Product Description

The reputation of Alan Moorehead as the greatest war correspondent of WWII

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1261051 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 654 pages

Review
In 1944 Moorehead collected into this omnibus volume, now happily reprinted, the three books he had constructed out of his life in wartime North Africa as war correspondent for the Daily Express: Mediterranean Front, A Year of Battle and The End in Africa. They give a magically clear picture of what the desert battlefield looked like at the time to the fighting soldier. All our views about strategy have altered since, with revelations about how much the high command knew of the enemy through decipher; yet Moorehead, a leading man in his field, keep all the advantages that belong to a first-hand witness. This is journalism so good that it became instant history. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Alan Moorehead was an Australian who came to London as a journalist in his mid-twenties in 1926. He worked for the Daily Express before turning, after the war, to full time writing books, and contributing to the New Yorker. He was awarded the OBE in 1946, the CBE in 1968. He died in 1983.

Customer Reviews

Reportage at its very best
No matter how much you think you know about the North Africa campaign, this book will definitely tell you something new. Moorehead had a uniquely privileged view of the campaign, alternately living with the troops in the field, enduring much hardship and horror, and hobnobbing with the top brass of the general staff. Not only do you get an intimate feel for the chaos and cameraderie of the battlefield, you also get a penetrating analysis of the strategic planning that lay behind the whole grand pageant. Moorehead has a fantastic eye for detail, powers of description that border on the poetic, and a superb breadth of historical knowledge - he illuminates events and places in the present with little details from the past that put the whole battle-scarred landscape into a magnificently broad perspective. Best of all, because he is a good journalist and an Australian by birth, he brings a coolly dispassionate eye to his subject that makes you trust every word he writes. His nutshell descriptions of the differing characteristics of each nation's fighting men are masterpieces of concision and incision. Why the hell is such a good book out of print?!