Book Description
As the world prepared for war in the 1930s, the United States discovered that it faced the real threat of foreign spies stealing military and industrial secrets-and that it had no established means to combat them. Into that breach stepped J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.
Although the FBI's expanded role in World War II has been well documented, few have examined the crucial period before Pearl Harbor when the Bureau's powers secretly expanded to face the developing international emergency. Former FBI agent Raymond Batvinis now tells how the Bureau grew from a small law enforcement unit into America's first organized counter-espionage and counterintelligence service. Batvinis examines the FBI's emerging new roles during the two decades leading up to America's entry into World War II to show how it cooperated and competed with other federal agencies. He takes readers behind the scenes, as the State Department and Hoover fought fiercely over the control of counterintelligence, and tells how the agency combined its crime-fighting expertise with its new wiretapping authority to spy on foreign agents.
Based on newly declassified documents and interviews with former agents, Batvinis's account reconstructs and greatly expands our understanding of the FBI's achievements and failures during this period. Among these were the Bureau's mishandling of the 1938 Rumrich/Griebl spy case, which Hoover slyly used to broaden his agency's powers; its cracking of the Duquesne Espionage Case in 1941, which enabled Hoover to boost public and congressional support to new heights; and its failure to understand the value of Soviet agent Walter Krivitsky, which slowed Bureau efforts to combat Soviet espionage in America.
In addition, Batvinis offers a new view of the relationship between the FBI and the military, cites the crucial contributions of British intelligence to the FBI's counter-intelligence education, and reveals the agency's ultra-secret role in mining financial records for the Treasury Department. He also reviews the early days of the top-secret Special Intelligence Service, which quietly dispatched FBI agents posing as businessmen to South America to spy on their governments.
With an insider's knowledge and a storyteller's skill, Batvinis provides a page-turning history narrative that greatly revises our views of the FBI-and also resonates powerfully with our own post-9/11 world.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Historical Reference on the FBI.......2007-06-10
This book is a fast, easy read with lots of details and facts about the early history of FBI. It is a must read for students of the pre-WW II era. Batvinis has done some supurb primary reasearch, even gong back to FDR's personal files to see what he said about the threats against our country. I just retired from the FBI after 30 years and I didn't know half the stuff in this book.
Customer Reviews:
Lucid Analysis.......2005-04-08
This concise and very well written book is thoughtful distillation of the enormous literature related to the onset of WWII in Europe. The simple question, who started WWII, has a simple answer. It was Adolf Hitler. The simple answer obscures a whole series of considerably more difficult questions. How did a marginal figure and 4th-rate ideologue like Hitler come to rule the most powerful state in Europe? Why wasn't there more initial resistance to Hitler? What was the role of the Great Depression? To what extent did the post-WWI settlement lead to WWII? What was the role of the Soviet Union and Stalin? Many other questions arise. Bell deals with many of these issues in a series of well crafted chapters. The book opens by framing the issues, including a short but worthwhile discussion of historiographic issues, follows by discussing underlying factors such as ideology, economics, the role of the depression, the roles of the military postures adopted by the major actors, and then concludes with a nice narrative of the outbreak of war. Bell very intelligently extends his narrative beyond 1939 to the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, pointing out that it is these later events that allow assessment of the role of key ideological factors in the coming of WWII. This book is worth reading just for the chapters dealing with the consequences of the Great Depression. A theme throughout the book is the limited options possessed by the leaders of France and Britain. Given their internal political situations, some form of appeasement was inevitable, though consistently unpalatable. I have a couple of minor complaints. I don't think Bell deals with the uncertain nature of politics in the Weimar Republic. Hitler's accession to power was not inevitable. While some form of reactionary German government bent on reversing the settlement of WWI was probably inevitable, it could have been one dominated by more traditional conservatives. This type of leadership would have been amenable to the type of accomodation and diplomacy attempted by Chamberlain and the French leadership. It is clear also, in retrospect, that few in Europe really understood the depth of the Nazi racial preoccupations and their bizarre model of history, a tragic though understandable mistake.
Excellent.......2000-10-22
Bell does a fine job of looking at just what brought about the Second World War. He explains its connections to the Great War, by first discussing the idea of a Thirty Years War, and by then examining how the first war and its results brought about the second. Bell also provides readers with the roles and views of the various ideologies and the many desires for and against war, and also the many strategies involved with each of the main players. An excellent book for anyone wishing to better understand the differing forces and actions which brought about this war.
Stellar.......2000-03-15
This is a great book everyone should read, I salute it.
Book Description
Professor Iriye analyses the origins of the 1941 conflict against the background of international relations in the preceding decade in order to answer the key question: Why did Japan decide to go to war against so formidable a combination of powers?
Customer Reviews:
First rate history for the non-specialist........2005-03-17
Akira Iriye is Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University, and is a noted historian of international institutions. This 1987 book is a well organized and well edited introduction to a complicated subject, the origins of what the Japanese call The Pacific War, and which we know as WWII in Asia and the Pacific.
The book's organization is straightforwardly chronological. His account of these years is less dramatic but easier to follow than that of John Toland in "The Rising Sun", even though Toland is a better writer than Iriye. Iriye has the advantage of having that period as his primary subject, whereas Toland was laying the groundwork for a dramatic account of the war itself. And Iriye takes pains to explain his conclusions in several different ways, a habit no doubt learned from teaching college undergraduate students, who are the primary target audience of this book.
Iriye clearly describes the step by step process by which Japan entrapped itself in a net from which it was in the end only able to escape by engaging in a suicidal war. He shows how extremely naive Japanese political and military leaders were to think that they could overturn the existing order in Asia without serious consequences. Ironically, most of them - Konoye, Tojo, Yamamoto, and others - could see the trap they were heading into, yet believed that there was no way out that would not be a disaster for Japan, and that war was the only way to preserve Japanese honor. Contrary to some impressions, Japanese at the highest levels of leadership knew very well that Japan was no match for the United States militarily. But things had deteriorated to the point that even the Atlantic Charter, a precursor of The United Nations, was viewed by the Japanese leadership simply as a declaration of war on Japan by the Anglo-American powers.
Iriye leaves little doubt that once Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Hitler and Mussolini in 1938, FDR and his cabinet - Hull, Stimson, Knox, Acheson - saw war with Japan as inevitable. Their only goal was to try to gain time in order to avoid having to fight in both Europe and Asia at the same time. In the event, of course, America did both. A major irony of Japan's joining the Axis powers is that it provided none of the benefits Japan had hoped to gain from the alliance, while at the same time it ended all possibility of a rapprochement with Britain and the US. Japan had literally backed out onto a tree limb and then proceeded to saw it off.
Iriye delineates the development of China's influence on American policy in the Far East. By the late 1930's, China was clearly identified in the eyes of the American public as the victim of unjustified Japanese aggression. This was indeed an accurate assessment of the situation, but the strength and emotion with which it was held by the American public gave the Roosevelt administration very little room to maneuver with Japan, even had it been inclined to do so. Any accomodation in China that would have left Japan a way toward "honorable" retreat would have been seen by the American public, no less than Chiang Kai-Shek, as a complete betrayal of China. This was the trap Japan had entered when the Japanese government allowed the Japanese Army to turn the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge into an excuse to invade China proper, from which there was no escape other than through total war with America.
Japanese public opinion also played a role in polarizing events. Tojo even started contingency planning for riots should Japan decide to bow to American will and withdraw from China. And the fear of assassination by nationalistic fanatics in the Japanese Army was an ever-present factor in the decision making of the Japanese political leadership.
Did FDR cook up a conspiracy to lure the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor? Iriye thinks not, and gives pretty good reasons for his opinion, the most convincing one being that by the summer of 1941 the American political and military leadership knew from the broken Japanese diplomatic code that war with Japan was inevitable. No conspiracy was needed to precipitate war - it was just a matter of time before the Japanese would attack.
In a nutshell, according to Iriye's analysis, Japan had three alternatives open to it by 1939: 1. Withdraw from China and suffer the consequences: Loss of prestige, power, resources, and military position; 2. Follow a policy of "perseverance and patience", passively waiting for the unlikely chance that events would eventually turn in a direction more to Japan's advantage; 3. Take the offensive immediately, while Japan still had sufficient oil reserves to support aggressive naval operations, and before the ABCD powers (America, Britain, China, and the Dutch) could further prepare themselves. In the end, option 3 seemed the most preferable of three bad choices.
Iriye ends on an optimistic note, saying that the period from 1931-45 was an aberration in the history of Japanese-American relations. One certainly hopes that he is right.
Book Description
Origins of the Cold War, Third Edition covers the formative years of the extraordinary struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States, explaining how the cold war originated and developed. It sets out the various different explanations for the Cold War and unravels some of the complex issues which gave rise to it. Explores several questions, including, who was responsible for the Cold War, was it inevitable or could the whole episode have been avoided, and was Stalin genuinely interested in a post-war agreement? Revised, updated and expanded, this new edition in the Seminar Studies in History Series incorporates the most recent scholarship, theories and newly released information to provide an invaluable introduction. For readers interested in the World since 1945 and International relations during the Cold War period.
Customer Reviews:
An Unconventional Historian Who Wrote an Unconventianal History: An Honest View.......2006-03-11
When this reviewer read A.J.P. Taylor's THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, he was impressed by the research, scholarship, and concise written experssion. Taylor argued that the Hitler regime never planned to enter a "total war," and a total war was the last thing the Germans wanted. Taylor convincingly demonstrates this thesis in this book.
Taylor begins his study with some forgotten problems that "mainstream" historians, those historians who are too timid or too politically connected, refuse to handle due to preconceived conclusions which Taylor undermines. The facts are that while the Germans lost World War I on the Western Front, the Germans did indeed win World War I against the Russians and extraced a peace treaty from the new revolutionary regime under Lenin (Treaty of Brest-Litvosk). The subsequent Versailles "Peace" Conference (1919) unhinged German victorians in the East.
Taylor also unhinges the myths that Hitler was solely responsible for unraveling the unjust and tentative conditions of the Versailles settlement. For example, Taylor carefully examines the Anschluss between the Germans and the Austrians in 1938. This event was not planned by the Hitler regime, and the crisis was started by the Austrian Chancellor Schnussnig and not by Hitler. Schnussnig provoked a rebellion in Austria when he tried to used armed force to crush the Austrian National Socialists and lost political control. The Germans were the only ones who were seen as able to restore order. The crisis caught the Germans by surprise. When the Germans sent military and police forces Austria, over 70% of the vehicles malfunctioned. There was no carefully planned operation to take control. The crisis a totally unexpected political favor. In an attempt to legitimatize the Anschluss, he submitted the matter to the Austrians for a plebiscite. The vote was 99.08% in favor of the Anschluss and only .92% against it, "...a genuine reflection of German feeling."
Taylor further gives a more precise account of the Sudetenlan situation of the subsequent Munich conference in 1938. The French and British were branded as "appeasers" by lazy historians who are not aware of the situation. Taylor argues that the Czechs and Eastern Europeans would not be well served by war. If one looks at a map of Europe, they should realize that Czechoslovakia is Eastern Europe, and there was little that the British or French could do if war did result. One should note that the Czechs, British, French, etc. were very concerned about possible Soviet military intervention and fears of Big Communism moving west into Central Europe. One should also note that when the Germans moved into the rest of Czechoslovakia, Hocha, the Czech foreig minister, asked for German help because of fears of Polish, Soviet, and Hungarian dismantling the rest of the country.
Taylor handles the critics of these events. Taylor argues that the Czechs were "betrayed" while, later in 1939, the Polish were "saved." Less than one hundred thousand Czechs died during World War II while the Polish lost over six million people and their political independence after the war. Taylor asks which was better-to be a "saved" Pole or a "betrayed" Czech? When there was political flak during the Cold War about Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe, Taylor relates that the only ones could honestly raise such flak were those who were against British instigation of World War II in the first place. The Cold Warriors who preached war against the Germans in the 1930s could not honestly whine about Soviet presence in Eastern Eruope since their support for Stalin & co. enabled to control Eastern Europe afte World War II. What did they expect?
A.J.P. Taylor also has severe criticism of the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. He stated that if judges from neutral countries held these trials, the defendents would have been set free or some of the "allied" leaders would have joined the defendents as war criminals. He wrote, "The verdicts preceded the trials." Taylor also debunks some of the presecutions' evidence and proves it to be fabrications.
Taylor stated that in regard to World War II,"Though none were innocent, all were guilty." Taylor uses careful research, precise examinations of documents, and clear reason to make his case. This book is quite readable, and a reading of Harry Elmer Barnes' review titled 'Blasting the Historical Blackout" will assist the reader to have a better understanding of Taylor' THE ORIGINS OF WORLD WAR II.
Taylor on WWII.......2005-03-30
A. J. P. Taylor presents a controversial view on the cause of the Second World War. In his thesis, Taylor argues that the Western powers were as much to blame for the war as Hitler himself through their lack of reactionary response to his activities. Taylor should in no way be taken as a Nazi apologist in anyway, but simply presents miss opportunities that could have staved off disaster. Well researched and written, Taylor is one of the preeminent historians of 20th Century European history along with B. H. Liddell-Hart and J. F. C. Fuller.
Review 1.......2004-10-06
This book is a very good explanation of the origins of the Second World War. All of the major events between the wars are described in detail. The book also describes World War One and how it relates to the origins of World War Two. I think it is interesting that if it were up to America, World War Two may very likely have never happened. The reason for this is: America had been in World War One for much less time than all of the other major countries at the end. She would have rather gone on into the heart of Germany and defeated her outright. This would have led to Germany's not having grievances such as having to hand over the Alsace-Lorraine region to France, the demilitarization of the Rhineland, and having to pay reparations. Of course, it was not up to the Americans and they did not get their way. The Origins of the Second World War goes on to describe all the treaties between the wars such as Locarno, Rapallo, the settlement at Munich, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact. It describes more of the events right before the war than of the ones that weren't. These are the crisises over the German populations of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the free city Danzig, which was right in the middle of a part of Poland that belonged to Germany before and during the First World War. Hitler waited for the Austrian state to collapse, and it did. He waited for the Czechoslovakians to give in to his demands, and the British and French (trying to prevent war), eventually gave in for them. With Poland, however, Hitler had set a date to invade if diplomatic measures did not solve the crisis by then. They hadn't, so World War Two started two days after he invaded Poland, on September 3rd.
The Pearl of Revisionism.......2004-05-29
Taylor modifies totally the existing traditional view regarding the origins of the second world war which has considered Hitler as the sole creator of the conflict. Taylor doesnt defend the german Fuhrer nor simply condemns the commonly called "appeasers", but instead with a very original argument explains that the war originated due to the oportunism of Hitler added to the the shortsightedness and blunders of the french and british statesman.
Word War II.......2002-05-11
This book examines the battle of words of diplomats involved with appeasing and then confronting Hitler before the real war. Hitler was not a madman warmonger, Taylor declares, but rather an opportunist whose stategy was one of waiting for something advantageous politically to happen rather than willing it to happen. He was a master of bluff, presenting himself as a leader of a country greatly wronged by the Versailles Treaty, which the English especially agreed with. He would recite the injustices of the treaty and would make pleas to have the land that was lost after the treaty returned to Germany. Other times he would threaten war, although Taylor claims that Hitler and Germany were not prepared for war and Hitler had made no plans to conquer Europe, except maybe to take the Ukraine. To quote Taylor: "In considering German armament we escape the mystic regions of Hitler's psychology and find the answer in the realm of fact. The answer is clear. The state of German armament in 1939 gives the decisive proof that Hitler was not contemplating general war, and probably not intending war at all."
Taylor looks through the diplomatic records of the European countries and finds that the English especially wanted to give Hitler what he wanted to avoid war. This book is not the most exciting reading in the world, given that he covers the endless political maneuverings of different diplomats from different countries. Indeed, it's a bit difficult to keep up with all the names and countries and what their stances were. A parody of the writing of the book would be: "England said that, but France wouldn't go along with it because they we're allied with Poland, but the Soviets we're also interested in alliance with Poland, which deeply disturbed Italy, who then petitioned England to change their mind and give Germany one more chance..." Taylor sometimes shows a very dry, subtle wit as he covers the actions of diplomats who desperately seek peace, but keep moving inexorably closer to war. Taylor also does not cover how Russia and the US got into the war and why Germany declared war on them, giving the reader the sense that the book is incomplete. He mentions that Hitler was unethical, wicked, antisemitic, and not a man of his word, but he generally de-emphasizes the psychological examination of Hitler.
Taylor thinks that war came out of the mistakes made at the treaty of Versailles and it began because these problems were not solved. He also states that the origins the second world war had not been sufficiently studied and his book fills the gap in the research on WWII. It is a good book for studying diplomacy and the grievances of Germany over the Versailles treaty. Hitler's racist doctrines and how they affected the war are really not the focus of the book--and this probably a deficit. Taylor says that Mein Kamph was merely violent talk that many leaders have engaged in historically, but have not acted on.
Customer Reviews:
The Optimistic Jew.......2007-08-31
A vigorous analysis of the cultural, social and psychological pathologies that laid the foundations necessary for the rise of Hitler. Should be read in conjunction with Bernard Lewis's "What Went Wrong" for two reasons:1) to forestall the accusation of orientalist condescension that will inevitably adhere to Lewis's analysis of the pathologies of Islamic civilization and 2) to realize where these pathologies can lead if we forgive them in the name of multi-culturalism. After all the PC Left of the 30's also talked about the justifiable grievances of Germany (until of course Germany invaded the Soviet Union). In my book "The Optimistic Jew" I discuss these pathologies and also warn against the possibility of similar pathologies developing within certain segments of Israeli society.
Phenomenal comprehensive examination.......2004-09-09
I had to read Mosse's book for a graduate seminar on the Holocaust and found this to be absolutely fascinating. Not only does it show the progression of philosophies withing Germany from its roots in Romanticism to Volkish to what would ultimately become Nazi ideologies, but it presents the material in such a way that it becomes understandable exactly how this transition in thought could happen. Though the book is written as a scholarly history for scholars, it is fairly easy to understand, especially in the format in which it is presented. The first section focuses on the roots of Volkish thought and how they progressed from Romanticism in the late nineteenth century to Volkish in the early twentieth century which in turn lead to the Nazi ideals presented by Hitler to the German masses in the 1930s, a perversion of the Volkish. His second section examines how Volkish spread from small groups of idealists into the University system through literature and art, and through this infiltration of the Universities, as well as the German Youth Movement, expose its philosophies to a wider German audience than it had enjoyed before the first world war. The final section addresses Hitler's rise to power and the ways in which Hitler was able to manipulate Volkish and its intrinsic anti-Semitism to a radical degree to serve his purposes. Highly recommended for those interested in the Holocaust and/or Philosophy.
Simply Amazing!.......2001-04-12
This is a comprehensive account of the ideological development of the Third Reich. I highly recommend anyone interested in the Nazi Germany to read this book. George L. Mosse has a writing style that I have encountered in few historians. He presents his idea's is simple, but profound manner. I can guarentee this book will get your brain juices flowing in a delightful way.
A stimulating political history.......1998-09-29
Mosse has challenged the set thoughts on the origins of the third reich (such as the Luther to Hitler theories and the idea that the people in Germany were merely subjected to propaganda, which ultimately shows the weakness of human beliefs). A must if one is studying Nazi germany or have an interest in twentieth century political theory.
Average customer rating:
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The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933-39: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War (Studies in Military & Strategic History)
Joseph A. Maiolo
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Book Description
This book is an original study of the Royal Navy's response to the rise of the German navy under Hitler within the context of the ongoing debate about Anglo-German relations and the origins of the Second World War. Drawing on wide range of sources, the author casts new light on the diplomacy leading to the Anglo-German Naval Agreements of June 1935 and July 1937, and explores the crucial connections between naval intelligence, war planning and Admiralty policy. The author suggests that the Admiralty's response to the Nazi menace was far more rational and more complex than previous studies suggest.
Customer Reviews:
A superior book.......2007-06-12
Joe Maiolo really got the ball rolling with this book. Andrew Gordon's 1988 book on Rearmament and the Admiralty was a cry in the wilderness. Maiolo's very good book began a process of reevaluation of 1930s British defense policy that is still in motion. My only real criticism of the book is its less than stellar organization and prose style. Paragraphs are occasionally dull and sentences unclear. But this book is a treasure-trove of important information and interpretations.
Book Description
This innovative new study analyzes the origins of the First and Second World Wars in one single volume by drawing on a wide range of material, including original sources. In concise, readable chapters, the author surveys the key issues surrounding the causes of both wars, offers an original and critical survey of the conflict of opinion among historians and provides a lively selection of primary documents on major issues. The result is a unique perspective on the origins of the two most devastating military conflicts in world history.
Customer Reviews:
A good introduction to a vast subject........2001-04-20
This is a very short book on such a huge theme...
The book presents the reasons for both wars as an strategic decision by the rulers of Germany. It makes a very good case, of the connection between the reasons for both wars.
Due to its size it is not very detailed, but still is very interesting. The author has included excerpts of historical documents that are related to the reasoning developed in the book.
It is a good book to start understanding why these two wars happened.
Book Description
Challenging conventional scholarship placing the origins of film noir in postwar Hollywood, Sheri Chinen Biesen finds the genre's roots firmly planted in the political, social, and material conditions of Hollywood during the war. After Pearl Harbor, America and Hollywood experienced a sharp cultural transformation that made horror, shock, and violence not only palatable but preferable. Hard times necessitated cheaper sets, fewer lights, and fresh talent; censors as well as the movie-going public showed a new tolerance for sex and violence; and female producers experienced newfound prominence in the industry.
Biesen brings prodigious archival research, accessible prose, and imaginative insights to both well-known films noir of the wartime period -- The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Double Indemnity -- and others often overlooked or underrated -- Scarlet Street, Ministry of Fear, Phantom Lady, and Stranger on the Third Floor.
Customer Reviews:
Tantalizing Theory.......2006-09-27
Yes, Shari Chinen Biesen has detonated a landmine in the field of film noir studies with her contention that, far from being a postwar movement, noir is totally tied up with actual conditions of the war being felt and fought during Hollywood studio production; so we might come to see the heyday of film noir as not the release of OUT OF THE PAST, nor any of the location-dominated "March of Time" inspired docudramas, but much earlier on, with the filming of THIS GUN FOR HIRE with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
She invites us to attend to the way WWII scared the daylights out of Los Angeles and curtailed social activity through a literal blackout in which the previously iconic klieglights were darkened "for the duration," while West Coast citizens and government officials and conspiracy theorists worried about how soon the Japanese would attack southern California by bomber or submarine or from within.
Secondarily the arrival of so many talented artists from Nazi-dominated Europe gave film a darker cast, both in front of the camera and behind. She points to STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR, THE MALTESE FALCON, PHANTOM LADY, and DOUBLE INDEMNITY as beneficaries of this process. With the top male stars in uniform, like Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Taylor, the studios had to improvise and invent a new sort of cinema, one in which their female stars would henceforward be paired with freaks--old men, foreign men, little boys--the refuse of the draft. This was a time when an actor like Albert Dekker, Orson Welles, Peter Lorre, Laird Cregar, George Sanders, could dreeam of Hollywood stardom; when super short actors like Alan Ladd were suddenly magnified; when gay actors who'd been declared unfit for military service could become huge box office draws, their heterosexuality reinscribed by press flacks; and older men found their stardom artificially extended by a decade or more (William Powell, Ronald Colman, guys like that.) A few remaining tall, handsome, young and heterosexual men remained employable--John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, becoming stars no little thanks to the vacuum around them. And they were talented too, of course.
And women moved behind the camera too, as editors, producers, writers: Joan Harrison, Catherine Tunney, Harriet Parsons, Virginia van Upp, Leigh Brackett. As BLACKOUT progresses towards the end of the war in 1945, we relive a strange moment in history in which Hollywood once again hardened itself for the invasion--the re-entry into their midst of all the returning vets, stars, writers, directors and miscellaneous personnel--who would put these trends on fast track and bring them outdoors.
Thorough, detailed, insightful and scholarly.......2006-09-14
"Blackout" is subtitled "World War II and the Origins of Film Noir," and Sheri Chinen Biesen, an assistant professor of radio, television and film studies at Rowan University, delivers the goods in this scholarly book. At the end of World War II, a large backlog of American films suddenly became available overseas. The French, seeing these films for the first time "all at once" instead of over a period of years, noticed a "dark" trend in them that had not been especially obvious to their American producers. French critics coined the term "film noir" to describe what they saw as virtually a new genre in filmmaking.
Films noir typically (but not exclusively) featured hard-boiled private detectives, alluring but deadly "femmes fatale," stories told in flashbacks, complex plots, unconventional camera angles and stark black-and-white photography. Many of them involved crimes gone wrong, double- and triple-crosses, murder and mayhem, and the nastier side of human relationships. "Blackout" shows how these characteristics arose from the political, social, cultural and material conditions that existed in America during World War II. For example, films noir are "dark" because: a) lights were in short supply, b) power was rationed, and c) the West Coast (where most films during the War were made) was blacked out nightly because of the fear of Japanese submarine attacks. Many film noir stories took place at night, because the Government prohibited daytime photography that could accidentally include defense installations--thus eliminating most of the favored movie-making locations in Southern California. Relationships between men, serving overseas in combat, and women, who now did many of the previously male-dominated jobs on the Home Front, changed during the War, and films noir could not help but reflect these changes.
One of the most fascinating aspects of film production in World War II was the interaction of the movie studios with the Production Code Administration (PCA). "Blackout" describes in detail how the PCA enthusiastically carried out its "responsibility" of censoring screenplays that the studios presented to it in order to obtain the important "seal of approval." For example, the PCA banned "excessive drinking...references to sex, suggestive dancing, [and] any condoning of divorce..." from the screenplay for "Phantom Lady." This is just one very minor example. One wonders not only how films made under the heavy hand of PCA censorship could be very good (which many are), but indeed how any meaningful films could possibly have been made at all.
"Blackout" covers the evolution of film noir trends in great depth. It focuses on genre classics such as "Double Indemnity," "This Gun For Hire," "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Murder, My Sweet" and "Laura," but it also covers many other films. The text is detailed, readable and thoroughly footnoted, although I did find it somewhat repetitive in parts. For example, the point about location filming restrictions is similarly made many times. "Blackout" may be heavy going in some places for readers with just a casual interest in the subject, but it is nevertheless an excellent primer on the development of a uniquely American film style.
A historical and theoretical study informed by careful primary research.......2005-12-10
This volume stands out as one of, if not the, best book in English on film noir, a movement previously largely defined mostly through stylistic analysis and psychoanalytic interpretation. It differs from traditional approaches, offering background which the other books fail to include. By relying on historical sources and context, Biesen indicates noir's rise with the social and most particularly production circumstances brought about by World War II. None of this has been treated before, in any detail, and many of her points are original (such as the impact of realism on film noir). Demonstrating how actual wartime life and daily constraints led to the genre will be one of the ways this book will be important for historians of all types for this era and its culture. The book is simultaneously accessible yet sophisticated, vital and engaging, and is written to attract the widest possible audience.
The primary research mines lodes of information too often overlooked in film studies, demonstrating the manner in which such sources as censorship and studio publicity may enhance a critical and theoretical examination. Biesen demonstrates a familiarity with the films and supporting documentation which are the source of the book's assertions. Unlike so many studies marked by excessive theoretical speculation and cursory historical research, this book combines a wide range of examples with a determination to remain rooted in the evidence they offer.
Biesen merges close interpretation of individual films, production history, censorship records, publicity, critical response, audience reception, the star system, industry history, and genre analysis. Most studies use only two or three of these possibilities, and the author is to be commended for the depth and breadth of research.
Endemic of this exhaustive research is the usage of reviews beyond Variety and the New York Times, the indexed, reprinted journals which are as far as most studies go--although neither offer representative reviews. Few scholars have mined such treasures as the film pressbooks, especially with such fruitful results.
So too, Biesen's arguments have been carefully thought through; for instance, I was pleased to see the connections between noir and the espionage genre made, similar genres whose relation is too often overlooked. The role of female executives in producing noir was surprising. The linkage between realism and noir was a brilliant insight, and a case convincingly made by the author, one which will profoundly change conceptions of the genre. The relevance of HUAC in ending noir was also enlightening.
I was relieved to see, too, that the author knows to interpret documents, not simply taking them at face value. For instance, noting when filmmakers blithely disregarded censorship instructions will change conceptions of the role of censors.
I strongly and without reservation recommend this book.
Outstanding. Highly Recommended. Excellent Book........2005-10-30
Outstanding. Highly Recommended. Excellent Book. A fascinating, engaging, innovative and original work. A fine account of film noir and 1940s Hollywood filmmaking, film censorship and propaganda, and wartime conditions in America's movie capital during World War II. Ample noir stories of Los Angeles, Raymond Chandler, Humphrey Bogart, James M. Cain, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Alan Ladd, Peter Lorre, Howard Hawks with hardboiled crime, venetian blinds, swirling cigarette smoke and smoldering seductive femme fatales like black widow Barbara Stanwyck, Veronica Lake and Rita Hayworth. A rich provocative study. Terrific and enjoyable read for film buffs, cineastes, film critics, movie fans, industry insiders, cultural historians, researchers and cinema scholars, and an insightful and compelling look at the unexplored history of film noir and wartime Hollywood in the 1940s. Biesen's Blackout is quite a find, a must-read book on film noir. Wonderful revelations and essential reading for lovers of film noir.
Customer Reviews:
Impressive review.......2004-02-16
This book deals with the origins of the revolutionary movement in Vietnam (1920-1930).
Although the topic is dry, this in-depth, well-referenced review of this complex problem makes it more interesting. It suggests that the Vietnamese revolution started with various nationalist groups before being displaced by the communists. The role of women is also acknowledged.
Studies by McHale also suggested similar conclusions.
This is an interesting book reserved for a selected group of people interested in the study of Vietnamese revolution. I have learned a lot from it although it took me my trials to grasp its significance and finish it.
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