Books like Berlin in the Balance — picked by fans

Milton does an exceptional job of tracing the origins of the Berlin crisis that culminated in a Soviet blockade of the 2.2 million German civilians living in the Western Sectors of Berlin.

The book starts with a look at Allied decisions and actions during the Second World War and describes how these influenced and shaped the post-war period. It does a particularly outstanding job of portraying life in occupied Berlin with rare granularity and neutrality. The result is a work that highlights Western hubris, failings, and mistakes as much as Soviet arrogance, deceit, and cruelty.

The book’s strength is explaining the build-up to the crisis (three-quarters of the book) rather than the confrontation itself. I recommend it as a good book to start with.

Although The Berlin Airlift devotes time and space to the political background of the crisis, the bulk of the book is devoted to explaining how the West and the Berliners effectively responded to the Soviet blockade.

It shows both the difficulties encountered, the risks involved, and how the West’s efforts ultimately forced the Soviets to abandon their aggression unconditionally. Importantly, this book does not neglect the role played by the Berliners themselves in fighting for their freedom from Soviet domination.

This is a rare book on the Berlin Airlift written by an airman for airmen and is about the massive logistical undertaking that the Airlift represented rather than the political crisis that led to it, the negotiations to end it, the impact on the people of Berlin or the balance of power in Europe that resulted.

It is organized around topics such as “organization and operations,” “bases,” “men and machines,” “air traffic control” and so on. It provides a wealth of statistics in 10 appendices that include the units employed, the casualties, the monthly tonnages, and individual aircraft performances. It is a treasure trove of useful details for an author (like me) who wants to depict the Airlift realistically. 

Nothing epitomizes the striking success of the Berlin Airlift more than the true story of the so-called “candy bomber.”

This was a USAF pilot who on his own initiative started dropping candy tied to handcrafted mini-parachutes out of his transport plane to give the children of Berlin a little sweetness in their otherwise bleak lives. His gesture more than any transformed the “terror bombers”—responsible for so much of Berlin’s destruction—into friends in the eyes of the Berliners.

This book is an autobiographical account by the candy bomber himself, Lt. Gail Halvorsen. It is written with candid clarity and heartwarming charm. A gem!

If Jonathan Schell’s Fate of the Earth examined the scientific, ecological, and social impacts of nuclear war, Robert Scheer’s With Enough Shovels is a direct inquiry into the Reagan Administration about their initial thoughts on the subject. Those thoughts, frankly, are frightening. As the title implicates, then-Deputy Under Secretary of Defense T.J. Jones literally suggested that surviving thermonuclear war was easy: “Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet of dirt on top…it’s the dirt that does it…if there are enough shovels to go around, everybody’s going to make it.” Comments by Reagan, Vice President Bush, Defense Secretary Weinberger, and an increasing contingent of “Neo-Conservatives” writing in journals such as Commentary echoed these sentiments. In part, Scheer’s book began a long process of the Reagan Administration scaling back their bravado and recognizing the real dangers of the atomic age. 

Jacobsen’s terrifying account of how rapidly global nuclear destruction can happen is why I’ve already recommended it to many colleagues and friends. It reminded me of Jonathon Schell’s The Fate of the Earth that was one of the factors in my decision to join the Bethlehem Peace Pilgrimage.

By describing the interlocking U.S. launch detection, command and control, and delivery systems, Nuclear War provides readers with a realistic series of events that demonstrate the dangers of maintaining nuclear arsenals. Even though I have read scores of books regarding nuclear weapons over the last 45 years, this book gave me new insights and renewed my sense of urgency to achieve a world without these destructive weapons.

Plokhy is a renowned Ukrainian-American historian who makes no secret of where his sympathies lie. His partisan, pro-Ukraine narrative of the war and its origins is vigorous and informative.

Of particular value is his highly illuminating account of the triangular relationship between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States in the run-up to the war.

There are a great many books written on the Soviet-German conflict. In this volume, Fritz makes the most of all the recent research and his familiarity with Hitler’s military career, to create a vibrant narrative of the largest conflict in World War II. What makes this account different is Fritz’s ability to weave together the story of the campaigns and the murderous, genocidal strategies pursued by the German invader. Hitler waged two wars, against the Red Army and against the Jews. Fritz charts their twin course, making greater sense of the nature of a savage and merciless war.

This is one of the only discussions of the evolution of Confederate strategy in the east, and for that reason alone it should be read.

Unfortunately, it focuses too much on Lee and does not broaden the perspective beyond Virginia and Maryland. Harsh also makes the key mistake of denying the importance of accomplishing political goals to General Lee in Maryland. In this sense, his perspective is too narrow.

In fact, Harsh misses entirely the direct relationship between the Maryland and Kentucky Campaigns, both of which Davis decided to launch after a conference at the Executive Mansion on July 13, 1862.

Despite these failings, Harsh provides a lot of ground-level details on the Confederate effort in Maryland that are useful to enthusiasts and specialists.

Nothing is more American than making war in other countries, and Phil Klay’s collection of essays investigates that line between those Americans who fight in our current wars and those who get to stay home and eventually forget that there’s even a war taking place somewhere. Klay knows about what he writes. He’s a former marine who was stationed in Iraq, and while not seeing combat himself, he did see firsthand the complex relationship between occupied and occupier. Upon his return home, he was plunged into an even more surreal place: a country that had long since stopped paying attention. Bonus reading: Klay’s National Book Award-winning short story collection, Redeployment, where you can see how fiction becomes transmuted into nonfiction and vice versa.