Accordion War: Korea 1951 - Life and Death in a Marine Rifle Company is a detailed personal account of combat in the Korean War during its most violent "blitzkrieg" phase; the first third of the three-year war. While the descriptions of battles are up close and graphic; the conflict is also viewed from the perspective of the 21st century; from a keen awareness of the wars since -Vietnam; Afghanistan; Iraq and the war on terror. Interwoven into the narrative is a meditation on life; death and war -on the question of why men spend so much treasure and blood fighting one another. The setting is the Republic of Korea; a beautiful country whose citizens fought for their freedom alongside United Nations forces; a people who have; since the war; emerged from the shadows of history to become cultural and technological leaders in the modern world. But Accordion War is first of all the story of a band of brothers and the battles they fought half way round the world in the rugged mountains of the country known as "the Land of the Morning Calm". Fifty years before all America and the world were horror-struck by images of exploding planes and falling towers; September 11 was seared into the memories of the men in How Company; Third Battalion; Seventh Regiment; First Marine Division. There is a connection between those two days exactly a half-century apart. That connection can be found not far from Ground Zero in the village of Stewart Manor on Long Island inscribed on a memorial plaque dedicated to victims of 9/11 - and in this book.
#594460 in Books H R Trevor Roper 2013-09-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.00 x .70 x 5.00l; .51 #File Name: 1447218612288 pagesThe Last Days of Hitler
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Myth BusterBy PabloRWhat I like about the book is that it was written by an intelligence officer who debriefed the Nazi's in prison. The author was a scholar;intelligent and perceptive of the scams perpetrated by the Third Reich. He had access to the bunker and got to ask the Russians questions about what they discovered. Trevor-Roper was under no illusions about the horrors unleashed by Hitler but he gives an incredible account of Hitler's last days.4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Gripping Pace; Great ScholarshipBy The Garden InteriorThis is a truly amazing book; a work of great scholarship and brilliant observation. The scene is the destroyed city of 1945 Berlin after the collapse of the Nazi regime and amid the chaos of the occupation and the closure of the European theater of the Second World War. But where is Hitler? The Soviets are circulating propaganda that he is still alive and is being hidden by the western powers. Western intelligence agencies say he is presumed dead at his own hand; but "presumed dead" is of course not good enough for world opinion. And so British intelligence brings in the young Oxford don and historian Hugh Trevor-Roper to sift through all the evidence and prepare the definitive report of Hitler's final days in his bunker in Berlin; at the center of his collapsing world and at the epicenter of massive encircling armies. It is a gruesome and fascinating tale; drawn from the eyewitness accounts of Hitler's surviving associates; flunkies and servants. Trevor-Roper tells it at a gripping pace; piecing the story together painstaking over a time span of just a few days in April of 1945. Written just a few months after the facts it explores; the book has a sense of freshness and urgency that make it read like a thriller torn from newspaper headlines. Because it was written so soon after the main event it describes; it lacks the benefit of much later scholarship about the final days of the Reich; but it makes up for that by supplying brilliantly extracted and compiled firsthand accounts of contemporary sources.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. classicBy Wendy A. JassClassic study; by a true scholar.
