A German and Soviet Visit to Poland - 1939

Forczyk, Robert.  Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939.  Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing,
         2019.  ISBN: 9781472834959

 How much of a buff are you on World War II?  Can you quote the minutia of tank, ship and plane statistics?  Do you know which country had the 4th largest army in Europe in 1939?  Can you describe the opening battles of World War II?  Evening if you can do all that, you still can learn a lot from Robert Forczyk's Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939.

Robert Forczyk provides a revisionist history of the standard story of the Polish invasion by diving into Polish history and telling the story from the Polish viewpoint as much as possible.  He spends the first four chapters on laying the groundwork of the formation of the 2nd Polish Republic, its enemies, its preparation for survival, its arms race with its neighbors, and the bad hand it was dealt by the Western Allies.  Then comes the war.  And this is not the brief tale of German victories over hapless Poles.  Rather this is a tale of inept leadership, bad planning, lack of support, and that was just on the German side!  The Poles fought hard, but also suffered from inept leadership, lack of resources, lack of support from the West, and the dagger stuck in their back by the Soviet Union.

So if you are looking for a scholarly, readable study of the 1939 Polish Campaign replete with notes, maps, and bibliography that has a strong viewpoint, Case White could be that book!

Scandals! Juicy Scandals!

MacNabb, Matt.  Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals.  Yorkshire, Great Britain: Pen
          and Sword History, 2019.  ISBN: 978-1-52674-074-8

Do you enjoy movies?  Do you read People or Entertainment Weekly or similar stories on the web?  Do you enjoy learning the stories of the "real" people who appear larger than life on the silver screen?  And the most important question - do you want to know secrets Hollywood would rather not acknowledge?  If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, then this book may be for you!

Matt MacNabb in thirteen short chapters and an introduction provides a flashlight on the dark history of thirteen actors and actresses.  In each chapter, the reader gets a brief synopsis of the actor/actress's early life and then NacNabb dives into the various scandals that marks their career, and then finishes with another brief synopsis of the rest of their life and if they have a star.  The book opens with Evelyn Nesbit and closes with Clara Bow.  The chapters in between cover Jean Harlow, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Thelma Todd, Mae West, Lana Turner, William Desmond Taylor, Barbara LaMarr, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand.

Hollywood's Dark History is a scandal snack book.  The book has a brief bibliography of sources and a few photos, but does not really dig into the scandals.  So if you are looking for a quick read to bring you up to speed on some of the more famous scandals of early Hollywood history, this title would be a decent starting place.

Comic Book Propaganda!

Goodnow, Trischa, and James J. Kimble, ed.  The 10 Cent War: Comic Books, Propaganda, and 
          World War II.  Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2016.  ISBN: 978-1-4968-1030-4

During the lead up to World War II, comic books were a growing phenomenon.  In the United States, many comic book artists considered their mission not just to entertain, but also to influence the public and later to support the war effort.  In The 10 Cent War, Goodnow and Kimble bring together a number of essays that dive into the variety of intersections between comic books and propaganda during WWII.

The opening essay considers how women were portrayed in the military and elsewhere in the war effort.  The next essay looks at comics portraying the Flying Tigers and Chinese allies. The Boy Commandos and various super-hero sidekicks such as Bucky are examined in separate essays.  Superman is considered as an allegory for isolationist/interventionist United States with Lois Lane as Europe.  Captain America and Wonder Woman each merit their own essay.  Then there is True Comic - using non-fiction as counter propaganda!  Finally there are a quartet of essays  looking at ordinary kids doing their bit for the war.

Propaganda during World War II and comic books is an interesting combination.  The 10 Cent War provides a diverse and decent set of essays that explore numerous facets of this topic.