In this eighth year of our Top Ten awards, visitors to Stone & Stone's Second World War Books website have over the last two months nominated and voted for hundreds of the best nonfiction WWII-related titles published in 2003.
As usual, some broad patterns emerged. First, this was a very strong year for books about the Russian Front. Second, although they traditionally don't do so well in the standings, two books about the war against Japan cracked the Top Ten (and a third, Genda's Blade, came close). Third, as usual, books about seapower didn't fare too well. Fourth, going against the trend of recent years, the winners had a bit less of a "mainstream" look about them, meaning more books from smaller, specialized publishers were highly regarded in 2003.
More specifically, the prolific David Glantz placed a book in the Top Ten as he does almost every year. Judging by the number of inquiries we received about the eligibility of his August Storm books (we reluctantly disallowed them because they were really revised editions of older titles), Col. Glantz might well have seen two more of his works in the Top Ten. Another familiar winner was University Press of Kansas, which also seems to have at least one book at the top of the list every year. J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing of Canada, which also performs very well in the polls every year, finished with two award winners for 2003.
Interestingly, several books published in Australia, the UK, and Canada respectively but not yet readily available in the US acquitted themselves very well, showing, we think, the global nature of the Top Ten voting. There was also one late arrival, Kurowski's Battleground Italy, which was rapidly climbing through the standings in the last week or two of voting.
As to the campaign itself, the voting in 2003 took an entirely different path than the previous year. In 2002, books bounced in and out of the Top Ten during the entire race. This year, the early leaders mostly held the top spots until the end of the balloting. Even so, at least a half dozen books finished just out of the money. As we say every year—and it was certainly true again this time—it was a well-conducted campaign with many worthy contenders.
Balloting was halted at the stroke of the New Year (California time) and tabulation of votes is now complete. Here are the Top Ten Books of 2003 as selected by visitors to these webpages, in alphabetical order by author:
Bradley, James. Flyboys: A True Story of Courage. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2003
Glantz, David and Harold S. Orenstein (editors). The Battle for the Ukraine: The Korsun - Shevchenkovskii Operation. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003
Husemann, Friedrich. In Good Faith: The History of the 4. SS-Polizei-Panzer-Grenadier-Division, volume 1: 1939-1943. Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc, 2003
Keegan, John. Intelligence in War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
Kurowski, Franz. Operation Zitadelle, July 1943: The Decisive Battle of World War II. Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc, 2003
Le Tissier, Tony. Death Was Our Companion: The Final Days of the Third Reich. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2003
Newton, Steven H. (editor). Kursk: The German View. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003
Prien, Jochen and Gerhard Stemmer. Jagdgeschwader 3 Udet in World War II: II./JG 3 in Action with the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 2003
Rossino, Alexander B. Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003
Webster, Donovan. The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China - Burma - India Theater in World War II. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003
Our warm congratulations and thanks go out to the authors, editors, publishers, and booksellers who brought us these Top Ten titles of 2003, as well as all the other great new books that arrived last year to enrich and enliven the body of Second World War literature.
Thanks also to all the visitors to Stone & Stone's Second World War Books website who helped select these winners and made 2003 such a great year for us.
Now let's start searching for the best new books of 2004!
Previous winners
Top Ten Books of 1996
Top Ten Books of 1997
Top Ten Books of 1998
Top Ten Books of 1999
Top Ten Books of 2000
Top Ten Books of 2001
Top Ten Books of 2002
A note on methodology
This was the eighth year of our Top Ten and the seventh year with our online "voting machine." As anyone who has been on the Net for any length of time knows, this kind of Web-based voting can be subject to the worst kind of electronic ballot-stuffing spam, so we took great pains to write "Jimmy Carter" algorithms for the voting machine program to ensure a clean election. Because previous years proved such measures were necessary, we expanded and refined the system again this year.
Although it might not have been immediately evident, in addition to counting votes, the voting machine was also carefully monitoring the election. Visitors could vote as often as they wanted, but no more than ten total votes per visitor were actually tallied; excess votes from a visitor were quietly ignored. Likewise, a visitor could only vote once for a given title. (And, as always, it was clear that many spam-voters failed to realize their excess votes were not being counted.) The system was able to detect and disallow many kinds of fraudulent voting patterns automatically; meanwhile, everything else was forwarded to the "voting commission" for review, and if necessary, manual adjustment.
Unfortunately, these precautions proved necessary again this year in the face of some particularly blatant and persistent spamming. Some folks apparently take the Top Ten very, very seriously, because it's always amazing to see how many people seem determined to unfairly influence the outcome of the voting for their own purposes. But we're equally determined not to permit that kind of abuse to ruin the fun for everyone else. Sooner or later, perhaps, these single-minded scam artists will realize their abusive tactics simply don't pay off. Despite the unsavory efforts of a few thoughtless folks, all the ballot-stuffing spam votes were disallowed and we're confident we conducted a certifiably clean, fair election.
