DWD's Reviews

  Published by Hourly History in 2021. Hourly History  publishes histories and biographies that you can read in about an hour. That can be a tough job for larger topics in history like "The Industrial Revolution" or "The Roman Empire" but it works out about right for this short war (1763-1766.) The war arose directly from unaddressed issues as a consequence of the French and Indian War (1754-1763.) In the French and Indian War, the American frontier became a battlefield. American settlements were wiped out, Native American villages were destroyed. French and English soldiers participated and ultimately agreed to a settlement that ignored the realities of the vast borderlands between the colonies and the Native Americans. The biggest issue was constant push westward from European (American) settlers into areas that were already inhabited by Native Americans. The colonies were all for this westward push, even if the British government was ambivalent or even against t

  Published by Imbrifex Books in March of 2023. Read by Mark Sanderlin. Duration: 8 hours, 49 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Dan Renfrew is a self-described homeschooled nerd and his life has been turned upside down. He watched his father get stabbed by a stranger who invaded their house and he has no idea if he is even alive.  Now, thanks to a magical device, Dan is in Medieval England and caught up in an army on the move. He learns that his father is a "time jumper" - men tasked to fix glitches in time and make sure the timeline plays out the way it is supposed to. The year is 1066 - just a few days before King Harold Godwinson meets and defeats one of the last Viking invasions of England at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Even more importantly, King Harold will be forced to meet the forces of William, the Duke of Normandy in just a few days and will be defeated at the Battle of Hastings. But, something is wrong and even though Dan has almost no idea what to do, he has to ma

  Published by Hourly History in December of 2022. The short histories produced by  Hourly History  are designed to read in about an hour. In some cases the size limit makes for a very incomplete history. In this case, I thought that topic and the size limit matched up pretty well. The Gallipoli Campaign was an unmitigated disaster during World War I. Winston Churchill (yes, the famous one from World War II) was the head of British navy and thought up a plan to do three things: 1) relieve the pressure on Russia from the Germans and the Ottomans; 2) possibly knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war; 3) encourage the Germans to divert more troops away from the French front to support the Ottoman Empire. The plan Churchill came up with was to land thousands of soldiers from France, Britain, Australia and New Zealand on the Gallipoli Peninsula at the edge of the Aegean Sea in a quick and bold attack. Troops from Australia and New Zealand landing at  Gallipoli - April 25, 1915. What actually

Published by Recorded Books in 2012. Read by L.J. Ganser. Duration: 16 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Loyalists (Americans who opposed the American Revolution and stayed loyal to Britain) had a choice to make - stay and ride out the anti-Loyalist bias in the United States or move somewhere else. In the two years between the last major engagement (Yorktown) and the official end of the war and withdrawal of British troops the British decided to evacuate any Loyalists that wanted to go to other parts of the British Empire. One of the biggest advocates of this position was Guy Carleton, the British commander in America after Yorktown who later went on to become the Governor-in-Chief of Canada. He had more to do with what happened in this history than any other single person. Guy Carleton (1724-1808) The British government made an effort to make things right for these Loyalists. Not many Loyalists were completely reimbursed, but the fact that an

  E-book published by Hourly History in 2020. Hourly History specializes in histories and biographies that take about an hour to read. In the case of the Crimean War (1853-1856), I think that's about right. The war was the result of European alliance politics. Russia was looking to push into Ottoman territory. The Ottomans were considered to be pretty weak and certainly on the decline after centuries of being a major power. The Austrian Empire was a traditional ally to the Russians, but decided to stay neutral. The Prussians were just starting out so no one really cared what they did. Even though they had been traditional rivals for centuries, England and France decided that they had to intervene on behalf of the Ottoman Empire in order to stop Russia from becoming too powerful.  The French and the English sent troops all of the way to the Ottoman Empire and then up into the Black Sea and landed troops on the Crimean Peninsula and the war was on. The war itself is worthy of note f

  E-book published in 2019 by Hourly History . Hourly History is a series of histories and biographies that a reader can read in about an hour. Sometimes, that works out quite well. Sometimes, the topic is just too big to cover in an hour. I think the Hundred Years War is one of those topics.  Before I read this book I knew a few facts about the war: It was over dynastic struggles over the throne of France, the Battle of Agincourt, Joan of Arc. Nothing in this book is incorrect, but I didn't really learn a lot more than I knew before. There is a parade of kings, royal family members and advisors - but there's rarely any detail that makes it interesting. For example, the book mentions an insane French king, but it does not mention that he believed that he was made out of glass and believed that he had to be careful that he would get bumped over and would smash to pieces.  If you know literally nothing of the war, this is an adequate place to start. I rate this audiobook 2 stars

  Published in 2019 by Hourly History. Hourly History is a series of histories and biographies that a reader can read in about an hour. Sometimes, that works out quite well. Sometimes, the topic is just too big to cover in an hour. I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time. I want to know a bit more, not become an expert. The British Royal Family is just one of those areas for me. I know more than most people, but I can see the glaringly empty areas of my own ignorance. I recently read Hourly History's biography of Henry VII (the king that defeated Richard III in battle and took his throne). Usually, I find the British Royal family to be a tedious topic, but I found the Henry VII biography to be quite interesting. I was hoping to have a similar experience with the biography of Richard III. King Richard III (1452-1485) Richard III took the throne towards the end of the slo

Published by Hourly History in 2019. Hourly History is a series of histories and biographies that a reader can read in about an hour. Sometimes, that works out quite well. Sometimes, the topic is just too big to cover in an hour. I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time. I want to know a bit more, not become an expert. The British Royal Family is just one of those areas for me. I know more than most people, but I can see the glaringly empty areas of my own ignorance. King Henry VII of England (1457-1509) Henry VII was the king that ended the a civil war between competing royal families - The War of the Roses. It was not a sure thing, though. It was a long shot for him to even survive, let alone make it to the throne. Normally, these complicated royal stories bore me, but this one had a lot of dramatic elements - murder of children, escapes, battles, betrayal, the death of a k

  Published in 2021 by Pushkin Industries. Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell. Duration: 5 hours, 14 minutes. Unabridged. Before there was a U.S. Air Force, there was the U.S. Army Air Corps. Before the Army Air Corps (re-organized as the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1942) built the largest collection of flying fighting machines to relentlessly bomb the Axis Powers in World War II, they had a tiny budget and a few air bases. One of these was Maxwell Field, a training facility in Alabama. That facility became the intellectual home of a group of pilots who espoused the concept of precision bombing. They were known as The Bomber Mafia. Precision bombing is the theory that teaches that you don't have to blow an enemy's entire military to pieces, you can just hit certain key industries and choke out their ability to produce more weapons/feed their people/move soldiers and so on. This was intended to be a more humane way to wage war - an antidote to the mass slaughter the world saw in W

  Published in 2020 by Hourly History King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire.  Philip II. Painting by Antonio Moro Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children. His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill

  Published by Hourly History in 2020. I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time in. The long history of India is just one of those areas for me. I know more than most people, but I can see the glaringly empty areas of ignorance. Subhas Chandra Bose was one of those people for me. I had heard of him, but only described as sort of an "anti-Ghandi". He wanted independence as much as Ghandi did, but thought the non-violent protests were a waste of time. Subhas Chandra Bose was not only willing to fight - he thought it was the only way India would be free of English rule. Bose was born in India but formally educated in England. He was poised to take his place in the bureaucracy of colonial India. But, he rejected that offer and became active in the independence movement.  As World War II loomed, Bose saw it as an opportunity to free India. He approached the Fascist powe

  Published in 2007 by Random House Audio Read by John H. Mayer Duration: 13 hours, 26 minutes. Unabridged. Stephan Talty writes a lot about pirates in Empire of Blue Water. Not modern pirates, but the swashbuckling pirates that most Americans imagine when they hear the word "pirate". The modern personification of that word is Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. In the late 1600s, the personification of that word was a Welshman named Henry Morgan. Morgan was technically not a pirate. He was a privateer. If you were in the Spanish government, there was not much of a difference between a privateer and a pirate, except that privateers came with an extra level of annoyance.  17th century England did not have the money to expand the Royal Navy enough to confront Spain. Spain was more than 200 years into looting the Americas and had a very, very large navy to protect that loot as it came across the Atlantic to the home country.  England did have something that Spain did not ha