Resources please.

There are so many facets of WWII it's hard to know where to even begin...which theater, which side, which focus, etc, etc.

Last year I read a really good biography on Eisenhower - Ike: An American Hero by Michael Korda. I also really liked Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers. I personally prefer it to the more well-known Band of Brothers. For a general history, The Second World War by John Keegan is a pretty good place to start.

From a strategic perspective, Bevin Alexander's How Hitler Could Have Won WWII is a fascinating read. It's kind of scary to think how close the Nazis came to winning. Fortunately for the world they made a lot of terrible decisions from 1940-43 and basically shot themselves in the foot.

I also used to be an avid model builder, and can attest to the absurd wealth of information available on the machinery of the time.

But the thing about WWII is that there are literally thousands of fantastic sources...and it gets really hard to recommend anything without some direction.

i have found some good online resources.

Any specific area of interest?

WW2 People's War on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/

An archive of wartime memories, searchable by topic, time, location, event, etc.

pdr I don't have any on the War, but I found a couple lately that I just love; I had a quick browse if you had these but sorry if I duplicate.

http://www.victorianlondon.org

This map of London 1818 has been invaluable

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/1818map/1818map.htm

Dickens Map -which I have been using to help locate landmarks on the much large map above

http://charlesdickenspage.com/dickens_london_map.html

Links to Other Useful Bibliographies of Women's Writing/Eighteenth-Century Writing - has some crits of the books also.

http://locutus.ucr.edu/~cathy/womw.html

You probably have gutenberg - but there are no resources specifically for Australia so here are some should others being looking for some excellent Australian text - there are hundreds more but these ones are great for capturing Australia in various time periods.

ALL the listed books below are available from gutenber.

http://gutenberg.net.au/

Direct link to authors

http://gutenberg.net.au/pgaus.html#letterM

Gilbert H LAWSON - A Dictionary of Australian Words And Terms 1924
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600101.txt


Tom COLLINS (Joseph FURPHY) - This one is great as it captures the way we talk and a sense of time and charachters in that period - a bit hard to read though because of the dialict in it.

Such as Life
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks/e00020.txt

Philip Edward MUSKETT
(?-1909)
The Art of Living in Australia (first published in 1893)

Although this work fully deals with all the many matters connected with the art of living in Australia, its principal object is the attempt to bring about some improvement in the extraordinary food-habits at present in vogue. For years past the fact that our people live in direct opposition to their semi-tropical environment has been constantly before me. As it will be found in the opening portion of the chapter on School Cookery, the consumption of butcher's meat and of tea is enormously in excess of any common sense requirements, and is paralleled nowhere else in the world.

Rolf BOLDREWOOD
(1826-1915)
Robbery Under Arms
But it's all up now; there's no get away this time; and I, Dick Marston, as strong as a bullock, as active as a rock-wallaby, chock-full of life and spirits and health, have been tried for bush-ranging--robbery under arms they call it--and though the blood runs through my veins like the water in the mountain creeks, and every bit of bone and sinew is as sound as the day I was born, I must die on the gallows this day month. From 'Robbery Under Arms'.

John LANG (1816-1864)
Botany Bay, True Tales of Early Australia

Apart from having some pretty good descriptions and giving the feeling and mood of life in the 1820s -

This starts with a chapter called i. THE GHOST UPON THE RAIL And is based on one of Australia's most famous ghost legends -being the Legend of Fisher's Ghost, although Mr. Lang has set his tale in a different town being Penrith for some unknown reason, and fictionise some of the facts that surround the story...so goes the legend that actually comes from Campbelltown with some of it based on court documents and newspaper articles....It is also the same town I am writing about, although Mr Fisher lived there at that time there wasn't his ghost - mabye that can be the story after this one lolol

Anything from Henry LAWSON (1867-1922) and
A. B. 'Banjo' PATERSON they capture life in those times perfectly.

James TUCKER (1808-1888)
Ralph Rashleigh

James TUCKER (1808-1888)
Ralph Rashleigh
Again, it was the policy of the superintendent to put two gangs of similar strength at the same kind of work within view of each other, when the overseers would vie one with the other to try which could get most done; and dire was then the cursing, swearing, raging and tearing of the rivals, who would goad on their men every instant with threats of the torturing lash, uttered with all the real arrogance of low-bred jacks-in-office, who, it need hardly be said, were capable of any atrocity themselves, and would commit any crime rather than descend from their ill-sustained eminences to work among their fellows. This is premised, lest the reader should scarcely believe what follows; yet there are many scores now alive in New South Wales who can vouch for the truth of the leading features.


Mark TWAIN (1835-1910)
Following the Equator--A number of chapters relate to Australia (1864-1941)

Miles FRANKLIN (1879-1954) My Brilliant Career

Marcus CLARKE (1846-1881)
For the Term of His Natural Life

Wrong answer. I'll be back.

Australian Newspaper resource: http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home . It is scans of the original newspapers, and is searchable. Absolutely brilliant if you are looking for a particular person or place. It starts from 1803.

Hey Pdr,

Is it just WWII resources you're after? I use a lot of Greek resources, and two in particular might be useful for other Greek writers. There are quite a few ancient history writers using AW now, but not so many resources listed for our civilisations.

These contain virutal tours:

http://www.stoa.org/metis/cgi-bin/cat

http://www.vgreece.com/index.php?category=9600

The best book I read on the causes and course of WWII in Asia, which may cite great sources in its bibiliography, is THE RISING SUN by Toland.