Review: The Greatest War History - The 900 Days

 https://www.amazon.com/900-Days-Seige-Leningrad/dp/B001P4GWZM

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper & Row Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 1, 1968 Print length ‏ : ‎ 635 pages

Salisbury gave us a monumental work of history: not just in scope, but in depth. This is a book which entwines the epic story with the human story, basing both on the kind of scholarship too few writers are dedicated enough to accomplish. I wrote a well-received history on the early satellites (The First Space Race, Texas A&M, 2004) which I was proud of, but I can't resist the feeling that Salisbury did as much research for every chapter as I did for an entire book.

As always with a well-written history, there are lessons which are important for our own times. The most striking example comes at the beginning of the book, where the reader learns the German invasion of Russia was anything but the complete surprise Russan leaders claimed it was. The German preparations were too large to hide, and all kinds of intelligence, even exact dates, made it into the briefings given to the Russian leadership. But Stalin had his own view of the way things were, and anything to the contrary was ignored or disparaged. The Russians were also victimized by a system in which initiative was dangerous: military and civilian officials who read the tea leaves and tried to take some preparatory action on their own were slapped down. Salisbury shows us, in sometimes-agonizing detail, how these factors resulted in what may have been the most brutal, dehumanizing, and costly battle in history. You will never forget the heroism on the front lines and in the day-to-day survival of Russians. The story of a woman who starved herself of her once slice of bread to give it to her dog, to give him a few hours of happiness before he was put down to keep him from starving to death, will never leave your mind. Nor will the artists and musicians who kept up the city's cultural life under the worst of circumstances, or the countless people who sacrificed for loved ones and strangers. Salisbury estimates 1.4 million Russians died in the siege, a number the Soviets strove to diminish to make it look like the defense was more organized and ready and the city better supplied than it actually was.

This last is an important item for historians and readers of history. The author documents the ways the Soviets edited their history even as it was unfolding, and rewrote it shortly after the war. Marshal Zhukov, a towering figure in Soviet military history, had some failures among his efforts at Leningrad, so his part was edited down in official histories until he was barely there. Heroes who were not politically correct saw their roles erased as well (and sometimes their existence).

I agree with some other reviewers that more maps and photographs would be useful, but that's a minor quibble.

This book is a breathtaking achievement.