Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

Don't think there's much to worry about - do any of you guys do WWI stuff too?
Over the Front, Cross and Cockades, Windsock and other journals are still cranking out new stuff regularly. (See Albatros' 2-parter on Jasta 5-stunning!) Is there even a dedicated WWII-aviation journal? (other than the LW Verband)

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

Albatros is always great, looks like I've got another expensive must have on my list with that Jaste 5 work!

But look at the Luftwaffe books that were published the last 10 or so years!

Look at books like Ullmann's and the new Merricks, I mean how many years did we have to wait in between?

Doesn't feel like WW2 is drying up to me.

Prien and his team is putting out an unprecedented line of books, which together with previous unit histories are about as good as it gets, all this last decade or so.

Should we look at trends of a year or so, or decades instead?

I've started "serious" collecting some 8-10 years ago, I haven't seen any worrying trends other than supply outlasting my ability to keep up. Of course there is the matter of quality versus quality, but hasn't that always been the case?

Really good technical books come in decades, not years.

Look at the benchmark (imho) D.520 by Danel & Cuny, or Spitfire by Morgan & Shacklady, and indeed more recent MB-152, by Joanne and Me262 by Smith & Creek.

Quality takes time.

I agree with Richard though, a book will always have a strong sense of permanence, which electronic media utterly lack. However as people change, so will that feeling.

We still buy our CDs, most kids however skip that and download their music (legally), without needing that sense of "physical" ownership a CD (or record) gives.

OTOH, I just love reading a book in bed (if I am not otherwise occupied :rolleyes: ).

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

Dear Tony,

I appreciate the information on POD. In reading the authors' section of Authors OnLine, it looks like they really aren't much into photographs. In a nuts and bolts book, photographs and drawings, plus their proper layout, would be paramount. I do see that, for an additional fee for the effort, more than the standard 12 photos can be added, but at £35/hr. for the service, that could become prohibitive. On top of that, I still don't know whether these guys are any good at layout. An option offered is to submit the book already formatted with photos, meaning a new career for me in learning how to format a book for publishing. Frankly, I'd prefer to spend my time in research and writing, rather than taking on a new career. On top of that, I think I have a certificate stuck in my closet somewhere that says "Retired".

But, in case I really wanted to become masochistic, just how good a print job do these guys do compared to the regular press, say on a lower end scale being the S&C Me 262 set (sorry about that guys, but it was a weakness with this fine work) to Crowood's Hawker Hurricane: Inside and Out, by Melvyn Hiscock, perhaps one of the finest examples of printing out there?

The concept of publishing on demand does sound appealing, and it has the distinct plus of being able to update the book at will. Of course, it will and maybe currently does drive a buyer nuts, not knowing if his book is obsolete, he having issue 3 and someone issue 5 printed a month later. I can hear the groans coming from the Library of Congress now...

Regards,
Richard

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

edit ... on re-reading this ... YIKES! 1000 apologies for resurrecting an old thread ... I hadn't appreciated it wasn't current ... was searching for something else and got interested in this topic LOL

What a great topic. And no, I'm not a historian, well not a professional one anyway, but may I comment? As noted in various posts above, the early post-war publications, the likes of Brickhill on Bader and any number of other reminiscences, were coloured by the vagaries of memory and the needs of various parties to maintain certain fronts or positions. A worthwhile discussion on this took place on the Key Publishing (FlyPast) forum few months ago addressing the question of revisionism in history. It was a remarkably cogent and balanced discussion.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52333

IMHO for what it's worth, there is validity in later historians revisiting the source data of past events and endeavouring to present them in a neutral context. Of course we always present our findings or opinions with some bias or other (consider the massive debates of feminism and "political correctness") but that said I believe there is much to be gained from stripping away wartime and immediate post-war propaganda.

As to whether there's a market, I believe that there will be, but the medium may shift from the book and the written word to more interactive and visual forms. Look at the changing face of museums (embracing inter-active media) as a guide.

One then has to wonder how long the interest (in a given past event) remains. I assume it's a balance between connectedness (eg. family involvement) and the sheer importance or impact of the event. WWII still has both in spades. Today. And is there still interest in WWI? Yes. But how long is the tail?

Don

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

Speaking for myself - I don't care about the financial aspects.

I will re-do Angels, Bulldogs and Dragons simply because a.) I made errors 20 years ago and b.) I have a lot more material and I know a lot more about sources and verification, and c.) forums like this one exist to enable detailed cross reference checking between Luftwaffe and 355th FG encounters.

At the end of the day all I care about is some future historian having confidence that I got it right (at least 99%) and that the memories of the guys that fought and died are remembered.

Regards,

Bill Marshall

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

I remember while writing a book in 1994 that "the word" in the publishing business was that after the 50th anniversary in '95, WW II topics would drop off. Of course, that has not happened, and I don't recall many authors who believed it. Consider the enormous number of Civil War books still published every year, many with original research.

We're not even close to the end of WW II history, and if the quantity is declining, the quality at least is being maintained.

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

There is still much to explore and resolve. The surface has been well scratched, but hardly penetrated.

My only concern is that as more emphasis in time is placed on primary documents (due both to ease of availability and new archival finds), and less on first hand accounts, there is the increased risk of historians writing about the War, and drawing conclusions, from the point of view of hindsight. It happens to a small degree now, and is likely to grow with time.

Battles, whether they be land, sea or air, are as oft confusing and bewildering to generals as much as the frontline man. Faulty or incomplete intelligence, poorly trained or equipped troops, inferior aircraft or tactics, weather, logistics, the list is limitless; all cloud and confuse the issue.

First hand accounts are by their very nature incomplete, incorrect and almost always misleading. But they capture the flavour of the airfight, land battle. They provide an immediacy and intimacy that primary documents can't have.

The best studies are those that combine the first-hand recollections with the reports that describe what actually happened. It's the best, most suitable, marriage of fact and percieved fact.

Sadly with the passing of the 'greatest' generation those first hand accounts are now reaching a finite level.

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

Surely 'hindsight' is not the concern. Writing history by definition is to benefit from hindsight.

The concern, surely, is the increasing prevalence of anachronism.

For example in films; the GIs in 'Saving Private Ryan' behave like the potsmoking generation in Vietnam. In the film 'Atonement', a Lancaster flies overhead in 1935, while an infantry soldier kicks off his army boots and arrives in Dunkirk without his rifle. None of these could happen.

Anachronism occurs when historians fail to appreciate the values, knowledge and thinking of WWII participants. Reading their history is like watching Bing Crosby and Rhonda Fleming in a 'Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur.'

Tony

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

It's literature! Don't you think the Lancaster represented a premonition of war (and, as such, a recognisable symbol for UK audiences, which I doubt that a Whitley would have been)?

With 300,000+ on the beaches, I suspect that soldiers arrived there in all kinds of states of dress and equipment. Who can say for sure?

More to the point is a character's reference to the loss of the Lancastria which didn't happen at Dunkirk and not until after that operation had closed.

What the hell, it was a really good film.

Re: What's the future of WW2 historical writing?
 

Well I didn't like it, Nick. Too contrived, and the inaccuracies got to me.
I went because of McEwan's reputation for writing literature based on literal accuracy achieved through thorough research. See: http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/...957845,00.html .
In McEwan's words;
"The writer of a historical novel may resent his dependence on the written record, on memoirs and eyewitness accounts, in other words on other writers, but there is no escape: Dunkirk or a wartime hospital can be novelistically realised, but they cannot be re-invented. I was particularly fascinated by the telling detail, or the visually rich episode that projected unspoken emotion. In the Dunkirk histories I found an account of a French cavalry officer walking down a line of horses, shooting each one in turn through the head. The idea was to prevent anything useful falling into the hands of the advancing Germans. Strangely, and for exactly the same reason, near Dunkirk beach, a padre helped by a few soldiers burned a pile of King James bibles. I included my father's story of the near-lynching of an RAF clerk, blamed by furious soldiers for the lack of air support during the retreat. Though I placed my imagined characters in front of these scenes, it was enormously important to me that they actually happened."
"As with the Dunkirk section, I drew on the scenes she (Lucilla Andrews) described. Again, it was important to me that these events actually occurred."
The Lancaster was not seen until two years after the main characters were dead in 1942. British infantrymen throughout WWII were in love with their boots and their rifles; none would be seen dead without them. They also stood up when the National Anthem was played. These are facts.
Everybody has their pet hated anachronism; I just read about someone who looks out for steel helmets worn before 1916.
Knightley and McAvoy affected the clipped tones of the period. The film tried hard. The anachronisms were inexcusable.
Tony