When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler by David M.

Glantz; Jonathan House

Review by: Eliot A. Cohen
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1996), p. 141
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047605 .
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 Recent Books
When Titans Clashed:How theRed Army
Hitler, by david m. glantz
Stopped
and Jonathan house. Lawrence:

University Press of Kansas, 1995, 414

pp. $29.95.
It is difficult to write a readable opera
tional account of the eastern front of
World War II. The scale of the cam

paigns, the bewildering array of forces,

and the sheer vastness of the suffering
make it difficult to comprehend. Until
recently, moreover, the Soviet history
was distorted uses.
by contemporary
This major advance will supplant John
two massive on the the fundamental trends and
Ericksons volumes lay audience
war in the east, The Road to Stalingrad problems in the development of this vital
and The Road to Berlin, as the standard component of military power. Working
reference for nonspecialists.
book Glantz, with a prolific and skilled cowriter, the
one of the foremost scholars on the east a Canadian officer, has
primary author,
ern front, and House describe with re deleted some technical material and placed
markable concision how the Soviets de this development in awider context of mil
feated theirNazi opponents not merely by itary history. Although
more
accessible and
mass and sacrifice, but through skill and broader in scope than the original version,
at the
higher levels, the revision has been stripped of most of
cunning. Particularly
the Red Army was operationally sophisti the diagrams and sketch maps that made

cated, not merely its seemingly arcane military detail com

large and determined.
a
prehensible. The first edition did better
On Infantry, revised edition, by JOHN A.
job of explaining the significance of tech
ENGLISH AND BRUCE I. GUDMUNDS nical matters. Nonetheless, the book re
SON. 1994, 216 pp. mains an introduction.
Westport: Praeger, indispensable
$65.00 (paper, $18.95).
Underlying warfare on land, and perhaps
warfare in general, is infantry combat?
The United States
the combination of movement and fire by
DAVID C. HENDRICKSON
which armies take and hold ground. Ig
or disdained
nored by students of strategy,
the literature of battlefield tactics and orga to American
Talking Strangers: Improving
nization ismore and, at its best, atHome and Abroad, by
important Diplomacy
far more readable than generalists MONTEAGLE STEARNS. Princeton:
might
think. Originally published 15years ago, Princeton University Press, 1996, 201
this substantially revised book conveys to a pp. $24.95.

To order any book reviewed or advertised inForeign Affairs, fax 203-966-4329.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS May/June 1996 U41]

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