Synopses & Reviews
A challenging reassessment of the military history of World War II
The great myth of the First World War was that defense was all-powerful. In the inter war years, a new myth appeared -- that the new technology of the airplane and the tank would result in rapid and massive breakthroughs on the battlefield, with the enemy being destroyed in weeks.
John Mosier shows how Hitler, Rommel, von Manstein, Montgomery, and Patton were all equally seduced by the breakthrough myth, or blitzkrieg, as the decisive way to victory. He shows how the Polish campaign in the autumn of 1939 and the fall of France in the spring of 1940 were not blitzkrieg victories. He also reinterprets Rommel's North African campaigns, D day, the Normandy campaign, and Hitler's last desperate breakthrough effort to Antwerp in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, among others. All these actions saw the clash of breakthrough theories with the realities of conventional military tactics. The Blitzkrieg Myth is a compelling and original rethinking of the strategy and tactics of World War II by the author of the highly praised The Myth of the Great War.
Synopsis
A challenging new appraisal of World War II military tactics and strategy.
About the Author
John Mosier is the author of The Myth of the Great War. He is full professor of English at Loyola University in New Orleans, where, as chair of the English Department and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, he taught primarily European literature and film. His background as a military historian dates from his role in developing an interdisciplinary curriculum for the study of the two world wars, a program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 1989 to 1992 he edited the New Orleans Review. He lives in Jefferson, Louisiana.