The Problem of Too Many and Too Long
1) Our efforts say to the public: “So, you have read 8 ‘Best Sellers’ of WWII, but you don't know very much about the real history of WWII -- to use your marvelous term -- the ‘complete’ history of WWII.'” The "best sellers" were written to be "Best Sellers" -- for a profit with tantalizing titles.
2) Post-WWII history has become a bunch of "penny-packets". Look at the American Revolution. Every high school student has a good grasp of the campaigns that were fought, first in Boston; then in New York; then in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, battles were waged in the Carolina's. Finally, Washington's northern forces, the Continental southern forces and the French forces all met in Virginia at Yorktown. Pretty basic U.S. History 101.
Not so for WWII. It was too complex, made more so by the overwhelming number of histories that had to be purchased at $25 to $45 per volume. At $40 each, a library to study WWII cost $3,200 in 1940's dollars!
3) Official histories at first were status symbols. Generals and Admirals gained prestige based upon the size of their libraries. Eisenhower used MacArthur's library. "You couldn't possibly understand, meant 'You are not well read!’" It's the British "class" system in operation -- snobbery.
4) If you can figure out how to say it, we are liberating the commoner from the 1600's to year 2014. Publishing Green Books on-line in 2014 -- and I remember exactly when I found out -- opened a whole new world for me. "Official" histories were no longer the purview of the Admiral-General elites or military academies. I had forgotten until now. If I wanted to read a Green Book, I had to find it on E-Bay – 85 books! Impossible for anyone. This is when the two other, prior websites “jumped in”. They converted it all to html.
5) Before 2014 I began wanting to write a history of WWII in Metz for Ludwig Thum, but could never find out anything about Metz, France. Nothing! As I mentioned, when I went there in 2020 all the forts fought over were closed off by the French. It was military "snobbery". "My dear fellow, you couldn't possibly understand, you are not a "professional" -- not "well-read"!
6) I know this is frustrating, but like a good lawyer, you are peeling away the layers for me as I recall the first two Green Books I found at Half-Priced Books and began looking on-line in about 2012.
7) Here’s the problem: no "commoner" like us will read 80 books about WWII. I know what that is about – it's been a 10-year task for me. Thus, Hyperwar and tothosewhoserved.org have cleared the first hurdle. They made all official histories available to everyone (not the British histories which are still copyrighted) or to the "common man".
8) We are at the second hurdle. We, along with Hyper War; tothosewhoserved.org and now the Army Center for Military History (CMH) need to educate the citizens of WWII countries, including the Germans, Italians, the Soviets, the Egyptians, etc., where they fit in the big scheme. We are painting the Big Picture and the relevance of each country to it. At the risk of overstating it: “We are producing the ‘Gone with the Wind” colorized movie event of the decade.
9) We are working on the first 8 volume set of WWII ever written. We are condensing 80 volumes into 8; in a chronological fashion. We are making the cut-up, parceled out and bi-furcated “official histories” both readable and comprehensive.
10) Turning to the “lawyer in me”; the “Best Evidence Rule” applies. Only such evidence is admissible. Here the “Best Evidence” are the “official” histories written by the warriors who were there!
11) But, it is more than that! We are publishing the first truly complete and comprehensible history of WWII in Europe. The market at military schools alone should be immense. Especially when we sell condensed versions for students of military history!
12) This is energizing. We have the "Google Gilberts Law School Summaries": Not one law student in the U.S. made it through without buying these study guides for each standard law course. The text only contained pivotal cases from which we were supposed to divine the law. We all bought “Gilberts”, which laid out the "rules" of the law, instead. Here’s the Amazon link!
