Terry Brighton

Just finishing this up. I thought it was an excellent examination of the different styles of these 3 war leaders- I knew the basic stories of each but this delved into the probably mindsets of the men, and tried to postulate the possible reasons for actions. Interesting how completely different personalities can end up leading wars... clearly arrogance is one of the common denominators of all the men in this book. It also shows how these personalities don't really think about "people" but, rather, reputations and self-serving actions - kinda disgusting actually, but I suppose necessary for leading men.… (mais)

A skillfully written comparative biography of three egotists who, between them, were responsible for the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of their own troops. For students of psychopathology, this book provides illustrative case studies of the differences between a sociopath, a psychopath and a psychotic. All three were megalomaniacs, of course; but each took different paths into the thickets of more serious personality disturbance. The fact that each was lionized in his own country is all the proof anyone needs of the fundamental insanity of war, an organized activity in which only the most demented can rise to positions of distinction. That our societies readily adopt this enterprise as a paradigm for structuring other corporate endeavors (business, education, "sport", among others), makes a powerful case for the concept of original sin.… (mais)

A comparative biography of Rommel, Montgomery, and Patton, although it might have been better titled Montgomery and two other guys, since Montgomery, by far gets the most coverage. It is an interesting choice to include all three, there are some similarities between Patton and Rommel, but Montgomery is very different. I do not know much about the three subjects of the book, other then what I know from watching Patton, so the book was quite interesting, however I do have a concern regarding it. Early in the book, Brighton attempts to make a connection between the three generals using Clausewitz’s Principles of War. He states that all three read it while in their respective military academies in the early 1900s, as it was the primary text for officer cadets. However, I am pretty sure Principles of War wasn’t translated into English until the 1940s. Perhaps he was intending to refer to Clausewitz’s On War, although that book would be unsuitable for officer cadets and it is unlikely that any service academies would be using it as the primary text. Furthermore, Brighton describes an incident in which Patton was on his honeymoon in London, bought a copy of Principles of War, and then ignored his new wife while reading it. This does not make much sense if he had just finished using it as the “primary text” while at West Point. This makes me question the rest of the book, what other errors are there that I don’t know enough to see?

There was a review of this book in a relatively recent issue of the JMH. I waited until I finished the book and this review before reading it. It mentions the same issues I had regarding Clausewitz and ends with this quote, “This is a book that will result in a much distorted picture for the general reader, and extremely frustrating reading for the more knowledgeable reader.”… (mais)