Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1910–1997)
Author of The Third World War
About the Author
Works by Sir John Winthrop Hackett
Associated Works
Providence Their Guide: A Personal Account of the Long Range Desert Group, 1940–1945 (1980) — Foreword — 41 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Hackett, Shan
Hackett, John - Birthdate
- 1910-11-05
- Date of death
- 1997-09-10
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- Education
- Central School of Art
Oxford University (New College) - Occupations
- soldier
Principal of King's College, London (1968-1975)
Commander, NATO Northern Army Group
Commander in Chief, British Army of the Rhine (1965-1966)
Deputy Chief of the General Staff (1963-1964)
General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Ireland Command (1961-1963) (show all 10)
Commandant, Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham (1958-1961)
commander, 4th Parachute Battalion, British Army (1944)
officer, 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars (1933)
British Army officer, Supplementary Reserve of Officers (1931) - Organizations
- British Army (career incl. WWII)
- Awards and honors
- Order of the Bath (Knight Grand Cross)
Order of the British Empire (Commander)
Distinguished Service Order (and Bar)
Military Cross
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 12
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 1,452
- Popularity
- #17,699
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 15
- ISBNs
- 62
- Languages
- 7
The authors personal political bias seeps through often, blaming liberals and trade unionists and "peaceniks" for a decline in military ability for NATO that almost costs them the war. They blame generational shifts for not having proper military officers ready to serve. The book reads like a thinly veiled Cold Warrior's appeal to ramp up defense budgets, relying on a severe misunderstanding of the actual aims and motivations of their adversary.
The speculative history (or for us now, alternate history) the authors create is quite intriguing to read. The authors weave a tale of international and domestic events that lead to the outbreak of war in August 1985 that while some of it quite implausible, does tend to follow its own logic if your accept the initial premise. I found myself really wanting to dive in more to the series of events they laid out, and found myself craving an old school History Channel documentary made about it.
The real reason the review is as low as it is, and why it took me almost a year to actually get through this book (reading 14 books in between starting and finishing it) is while its marketed as a thriller paperback, it reads most of the time like a very dry think tank report. The entire middle section of the book is dedicated to intricate discussions of force structure and armaments development. Chapter after chapter of the reshuffling of chains of command, civil defense development, replacement of aircraft models with new ones, etc. While this information is important to understanding the war, it is overly detailed here to a point it just serves to dissuade you from reading more. At least half of the info contained within could have been cut and summarized much more efficiently.
Unless you're a cold war military buff, there's not really enough redeeming here to really make this worth your time.… (more)