Personally I think Mr Uhler is mixing matters to make his article more interesting. How can you bring up cold war issues on "Ivan" by the US when we are talking about WW2 period in the article really. We definitely know that after WW2 both sides said rather nasty things about each other for "some reason". And that has nothing to do with WW2 facts. Also he slams the book because no such book on the US troops is made (??).

I read the book and considered it rather good and telling of the feelings and life of men at the front. And who says it shatters "the myth of Ivan"?? I can only see MR Uhler say that, BTW, so why does the site print his article? Looks like shooting yourself in your own foot to me.

Comments on the book elsewhere:

http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers.com...ookKey=1536066

"Unprecedented in its approach, Catherine Merridale’s research into the lives of Red Army soldiers combined with her perception makes this a most fascinating and important work.”
—Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

“Merridale’s new book is excellent. This unique, strikingly original account of the Red Army in World War II is a first-rate social history
as well as an important military study, and a stellar example of the combination of oral history with standard archival research. It makes the
soldiers of the Red Army come alive.”

—Stanley Payne, Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison


Ivan’s War is a marvelous book. All of Catherine Merridale’s virtues are on display: remarkable research (based in this case on literally hundreds of interviews with survivors and witnesses); a clear, unpretentious style that belies the complexity of her material; comfortable historical command of a dauntingly large theme; and a rare compassion and empathy for her subjects.
—Tony Judt, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

“This is an inventively researched and evocatively written study of the Soviet soldier on the blood-ridden Eastern Front. Using freshly available archival materials, as well as sparkling interviews with a vanishing generation of veterans, Merridale has provided an empathetic and realistic portrait of the men and women who, more than any other combat soldiers, brought down the Third Reich.”

—Norman M. Naimark , author of The Russians in Germany and Fires of Hatred

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Just one question: Why did Stalin make the pact in Aug 1939 with Hitler? If anything this piece of paper unleashed WW2 into full flames! A pact against Hitler would have guaranteed that Hitler could never have started the war!


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