the wartime rise of military influence in U.S. foreign policy. He focuses on the evolution of and debates over U.S. and Allied global strategy. In the process, he examines military fears regarding America's major allies--Great Britain and the Soviet Union--and how those fears affected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies, interservice and civil-military relations, military-academic relations, and postwar national security policy as well as wartime strategy.
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