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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I am searching for non-fiction books about industrial production and manpower mobilization in modern wars. Something like the Wages of War by Tooze (very good book, despite the awful politics of the author), but I am having problems in searching them.

Any idea?

Arthur Herman's Freedom's Forge is excellent.

I went to check my list of books-to-acquire and found…Wages of Destruction. Well, that’s no help.

Most of what I already own for the period is either autobiographical or outright reference material (charts and lists) rather than explanatory. Heller’s Utopia in Power has a chapter on Soviet engagement in WWII which fits the bill; it’s so rabidly anti-Soviet that I would not take its figures too seriously, but it does cover mobilization, production, and strategy.

Let me know if you find anything good!

Victor Davis Hanson’s The Second World Wars discusses those issues in some depth.