Collectable Books On the Shelf
Desmond Young’s 1950 biography on Rommel has been described as a book written by the “trade union of generals”, but it’s still worth a read
One major difference between recent books about World War Two and those written in its immediate aftermath is their writers' sources. Recent books rely on an overview of documents, books and interviews with veterans by people who may not have been involved in the described events. In many cases, books written in the immediate post-war period were written by senior officers who were much older and had direct experience of their subjects. This gives the two generations of books an entirely different perspective.
Desmond Young's biography of Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (1891- 1944) is irrefutable proof of this. Its author – actually Brigadier Desmond Young OBE, MC (1891-1966) – personally knew most of the Allied officers named and briefly met Rommel as a prisoner of war. That said, it is also written through the eyes of a person that many won't relate to, that of an Oxford-educated officer class, so it reads a bit like a posh bloke in the pub telling a story after a couple of G&Ts.
After unexpectedly finding a 1950 first edition …
