An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa
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Product Description
In the first volume of a remarkable trilogy, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is an epic tale of courage and calamity, of miscalculation and enduring triumph. An Army at Dawn starts on the eve of Operation TORCH, the daring amphibious invasion of Morocco and Algeria. After three days of hard fighting against the French, American and British troops push deeper into North Africa.
But the confidence gained after several early victories soon wanes; casualties mount rapidly; battle plans prove ineffectual, and hope for a quick and decisive victory evaporates. The Allies learn that they are woefully unprepared to fight and win this war. North Africa becomes a proving ground: it is here that American officers learn how to lead, here that soldiers learn how to despise, here that an entire army learns what it will take to vanquish a formidable enemy. Many fantastic battle captains emerged in North Africa, including Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and Montgomery. Atkinson brings these commanders vividly to life. He takes us to the front lines of every major battle — from Oran to Kasserine to Tunis. In North Africa, the Allied coalition came into its own, the enemy forever lost the initiative, and the United States — for the first time — started to act like a fantastic power.
Atkinson casts a clear eye on the dark tragedies that haunt every war. The first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, An Army At Dawn is history of the highest order — brilliantly researched, rich with new material and surprising insights, the deeply human tale of a monumental battle for the future of civilization.Amazon.com Review
In An Army at Dawn,, a comprehensive look at the 1942-1943 Allied invasion of North Africa, leader Rick Atkinson posits that the battle was, along with the battles of Stalingrad and Midway, where the “Axis … forever lost the initiative” and the “fable of 3rd Reich invincibility was dissolved.” Additionally, it forestalled a premature and potentially disastrous cross-channel invasion of France and served as a grueling “hard ground” for an as-yet inexperienced American army. Finally, by relegating Fantastic Britain to what Atkinson calls the status of “junior partner” in the war effort, North Africa marked the beginning of American geopolitical hegemony. Although his prose is occasionally overwrought, Atkinson’s account is a superior one, an agile, well-informed mix of informed strategic overview and intimate battlefield-and-barracks anecdotes. (Tobacco-starved soldiers took to smoking cigarettes made of toilet paper and eucalyptus leaves.) Especially appealing are Atkinson’s straightforward accounts of the many “feuds, tiffs and spats” among British and American commanders, politicians, and strategists and his honest assessments of their–and their soldiers’–performance and behavior, for better and for worse. This is an engrossing, extremely accessible account of a grim and too-regularly overlooked military battle. –H. O’Billovich
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My fault with this book is not the over indulgence in detail, but the lack of serious criticism of US. Some reviewers reflect Atkinson went too far, I don’t reflect he went far enough. Clark killed more Americans than did the Germans yet Atkinson doesn’t chat about his disastrous role in the Italian fiasco and tell that back to Africa.
He doesn’t discus how the British demanded Ike fire him ( as did the Texas Nat’l Guard) and Ike refused.
He doesn’t chat about how Ike’s only combat mandate , ever, prior to or in WW2 was when he attacked defenseless US veterans in the Bonus Army.
Ike was a horrible choice. Clark and Adm King were disasters. Roosevelt knew nothing of war and was a terrible war time President.
This book doesn’t clarify any of that.If it wasn’t for the Russians we would all be language German.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
In his enthusiastic comments about this book, Gen. Wesley Clark – perhaps the next American president, who knows ? – proclaims that Mr. Atkinson’s work will become a classic in military history. Sorry to say, it might also set a new record for yet an additional spectacle of the abyssal ignorance of elementary European history plaguing some American writers.
I was appalled that this otherwise very pleasant book should be disgraced by an incredibly sloppy passage at pages 100 – 101. Mr. Atkinson writes the following: “At Sidi Ferruch, where in 1830 a French army had claimed Algeria for Napoleon II, the garrison capitulated in minutes” (emphasis supplied).
Of course, even the most indolent pupils of European schools know that Napoleon II (also known as the Duke of Reichstadt because, disgraced son of Bonaparte that he was, he died in effect an Austrian hostage in 1832), besides being nineteen years ancient at the time, never set foot on Algerian soil. Algeria was conquered under king Charles X. The job was finished under king Louis Philippe I. Twenty years later, Napoleon the third, (after 1849), turned Algeria into a “French” territory, which it remained until independence in 1962.
How would Mr. Atkinson review a European history book describing Abraham Lincoln as the commander of the Confederate army ? Or Harry Truman as a Republican opponent of teddy bear Roosevelt ? This is exactly what he did. What a pity and what a bring shame on.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This is military history at its worst since this book is nothing more than a unrelated collection of fleeting tales. The leader never fully discusses American doctrine, stragedy, or the Darlan controversory.Nor is the German,French,and British perspectives of the American army written about in this overly romantic book about the North African battle. As a replacement for Atkinson only writes about personal histories that are probably hackneyed from additional well loved histories. If you are a serious student of the Second World War this book will surely disappoint.The people that awarded this book the Pulitizer Prize should be ashamed of themselves!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Outstanding account of invasion of North Africa 1943. Well researched and written with an engrossing style. I have bought additional Atkinson books and they are all outstading past narratives written in a manner that one can sense both the overall stratgic as well as human war experinces.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
An Army At Dawn is a fantastic WW II read. Very factual and entertaining. Probably because I have only two years of college, I spent more time looking up words used by Rick Atkinson…words he used simply to impress readers with the fact that he used to be a managing editor at The Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize winner. I’m sure while he was managing editor he would never have permitted a reporter to use the words he uses in this book; words no one has ever heard of.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5