The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson

The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944

It was not my intention to inaugurate my return with a book review on World War II.  However, it happened to be the first book I finished among the four I am currently juggling and I could not wait any longer to get back to writing.

There are two aspects of World War II I find particularly fascinating.  The first is how so much continues to be written about it.   Atkinson's book is the second in a dense trilogy he has composed over the last ten years.  Is there new material coming to light that was not known before?  Atkinson makes good use of many of the U.S. commanders' personal diaries.  However, I do not believe that these diaries were not available or referenced before.

Instead, the main reason is because there continues to be a large audience of readers interested in this subject.  World War II remains one of the greatest representations of U.S. supremacy and it therefore appeals to a broad readership who find great satisfaction and pride in its outcome.

I brought this argument up to a friend of mine who studies U.S. history.  What he described to me about the U.S. historical narrative proved very interesting.  Roughly speaking, the historical academics divide into two camps.  One is based on a cohesive, all-encompassing narrative that justifiably  declares all groups in society have a right to have "their" history shared.  These include includes the more marginalized in American history including women, Native Americans, and immigrants.  The historian, Howard Zinn, comes to mind as the flag bearer for this camp.

The second camp holds the belief of a history based on victory and success.  How can a country establish hegemony if it reflects too much on its occasional failures?  It is better to glorify its greatness in continual forms of declaration than wallow over a few mistakes made throughout its past.  A solidly constructed history based on achievement will withstand the tests of time.  

The second aspect of World War II I find intriguing is the role geography played throughout its course.  I am particularly drawn to Italian topography.  It is hard to not be fascinated by the battle of Cassino when you have looked up at its daunting rock face where the famous monastery sits.  The battles waged in the difficult Italian Apennines mountains, including Cassino, receive particular attention in this book.  Too many lives were lost in a terrain strikingly different than the softer images of the Italian land that generally would come to mind.

Another conclusion drawn from what is a thoroughly well-written and researched text, is the role logistics and military scale played in shifting the war in favor of the allies.  Other popular works such as Band of Brothers, often describe the more exciting and heroic individual battles fought by the infantry.  Their prominence makes it easy to forget how war may even be more about boring, efficient supply chains than anything else.  As Atkinson describes, the level of production of munitions, trucks, and airplanes by the U.S. come 1944 began to greatly surpass the German manufacturing machine.


The decision to invade Italy still remains a controversial one.  The Allied losses were significant in its campaigns to push up from Sicily to Rome.  And they did so based on a strategy whose foundation was set on the idea that any attack in Italy would shift German troops and resources away from France thus making the invasion at Normandy a less challenging feet.   A dear price to pay.

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Separati in Patria (Seperated within the same Country) by Giovanni Floris

Giovanni Floris, a journalist by trade, hosts one of the best weekly programs on Italian television. The format of Ballarò is just varied enough not to bore the viewer. The majority of the transmission is centered around five or six guests, made up mostly of politicians but also professors, business leaders, and journalists arguing with each other in typical Italian fashion. It is Floris' role to weave together the questions, responses and debates into something cohesive. He does a fine job. There are interludes in the arguing in the form of 5-10 minute investigative journalism pieces put together from various locations in Italy.

Seeing how Floris often has little occasion to state his own opinions, I was curious to read his recently published book on one of the most significant issues affecting Italy, the enormous economic differences between the north and south of the country. The subject is of personal interest to me for several reasons, one being that a large part of my undergraduate thesis was dedicated to the Southern Italy's economic difficulties. And like most things in Italy, it is not an easy matter to unwind due to the economic, sociological and historic factors all at play. The largest failure of Floris' book is that he touches on each of these fields but fails to sufficiently address any of them.

The first part of the book looks at the socioeconomic statistical differences between northern and central Italy compared to the South. For starters, removing Southern Italy, the GDP per capita of the country would be higher than Germany, UK, France or Spain. The vast majority of business leaders and politicians at the national level come from the North. Residents in the North read more books than those South and supposedly speak more Italian and less local dialect - though I missed any figures supporting this claim. It appeared to me that his main thesis was built on the belief that the differences between the regions of Italy are strictly economic and less cultural as many people are likely to believe.

One example which proved to be most interesting in supporting his central thesis was the favorable benefits five autonomous regions - regione a statuto speciale (Sicilia, Sardegna, Valle d'Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) received, i.e. money. While the island regions of Sicilia and Sardegna are part of the south, the remaining three are located in the north. These three regions receive more money from the state than they delve out in taxes. Other northern regions instead are left fitting the bill, receiving or spending much less than what they generate in tax revenues and seeing enormous amounts of capital flow south as well to these smaller, northern regions. It was not clear to me Floris' position on the matter. Certainly their are cultural idiosyncrasies in these special regions, for example the majority of residents in Trentino-Alto Adige speak German as their mother tongue. However, Italy in itself is made up of very local cultural entities. Is Floris claiming that these regions play up the cultural distinctiveness in order to protect the economic benefits they receive? Though the example was a fascinating one, I missed his message.

Another point Floris touches on, though briefly, is that the northern regions are in a geographically favorable position as they are much closer to other, rich, European markets. Though Floris did not mention it, it is important to see how on the other hand many parts of Southern Italy are closer in distance to countries such as Croatia, Tunisia, Albania, and Libya - not exactly enormous consumers of foreign goods and services - than they are to Milan.

What was lacking was a discussion on more of the geographic and climatic aspects present that greatly favor the north. If only Floris had seen my thesis paper! The land in the north is much more fertile compared to the south. Anyone who has seen The Passion of Christ (filmed in Matera) or remembers the scenes of a young Al Pacino in The Godfather walking through the arid country side, can recognize it to be a difficult place to grow stuff. Also, it is simply more difficult to work in hot weather.

These points are not meant to serve as excuses for southern Italy's inability to improve its condition. All indicators for me see the situation deteriorating. The infrastructure is far below average European levels. Investing in the region is risky (and costly) which makes the decision to put a new factory in Croatia as opposed to Puglia a more sensible decision. This same argument also loosely applies to tourism, an area which should be one of the foundations of the the southern Italian economy. However, without a clearly defined strategy for this industry most parts of the south are left in a dangerous middle position. Unable to compete on cost with other sunny destinations such as Egypt or Turkey and lacking the infrastructure to support a more high class type of tourist, an area with incredible food, beaches and people sees the majority of tourism from other European countries go elsewhere.

As the length of this post continues to grow, it becomes apparent the difficulty an author has when writing about such a broad subject. Focus too much on one field and you find yourself in a silo ignoring other equally important factors. Attempt to touch on all of them and leave the reader with more questions than answers as interesting arguments are raised only to be quickly hurried through to get at the long list yet to be addressed. Floris chose the second approach and was not successful in putting together a well-structured and well-argued book.

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Se Questo è un Uomo (If This is a Man) by Primo Levi

Primo Levi was an Italian Jew who fought against the fascists during the second the World War. He was captured at the age of twenty five and sent to Auschwitz for one year from 1944-1945. Educated as a chemist, he went on to write what is probably the most highly regarded account by an Italian of life in the concentration camps. He went on to become a successful journalist until his suicide in 1987, 42 years after having survived Auschwitz. After having read his simple and honest recount it becomes more understandable how such an experience cannot be forgotten in one lifetime. The memories still haunted him four decades later.

My own childhood education gave a fair amount of attention to World War II and in particular to the stories of Holocaust survivors. However, it had been fifteen years since I had read a personal account of this nature. It is important for all of us to do for the simple reason that it reminds us how fortunate we are.

It is my impression that pop culture with its happy endings, perfectly manufactured characters, and material excess often has the reverse effect than that which is intended. I often hear the justification to be how people need something light, easy, and happy that allows them to relax after a stressful day. Therefore, watching your standard formula Hollywood film or flipping through Maxim are accepted means for overcoming the difficulties of the day-to-day grind. But what often is happens is that society is instead presented with a reality that does not exist and worse yet, leaves them desiring something unattainable. You cannot have rock hard abs in just six weeks.

A book of this nature, instead, pulls at such a vast range of emotions. One cannot read it without feeling a reoccurring sadness and anger. Yet, for me, the positive aspects were greater. I understood the true strength of the human spirit - capable of overcoming the unimaginable. I was able to see how true individualism without the help of others does not exist. It was impossible to survive a lager without the partnership of at least one other person.

On a more superficial level, the winter at its coldest is something I will no longer be able to complain about when I have a warm down coat and a heated house. Winter for those in a concentration camp meant working 12 hour days in wooden shoes, a cotton shirt and a canvas jacket with temperatures at -20 degree.

Stories such as this allow us to better content ourselves with what we have instead of subliminally pointing out our physical imperfections or small bank account. Finding this self-contentment is a truly relaxing experience which is more likely to be found in a difficult book than in season four of Desperate Housewives.

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Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan

The title of this book refers to the six month period after World War I, when all the countries involved in the war, and many who were not, descended on Paris to negotiate the peace treaty, later to be known as the Treaty of Versailles. The three central figures shown on the book cover were Woodrow Wilson (USA), Lloyd George (UK), and Clemenceau (France). Vittorio Orlando (Italy) rounded out the "Big Four" but he and his country acted more like the little, whiny stepbrother that the older brother and his two buddies had to invite to along in order to play 2 on 2. These three central characters had an enormous task, which was bound not to succeed 100% due to the endless numbers of variables involved in the negotiation.

The three themes most present in the negotiations were borders, ethnicity and reparations, with the first two often being related. What became clearer while reading this book is how before the Great War the modern day definition of borders did not exist. This was mainly a result of colonization outside Europe and the size of the Austria-Hungarian Empire (AHE) inside of it. After the fall of the AHE, Europe found itself with certain ethnic groups scattered throughout the continent who before had lived under the umbrella of the empire. Such examples included Germans in Romania and Italians in Croatia. Defining the borders and determining where these ethic groups should live was an impossible task, especially in Yugoslavia. The repercussions were still being witnessed in the Balkan War 80 years after.

How to handle the reparations was the other critical issue to be resolved during the six months in Paris namely by determining how much money Germany needed to pay the UK and France. Demand too much and the German economy would become crippled, too little and they would rise to power again too quickly. The overarching question was how the Big Four, through reparations and new border alignments could ensure Germany became strong but not dominant. History confirms that an outright answer in 1919 was not readily available.

The majority of the chapters in Paris 1919 are written about each individual country involved in the negotiations. The sections on Greece and Turkey were particularly fascinating. Others, such as the tension in China and Japan, seemed out of place. I say this because the reader is led to believe that the majority of the focus will be centered around the three main figures (just look at the cover) and how they would negotiate with Germany. I was left without a true feeling of what was driving these three individuals. Equally, the sections on Germany were not much more in depth than those on the rise of Ataturk in Turkey. The conclusion focused entirely on Germany, while the book was truly international in its scope. This is understandable considering the events which would follow twenty years later. However, the "German question" did not come across as the outright, central theme of the book as the conclusion leads the reader to believe.

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The Catholic Church by Hans Küng

This book, by the professor of Theology at Tübingen University in southern Germany, is a short history explaining the developments of the Church through time. The Church in this definition refers to the Roman Catholic one, who, as this short history explains, has seen its power and influence in the world wither away over the 1500 year mainly as a result of its own doing.

The Roman Catholic Church is one of the finest representations of rigid hierarchy present today. Decisions come from the top down with little significance given to the input and opinions of its large following at the bottom. The Church created numerous layers of organization from priest to bishop, cardinal and beyond. The effects of this were that Catholics always had a local messenger of God, the priest, who was available and willing to pardon people for their sins. The rise of Luther in the early 16th century called for a direct connection between believers and God. Too many mid-level managers. The repurcussions of this split between the Catholic and what would become the Protestant Church had enormous cultural effects and still today greatly define the differences between Northern and Southern Europe.

The frustrating aspect of the Church is that there were several key points in history in which the setting was ideal for a new direction to be taken. However, each time the conservative option that would preserve the hierarchical power structure was always taken.

In all this it is easy to forget about one important figure - Jesus! The Church and the pope, who is suppose to be the voice of Jesus on Earth, constantly distant themselves from this humble and peaceful figure by refusing to ask one simple question: Is this what Jesus would have wanted for his Church? One of the few positive trends in the current Catholic religion is that there is a very strong grassroots, community-oriented, church at the local level. The members of this church (non-capital "C") are much closer to the embodiment of what Jesus was and what he would have wanted. These people are running soup kitchens in parish basements, gathering clothing during the winter months for the poor, and teaching immigrants the local language for better integration. It sure seems a far cry away from a Pope who dresses himself in silk, gold and jewels at every public event he is present at.

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Impuniti by Antonello Caporale

The title of this book translates to "Unpunished: Story of a incapable, wasteful, and happy system ". Caporale is writing about the political system in Italy. This book has not been translated into English and I doubt that it will be. I have spent a large part of my mental efforts over the last seven years in attempting to understand modern Italian history. If I had wisely dedicated my intellectual resources to the forces of good instead, who knows what I may have accomplished - perhaps there would now be nuclear fusion test station in my basement.

When writing about Italy the most difficult task is being able to do so in under 3000 words. I am greatly fascinated by the post WWII history of Italy and will certainly (attempt to) write about it more in the future. To briefly summarize the political and economic situation in Italy right now, it is a near disaster. You can forget about the rolling Tuscan hills and barolo wines if you attempt to unravel this political ball of yarn.

Caporale is a journalist for La Reppublica, a left-leaning major newspaper in the country. In this book he travels the peninsula exposing how numerous politicians have managed to waste billions of Euros mainly on large-scale infrastructure projects that were never realized. However, more important than these countless examples of politicians abusing their power at the expense of the Italian taxpayer, is the fact that these same politicians are rarely held accountable in court; are never forced to look into a camera and say "I made a mistake"; and are not turned on by their peers.

This lack of accountability is the theme that runs through this book and which represents the missing element in the modern political system. Italy can no longer hide in the shadows of the rest of Europe because they now are part of Europe. This means that the country will be held to the same standards as other European Union members. The vast majority of national and local governments are more than capable of improperly managing vast sums of money. I have no problem there. But heads have to roll every now and then to at least strike a little fear into the heart of the politicians. And this happens in modern democracies, not including Il bel paese.

The fact that a member of parliament in Italy is the highest paid in all of Europe while the average Italian wages are among the lowest speaks for itself. Politicians are concerned about preserving their caste. It does not matter if they are from the left or right. This "caste" has become the talk of the country over the last year since a book with the same title was written by Gian Antonio Stella. Caporale's book is an offspring of Stella's. The question is for how long can you talk without action? And here is the core of the problem, these politicians are capable of outlasting the talk because the action, mainly judicial, simply takes too long. They know that they will not have to face the fire because the average Italian can only be appalled by the amount of inefficiency and waste a certain number of times before they simply tune it out. I know because I am quickly reaching that level and I am not even Italian - nor do I live in the country!

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