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A review by andrew_russell
Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman
2.0
You always know that when you annotate a highlighted passage on your Kindle with the words 'boring as fuck', you are onto a loser. At that moment, you realise that whatever you may be reading is not going to enter your own personal canon of literature. The passage below was an example of just such a segment within Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman.
It was soon decided to let North American continue to make B-25s in Kansas City and take up the B-29s at a new plant in Omaha. Fisher Body never did make entire B-29s, although they supplied the bulk of wing assemblies and engine nacelles for Wichita, Marietta, and Omaha—as well as for a fourth principal assembly plant in Renton, outside Seattle.33 The production of R-3350s ended up being farmed out, as well, with new plants coming on line in 1943 at Woodbridge, New Jersey, and outside Chicago.
In fact, 'boring as fuck' could very well imagined to have been suggested as the strapline for this work. There are after all, only so many ways that you can express the mind-boggling industriousness of the U.S. both in the lead-up to and during the Second World War. So many repetitive numbers of machine-guns, tanks, aircraft and other war materiel before your brain simply atrophies with each sentence read, eventually becoming a point of singularity; a point of infinite density from which there is no hope for recovery.
The story itself is intriguing. A nation with relatively speaking, fairly puny defence capabilities, somehow lifting itself up by the bootstraps and becoming the saviour of all who were on the Allied side, including themselves. And then continuing that trend in the postwar years, rapidly rising to become a global superpower. If this hadn't happened, the war would have had a much darker outcome for the Allies.
But...but...Herman manages to take this modern day, almost mythical fable (except it actually happened) and make it as dull as ditchwater. Like some kind of anti-alchemist, everything he touches (with his pen) turns to 'blahblahblahblahblahblahblah', ad infinitum. There are some jaw-dropping factoids within this - but that's all they are - factoids. And he didn't invent them. They happened without any of his literary anti-alchemy. So no brownie points there, son. Okay, maybe half a point.
I would recommend this to anyone who feels that they have been reading too many good books lately - that somehow they find themselves not fully appreciating what they are reading, that things have got a bit stale. Just give this a whirl and I guarantee the next book you read will be 'amazing'.
It was soon decided to let North American continue to make B-25s in Kansas City and take up the B-29s at a new plant in Omaha. Fisher Body never did make entire B-29s, although they supplied the bulk of wing assemblies and engine nacelles for Wichita, Marietta, and Omaha—as well as for a fourth principal assembly plant in Renton, outside Seattle.33 The production of R-3350s ended up being farmed out, as well, with new plants coming on line in 1943 at Woodbridge, New Jersey, and outside Chicago.
In fact, 'boring as fuck' could very well imagined to have been suggested as the strapline for this work. There are after all, only so many ways that you can express the mind-boggling industriousness of the U.S. both in the lead-up to and during the Second World War. So many repetitive numbers of machine-guns, tanks, aircraft and other war materiel before your brain simply atrophies with each sentence read, eventually becoming a point of singularity; a point of infinite density from which there is no hope for recovery.
The story itself is intriguing. A nation with relatively speaking, fairly puny defence capabilities, somehow lifting itself up by the bootstraps and becoming the saviour of all who were on the Allied side, including themselves. And then continuing that trend in the postwar years, rapidly rising to become a global superpower. If this hadn't happened, the war would have had a much darker outcome for the Allies.
But...but...Herman manages to take this modern day, almost mythical fable (except it actually happened) and make it as dull as ditchwater. Like some kind of anti-alchemist, everything he touches (with his pen) turns to 'blahblahblahblahblahblahblah', ad infinitum. There are some jaw-dropping factoids within this - but that's all they are - factoids. And he didn't invent them. They happened without any of his literary anti-alchemy. So no brownie points there, son. Okay, maybe half a point.
I would recommend this to anyone who feels that they have been reading too many good books lately - that somehow they find themselves not fully appreciating what they are reading, that things have got a bit stale. Just give this a whirl and I guarantee the next book you read will be 'amazing'.