For many years Osprey Publishing has been releasing books in its Campaign series—"Strategies, tactics and battle experiences of opposing armies"—with more than 140 volumes published to date or currently in the works. Earlier this year Greenwood Press undertook a major program to reprint a large number of the Campaign volumes as the Praeger Illustrated Military History Series. Greenwood released more than two dozen WWII-related Campaign titles all at once as part of the new program, and they were kind enough to send samples in this direction.
   Physically, the reprinted titles measure the same as the originals at ten inches tall by seven and a half inches wide. The binding has been upgraded to hardcover, but the original full-color cover art for each volume has been replaced with black-and-white photos. The new covers also seem to be color-coded, with olive-green for Normandy and the western front during 1944-1945, blue for Pacific titles, and dark-green for others. At the time of this writing, the softcover Osprey versions run $19 while Greenwood charges $35 for the same titles in hardcover. (It's also worth noting, by the way, that some of these volumes have been available in slightly modified editions via the Military Book Club.)
   The original volumes mostly follow a standard pattern: one-page table of contents, a chapter on origins of the battle or campaign, biographical sketches of the opposing commanders, comparison of the opposing armies (with fairly detailed orders of battle), the opposing plans, the actual operations, aftermath of the battle, a chronology of key events, and a guide to further reading. Some include a section on "The Battlefield Today" and some add an index. The earlier volumes mostly include a chapter about wargaming the battle. All the volumes are fully illustrated with photos, colorful maps, drawings, and paintings of battlefield scenes. These have proved to be very popular and successful titles, and few readers of military books can be completely unfamiliar with the look and feel of the Campaign series.
   In reprinting the volumes, the Praeger series retains the same format, although in a least a few cases there are some minor differences between the original and the reprint. Here's a comparison of the two versions of the Bagration volume:

Osprey	Praeger
Origins of the Battle, page 7	Origins of the Battle, page 7
Opposing Commanders, page 14	Opposing Commanders, page 14
Opposing Armies, page 22	Opposing Armies, page 22
Opposing Plans, page 35	Opposing Plans, page 35
Operation Bagration, page 42	Operation Bagration, page 42
Aftermath, page 84	Aftermath, page 84
Chronology, page 86	Chronology, page 86
Wargaming Operation Bagration, page 89	A Guide to Further Reading, page 89
A Guide to Further Reading, page 95	Wargaming Operation Bagration, page 91
---	Index, page 95

   The only real difference is that the sequence of the "Wargaming" section and the "Further Reading" section has been reversed, and the "Wargaming" section has been changed to a smaller font size (without losing any text) to create some extra space and allow a brief (page and a half) index to be added to the very end of the new edition.
   For the most part, however, the new volumes seem to be word-for-word reprints of the originals.
   Is that good or bad?
   Given the wide distribution of the Osprey books, most readers have probably already made up their minds about the series. One school of thought holds that the books consistently squeeze out extraneous material and distill the most important aspects of a campaign into a concise, accurate, visually pleasing, and easy-to-understand package, especially suitable as introductions to the subject. Another school of thought believes the brief, cookie-cutter approach forces authors to leave out too much information and distorts the relative importance of the remaining elements. Both theories get it partly right, but the crux of the matter is not the series as a whole, but rather the individual volumes within the series.
   The WWII volumes reprinted by Praeger were written by a variety of authors with differing abilities. Some, such as Steve Zaloga, can be relied upon to turn in quality work under almost any conditions. One or two other authors seem not to perform so well in this context. Equally important to the success of each individual volume is the suitability of the battle or campaign to be adequately covered in under one hundred pages of text and illustrations. On the weaker side, France 1940 is simply too brief, too general, and too derivative to be of much value to anyone but the newest newbies. Even the "Guide to Further Reading" in this case is terribly weak at a mere nine uninspired titles. On the other hand, Jon Latimer takes a much narrower subject in Operation Compass 1940 and performs a very thorough job of explicating a much less familiar campaign, so it's fair to say his could be the best book on this topic.
   Outside of Operation Compass 1940, most of the titles cover fairly well-known actions varying in duration from a single day to six months or more. Although certainly outside of Praeger's control, it would be nice to see the Campaign series emphasize lesser-known battles of relatively short duration (or at least of low intensity over a longer duration). Operations of that nature, especially those which have so far had less than an entire shelf of full-length treatments, would fit very nicely into the mold. For example, it seems like this series would be the perfect vehicle for books about the Allied invasions of Madagascar, the Levant, Iraq, and Iran.
   On the positive side, the visual aspects have always been a strength of this series, and all the existing volumes utilize excellent maps and good photos. On the other hand, we're not big fans of the dramatic paintings of battle scenes or the drawings of tanks, aircraft, and soldiers, but we realize that opinion puts us in a minority.
   More importantly, the structure of the books means they all have introductory sections on opposing forces and opposing commanders, which in turn means some of the material can be very repetitive from title to title. For example, how many volumes contain descriptions and illustrations of Stukas?
   Despite those kinds of limitations, most of these books have something to offer just about every reader, especially at the introductory level but not excluding enthusiasts already familiar with the specific topic. No, D-Day 1944: Omaha Beach will never replace Joe Balkoski's Omaha Beach, Kursk 1943 will never replace David Glantz's The Battle of Kursk, and Guadalcanal 1942 will never replace Richard Frank's Guadalcanal. Nevertheless, most of the titles reprinted by Praeger are individually worthwhile, and in sum comprise a very extensive and satisfactory library.

Reviewed 28 March 2004
Copyright © 2004 by Bill Stone
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Stone & Stone