ISBN 0-89141-695-1
1033 pages

Preface; Acknowledgments; photos; Bibliography; Index

   Ambrose Bierce once said of another thick tome, "The covers of this book are too far apart," and some readers will feel the same way about this one, although the covers could have been even farther apart.
   Gerald Astor explains in his Preface how he once told someone that

   I intended to write a book covering the battles fought by Americans during World War II...[and the friend responded]..."How many pages are you projecting, 5,000 or squeeze it into 3,000?"

   Astor ended up shoehorning his coverage of Americans in combat into a relatively meager thousand pages, and that in itself, Ambrose Bierce aside, must be considered something of an accomplishment, especially given the gargantuan task Astor set for himself. He portrays all the fighting services in every theater of American involvement during nearly four years of war.
   In attempting to "present a sense of what the American fighting man...experienced," a large proportion of the book comprises oral histories from men who were there, but the author goes far beyond merely offering the memories of fighting men. Instead of simply introducing each veteran and framing his reminiscences with remarks to put the account into context, Astor has written his own history of the war sufficient in size to stand on its own as a separate book. Thus, The Greatest War attempts simultaneously to offer an overview of the global war, to provide an account of every American battle, to present the words and perspectives of the fighting men themselves in all those battles, and to stitch everything together with brief personal histories and backgrounds for the vets he quotes. Otherwise, Astor tends not to offer many of his own opinions and conclusions, instead quoting other writers and historians.
   From Pearl Harbor to the atomic bombs, and in countless air, land, and sea battles in between, The Greatest War strives time after time to put readers in the middle of the action. The chapter on Pearl Harbor, for example, is told largely in the words of survivors of the Day of Infamy.
   And the vets' stories are the strongest part of the book. However, interesting as they may be, they sometimes leave the reader wondering how accurate those tales really are. While Astor occasionally interjects a disclaimer, most often he allows the stories to stand on their own without critical comment.

   Having written six books on World War II, I am well aware that eye-witness accounts or oral histories have their weaknesses due to faulty memories, skewed perspectives, and the common human resort to self service. On the other hand, these same difficulties also afflict official reports....
   I expect there will be some who will dispute an individual's version of some events in this book, but I believe that by relying on as many sources and veterans as I have the essential truth of the experiences is correct.

   While Astor's argument is not without merit, it fails to take into account the role of the historian in sorting through the fading recollections, the narrow perspectives, and the conflicting evidence. And without that kind of historical scholarship, The Greatest War fails to become more than a string of war stories punctuated by bland rehashings in Astor's words of well-known events.
   Astor's own historical narrative suffers partly from trying to cram so much into the book and partly from his inability or unwillingness to offer much in the way of fresh information or insights. In the re-telling of the Patton slapping incidents, for example, Astor for the most part re-plows old ground and tosses in Carlo D'Este's not especially flattering remarks concerning Omar Bradley -- "somewhat narrow-minded and utterly intolerant of failure" -- without adding much in the way of his own thoughts and analysis.
   In addition, this admixture of oral history and factual narrative doesn't always imbue Astor's own narrative with a solid feeling of historical accuracy. That's not to say Astor himself has committed any overt factual errors, but, because he seems to have for the most part abandoned any pretense of vouching for what the veterans say, it proves too easy to wonder about the depth of scholarship that has gone into creating the book. When Astor quotes PFC Harry Herder who tells a story that he heard from another GI, Sergeant Adrian Blowers, who doesn't say where he heard it, about Ilse Koch and her lampshades made from human skin, the author never pauses to interject the words of an objective historian. Similarly, the reader is generally left on his own to distinguish in the oral histories between what the veterans actually saw and experienced themselves, as opposed to what they only "heard" or "found out." The fine line between memory and hearsay is often smudged.
   That won't matter for readers who enjoy hearing the old-timers' tales and accepting them at face value, and The Greatest War certainly offers a full measure of those tales, so the book will be considered a tremendous success in that regard.
   For readers who expect to find a little more measured veracity in such a thick book by such a well-known author, the results can be less satisfactory. The balance of the narrative and its focus seem sometimes to be weighted by the availability of personal accounts rather than the decisiveness of the engagement.
   This is an ambitious book, but it's also an example of why more is not necessarily better. Had Astor chopped out much of his own accounts of the campaigns and offered just enough to frame the words and memories of the veterans, and perhaps a little more in the way of critical commentary of some of those words and memories, the book, although substantially shorter, might have proved more satisfying to more readers.
   As it stands now, it can be recommended only to readers who are most interested in war stories about the American experience of World War II.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Presidio Press.
   Thanks to Presidio for providing this review copy.