Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 145

BOOK REVIEWS

Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa,
Southeast Asia and South Asia, and Latin America.
Howard bases her analysis of these regions on data gathered from Global Barometer data and the 2008 Index of
State Weakness rankings. Howard uses logistical regression analysis, which is a tried and true methodology of
political science; each region is systematically examined.
Those unfamiliar with analytical tools such as correlative analysis may still find the data useful to support
qualitative projects involved in state failure or political
violence. On a downside, her data sets from 2008 have
been eclipsed by world events. The Arab Awakening of
2011, which is briefly touched on in the book’s conclusion, dynamically changed many previously held assumptions about state failure and political violence. This
demonstrates a weakness of the book. However, Howard
does not deserve criticism in this regard; rather, this
problem indicates how political science, along with other
fields of research, struggles to keep up with world events.
Capt. Nathaniel L. Moir, U.S. Army Reserve,
Albany, New York

LENINGRAD 1943: Inside a City Under Siege
Alexander Werth, L.B. Tauris, New York,
2015, 256 pages

A

lexander Werth’s gripping narrative delves
into the siege of Leningrad. It presents a poignant example of the cruelty and horrors that
are unique to military operations in a city. Alexander
Werth, a correspondent for the London Sunday Times
and the British Broadcasting Corporation, was the first
Western correspondent allowed into the city immediately after the blockade was broken by Soviet forces in
September 1943. The book presents a graphic story of
the viciousness and destruction produced during the
battle within the city.
It must be remembered that Werth’s visit was after
the worst of the siege and while Leningrad was starting
to recover; he did not directly experience the siege.
However, he visited a number of buildings, including
the apartment he had lived in as a youth, and conducted a mixture of formal and informal interviews with
the people there (both civilians and soldiers). In this
manner, he was able to hear their experiences directly
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2015

and weave them into an enlightening, comprehensive
narrative. With its firsthand accounts, the book secures
two positions in literature: first, as an authoritative
historical document, and second, as a journalistic
narrative of the overpowering grief and the futility of
modern urban warfare. The book provides an unparalleled look at the conduct of modern warfare in heavily
urbanized terrain.
Leningrad 1943 is written in Werth’s perspective. He
grew up in Leningrad and left Russia at the age of fifteen
with his father, Adolph, in 1917, but he returned immediately after the “blockade” had been broken by the Soviet
army in 1943. At that time, the German army was only
three kilometers away in the suburbs south of the city.
The author uses his journalism ski