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Title: Marshal Zhukov by Albert Axell ISBN: 0-582-77233-8 Publisher: Longman Pub. Date: 02 June, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 1 (3 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: LARGELY DISAPPOINTING READING
Comment: The book brings very little new information about one of the best known Soviet general. It lacks archival research and impartiality in evaluating interview materials on which it largely based.
Also, criticism of an excellent Anthony Beevor's book "The Fall of Berlin 1945" is unjustified. Indeed, Beevor's book is what Axell's is not: a well researched historical study.
Rating: 1
Summary: Marshall Zhukov
Comment: Disjointed, incoherent, rarely deals with the subject at hand; namely Marshall Zhukov himself. This book lacks any sense of structure or direction. In short, one of the worst biographies that I have ever read.
Rating: 1
Summary: A very poor history of a very great man
Comment: I purchased this title, full of enthusiasm to learn about the great Russian general of World War 2. Unfortunately I found Axell's treatment of the subject to be poorly researched, poorly written, poorly laid out and worst of all, partisan.
Regarding the author's groundwork the evidence relied on in the book is awful. He quotes liberally from Zhukov's own memoires, often in lieu of any other material, and when he doesn't he instead produces the most flimsy support for his arguments from his conversations with other academics and Zhukov's daughters. In both cases the reader usually hears nothing other than opinion, generally given by a supporter of Zhukov and often on a topic which they couldn't have known about (for example Zhukov's daughters speaking about the military tactics formulated and used when they were children). Although there are primary sources referred to, the spartan list of footnotes at the end of each chapter is the clearest display of research bordering on amateur.
Axell also makes repeated attacks on arguments made by Anthony Beevor in his book 'The Road to Berlin', where Beevor claims that the Red Army was responsible for a huge number of rapes and other atrocities on German territory. Axell attempts to refute Beevor's claims, but instead of countering with primary source evidence to the contrary he presents yet again the 'opinions' of Russian academics with a few anecdotal examples of Zhukov's meetings with Berliners. Whether Zhukov could have prevented the wrong doings alleged by Beevor is debateable, however not only does Axell fail to point this out, he contents himself with a simplistic mantra that boils down to the following: 'No matter what the Russians did they were never as evil as the Germans because the Germans had concentration camps and the Russians didn't'.
Worst of all, a good proportion of the book is wasted on topics that either had little to do with Zhukov or are so widely known that only a first-time reader of history could be intrigued by the details. Examples include the location of Hitler's corpse, and the fate of Beria (in which Zhukov, not being a politician, had only an incidental role).
Axell's writing style is inexcusably bad, and the book could have been improved with some elementary editing. Worse than that, Axell is repititive, constantly bringing up either the same jarring phrases or the same details in new chapters. Armies taking 'big losses' is perhaps the most irritating, and the most frequent.
Even the layout of the book is a travesty. When Axell concludes the chronological span of Zhukov's life, which he does two-thirds of the way through the book, he introduces topical chapters whose contents are only a rehash of what has gone before. Zhukov and Stalin, Zhukov and Eisenhower, Wifes and Daughters etc. Even whole dialogues are repeated, including an exchange between Zhukov and Stalin where the General offered to step down, given full length in two seperate chapters.
In short this is the worst biography that I have ever read. The only thing I have taken from it is the urge to purchase a copy of Zhukov's own autobiography and rid myself of the confusion of Axell's attempt.
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Title: Stalin: An Unknown Portrait by Miklos Kun, Eotvaos Lorand University Budapest ISBN: 9639241199 Publisher: Central European University Press Pub. Date: 05 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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Title: Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles by Georgii Konstantinovich Zhukov, David M. Glantz, Georgi K. Zhukov, Harrison Evans Salisbury ISBN: 0815410980 Publisher: Cooper Square Press Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda by JOHN KEEGAN ISBN: 0375400532 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: The Unknown Stalin by Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev, Zhores Medvedev, Ellen Dahrendorf, Roy Medvedev, The Overlook Press ISBN: 1585675024 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 05 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Stalin : The Court of the Red Tsar by SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE ISBN: 1400042305 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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