Book Reviews

It is gratifying to note that the rich bibliography of publications on naval warfare and maritime operations continue to expand, offering the reading public...

Peter Badcock’s A War Artist's Diary celebrates in drawings and poetry the lives of the men and women, servicemen and civilians, who were caught...

A total of 1500 members of the SANDF have been deployed to Mozambique's volatile Cabo Delgado as part of a Southern African Development Community...

Chris Ryan is well-placed to tell the tale of the British Special Air Service (SAS), one of the world’s most revered special forces outfits....

The story of the legendary dambusters has inspired multiple books and a film, with most history buffs knowing a lot about Sir Barnes Wallis...

During the years prior to the first democratic elections, most foreign countries regarded South Africa to be a pariah state as a result of...

Any book about a controversial figure that is subtitled ‘The Legend’ ought to be treated with caution, but the story of ‘Mad Mike’ as...

Military historian Dr. Leopold Scholtz wrote Ratels on the Lomba to remember the National Servicemen of the then South African Defence Force (SADF)...

This is a memoir written in Afrikaans by Kobus de Villiers, a South African engineer who spent his working life on top...

Operation Relentless is the gripping story of the years-long effort to catch arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed ‘The Merchant of Death' and...

Hermanus-based Andrew Embleton's third book on SA Air Force (SAAF) training looks set to be a winner with the military flying fraternity. "Wings...

The interventions by the US and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan were on a massive scale and came close to failure....

"Apartheid Guns and Money - a tale of profit" is the latest addition to the stable of South African non-fiction providing much-needed...

This weighty tome is a definitive reference guide to firearms developed during the region's golden age of gunmaking. It took seventeen contributors...

Eeben Barlow is a name well-known to those who are practitioners of military arts and skills, especially in Africa. He has now taken...

The cyber domain has become central to the struggle for strategic advantage between the US and the West on the one hand,...

Professional soldier Koos Stadler has written a remarkable book chronicling his experiences as a special forces small reconnaissance team member operating behind...

Much about the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram is shrouded in mystery. Last week the President of Chad, Idriss Deby, claimed Boko...

Raising the Bar is Songezo Zibi's first book and seeks to provide a thorough, accurate analysis on the different issues preventing...

For soldiers in the First World War, sport was a way for them to escape the horrors of the battlefield or the...

Endgame is yet another addition to the growing number of titles exploring aspects of one of the seduction efforts that eventually led...

Endgame is yet another addition to the growing number of titles exploring aspects of one of the seduction efforts that eventually led...

From Addis to the Aosta Valley: A South African in the North African and Italian Campaigns 1940-1945, was originally titled "One of...

By his own admission Dean Wingrin is a military aviation junkie and his love of the subject has manifested itself in a...

This 40-page publication is a "must read" for everyone in uniform as well as those charged with decision-making in the South African...

The Rhodesian Light Infantry: Africa's Commandos, edited by Mark Adams and Chris Cocks, is an interesting work. Commissioned by the Rhodesian Light...

The fireforce concept of operations, used so successfully during the 1970s by the Rhodesian forces during the bush war, has been detailed...

At first glance Shadows of a Forgotten Past, with its action-filled cover image, glossy paper and large collection of colour and black-and-white...

The endorsements that garnish the front and rear covers of today's books are marketing techniques designed to elicit a heightened interest in...

Author Ivan Smith served with Lt Colonel "Mad Mike" Hoare's 5th Commando, technically part of the Armee Nationale Congolaise (ANC), the military...

A dry but rich account of time spent with the famous 32 Battalion. Marius Scheepers was a national service signals officer (9C)...

Well-known military writer Willem Steenkamp's latest book, Assegais, Drums and Dragoons, A Military and Social History of the Cape 1510-1806 is a...

Zambezi Valley Insurgency is Dr JRT Wood's latest look at the Rhodesian Bush War, this time focussing on the period April 1966...

Nearly all accounts of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, in English, to date, are one-sided South African accounts. Shubin and Tokarev's Bush...

Author Chris Ash asserts Victorian poet Rudyard Kipling wrote his signature poem, If, with Leander Starr Jameson, a man who feared nothing...

Shadow Commander follows in the wake of author Mike Guardia's first book, American Guerrilla, reviewed elsewhere on defenceWeb. Researching the former unearthed...

Co-issued with a British publisher, "Operation Dingo" is the first of the "Africa@War" series of which four titles have now been released:...

"France in Centrafrique" is the second in a new series on African conflict, "Africa@War", and concentrates on French misadventures in the Central...

"Battle for Cassinga" is the third in a new series on African conflict, "Africa@War", and examines South Africa's still-very controversial cross-border parachute...

"Selous Scouts" is the fourth in a new series on African conflict, "Africa@War" and unlike the other three volumes in the series...

From his earliest day in politics and literally to his last, Adolf Hitler never tired of talking about his experiences as a...

From his earliest day in politics and literally to his last, Adolf Hitler never tired of talking about his experiences as a...

In SuperFreakonomics authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner again take an unconventional view of the everyday. Indeed, the book is...

Anthony Beevor published his D-Day, the Battle for Normandy, in 2009, adding another popular work to an ever-growing literature on the subject....

In The Shadow World Andrew Feinstein, assisted by Paul Holden and Barnaby Pace, tries to portray the global defence industry as uniquely...

To mangle Clausewitz somewhat, the theory of war is simple, but the practice can be very hard. This also applies to counterinsurgency,...

Many consider German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (born von Lewinski) the greatest operational genius, if not the best strategist, of World...

As far as I can determine, there is not yet an English translation of Anderkant Cuito – 'n Reisverhaal van die Grensoorlog....

The Rhodesian security forces could muster some 1500 troops on any given day during the 1966-1980 "Bush War", confronting them with an...

There seems to be no end of excellent titles from the 30 degrees South publishing stable, and The search for Puma...