Picture of author.

Correlli Barnett (1927–2022)

Author of Hitler's Generals

29 Works 1,479 Members 11 Reviews 2 Favorited

About the Author

Correlli Barnett is one of Britain's best-known historians. A Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and The Royal Historical Society, he was Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge and has written many acclaimed books. These include his first, The Desert show more Generals, which challenged the myth of Montgomery and El Alamein, biographies of Marlborough an Bonaparte, The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the second World War and The Pride and Fall Sequence: The Collapse of British Power. The Audit of War, The Verdict of Peace and the Lost Victory. show less

Series

Works by Correlli Barnett

Hitler's Generals (1989) — Editor — 306 copies
The Desert Generals (1960) 209 copies
Marlborough (1974) 98 copies
Bonaparte (1978) 89 copies
The Great War (1887) 76 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Members

Reviews

No navy in the world is better than the Royal Navy in getting a beaten army off a foreign shore.
 
Flagged
Top.Notch.Hill | Dec 20, 2019 |
This is a very readable book that shattered some of the myths of the North African desert war for me. I had heard of the criticisms of Viscount Montgomery but never the background. Barnett does his best to cover all Montgomery's weakness and strengths. In doing so, he attempts to rescue the contributions and reputations of some of the other military commanders who preceded Montgomery in the Desert Campaign.
He also has strong criticisms of Churchill's handling of the desert war and lays the defeat at Tobruk at Churchill's feet although Churchill blamed Auchinleck for it.
Barnett uses sources from both sides of the conflict to make his points and includes pages of documentation at the end of the volume for those who wish to pursue the issues further.
… (more)
 
Flagged
lamour | 2 other reviews | Mar 20, 2013 |
It's been, I'll admit, about half a century since I read this book, but it stands out in my memory as a splendid account of the campaign in North Africa, told from the points of view of the successive British commanders, from O'Connor through Montgomery. The problems of high command are well delineated. As I recall, Richard O'Connor and Claude Auchinleck receive very favorable notice, the other generals somewhat less, but the discussion as a whole seemed quite fair and balanced. While the progress of scholarship has no doubt rendered the book somewhat obsolete, there are probably many worse introductions to this portion of World War II.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
TomVeal | 2 other reviews | Jan 21, 2012 |
836 The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War, by Correlli Barnett (read 30 Jan 1966) I liked this book very much, but, regretfully, I did no post-reading note on my reading of it so now over 40 years later I cannot be more specific as to why I was so impressed by it. The author is the subject of an extensive article in Wikipedia, though the article does not say much about the book, but does describe it as "A study of Moltke, Jellicoe, Pétain and Ludendorff."
½
 
Flagged
Schmerguls | Aug 4, 2010 |

Lists

Awards

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Statistics

Works
29
Members
1,479
Popularity
#17,374
Rating
3.8
Reviews
11
ISBNs
97
Languages
8
Favorited
2

Charts & Graphs