Occasionally looking for reading material for my research or just looking for books similar to ones I have already enjoyed, I come across a title that's just what I was hoping for, or a sumptuous cover that grabs my attention only to discover that its only available for pre-order and hasn't been published yet. This is frustrating especially if the author claims to have a new take on a historic field you love that you thought was already done to death and can't wait to see just wait it is they are arguing. Here are a few such titles which are definitely on my pre-purchase list:
The Real German War Plan, 1904-14
By Terence Zuber
Price: £10.49
ISBN-10: 0752456644
Having already thought that Zuber's three previous books on this subject, German War Planning, 1891-1914: Sources and Interpretations (2004), Inventing the Schlieffen Plan: German War Planning 1871-1914 (2002), The Moltke Myth: Prussian War Planning (2008) had given us everything on the diplomatic, political, military and economic impact of German war planning between 1872 to 1914. I was fairly surprised and more than a little perplexed by the title of his latest book The REAL German War plan.
The author claims that this book will fundamentally change our understanding of German military planning before the First World War -on the basis of newly discovered or long neglected documents in German military archives, it will allegedly explode (no pun intended) unfounded myths concerning German war planning and prove conclusively that there never actually was a 'Schlieffen Plan' -something which Zuber concluded in Inventing the Sclieffen Plan. If for nothing more than a master class in how to repeatedly build upon an important historic debate, I can't wait for this book (covers nice too).
By Greg King and Penny Wilson
Price: £14.87
ISBN: 0470444983
Since 2007 we have known irrefutably that Anastasia died in the Ipatiev house with the rest of her family and that the claims of her most famous imposter Anna Anderson were false. This fact coupled with the passage of more than ninety years and the publication of hundreds of books in dozens of languages has still not extinguished an enduring interest in the 1918 execution of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family. My interest is no exception, for some reason, even knowing the end of the story, its one I can never help revisiting whenever I can. The subject of Anna Anderson, however, is one of those things I have never got round to reading in detail despite having wanted to for some time -to understand why apparently so many people, including members of the imperial family, believed and endorsed her claim with such passion; and to find out who Anna Anderson really was and what motives lay behind her fraudulent claim. This book claims it refutes long-accepted evidence in the Anderson case with surprising and 'shocking' results, so I'm hoping once I have read it I will know all the long-accepted facts that I have never got round to reading and how we can now contest them thus saving me reading multiple books (that's the idea anyway).
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