This revisionist history convincingly argues that the Regia Marina Italiana (the Royal Italian Navy) has been neglected and maligned in assessments of its contributions to the Axis effort in World War II. After all, Italy was the major Axis player in the Mediterranean, and it was the Italian navy and air force, with only sporadic help from their German ally, that stymied the British navy and air force for most of the thirty-nine months that Italy was a belligerent. It was the Royal Italian Navy that provided the many convoys that kept the Axis war effort in Africa alive by repeatedly braving attack by aircraft, submarine, and surface vessels. If doomed by its own technical weaknesses and Ultra (the top-secret British decoding device), the Italian navy still fought a tenacious and gallant war; and if it did not win that war, it avoided defeat for thirty-nine, long, frustrating months.

This book is a unique contribution to both media studies and contemporary politics. It analyzes the American media's structure and its role in shaping perceptions of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, and looks at the key issues involved, from self-determination to genocide. Sadkovich sees the failure of the U.S. media and the West as having prolonged and even aggravated the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. This work will prove useful to both the general reader and students of media and current affairs.

This volume is the first recent work to examine the major naval combatants of World War II. Sadkovich has brought together essays by eight contributors, each an expert in his field, to reevaluate the roles and performances of the particular navies and the specific geopolitical circumstances under which they operated. Also included is an introduction that both outlines the pre-War conditions that shaped the navies and draws comparisons between the eight combatants. Reevaluating Major Naval Combatants of World War II is a superb collection of provoactive essays on eight navies. Carl Boyd, Old Dominion University This study of World War II naval combatants, a collection of eight separate essays, developed out of the editor's recognition that no recent work has attempted to evaluate the performance of the war's major naval participants. Sadkovich commissioned an essay on each of the eight major navies involved in the war, allowing each essay's author to assess the role and performance of a particular navy according to the tasks and compositions of that combatant. Although each essay mirrors the peculiarities of the navy under discussion, the common elements allow comparisons and conclusions to be drawn. The volume is devoted to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union. Each essay has been written by an expert in the particular field. In addition, the editor has provided an introduction that describes the changing state of navies worldwide prior to the war and draws comparisons between the navies discussed in each essay. A selected bibliography has also been included. The book will be a noteworthy addition to both university and public libraries, and an essential source for researchers and scholars of naval history.