Monday, August 13, 2018

Armoured Warfare in the Arab-Israeli Conflicts (Images of War) Paperback by Anthony Tucker-Jones (Pen and Sword)



Tucker-Jones has assembled a pretty good collection of photos (mostly) relating to Arab and Israeli armor from 1948 to the present. Of the approximately 158 photos, most have not been widely-reprinted before, and a fair number seem to be from relatively obscure Arab and Israeli sources. Many of the potential readers of this book will probably be familiar with Steven Zaloga's two similar books on the topic, one published by Osprey, one published by Concord. To its credit, this book contains very few photos which already appeared in those books.

The chapters have pretty general overviews of the conflicts, which aren't terribly detailed. The organization is a bit odd too: the book starts out with general overviews of Israeli and Arab armies, with accompanying photos, then launches into straight chronological history, so that you see photos of modern day tanks like Merkavas before you see the 1940s-era vehicles.

The photo captions also are pretty general; there are very few details of vehicle specifics, markings, units, locations, etc. Not all photos are of the relevant vehicles in Arab or Israeli use however; there are a number of "generic" representative photos of specific vehicles (in US, Soviet, etc., use), as well as a number of museum exhibits. There also are a number of caption errors, particularly of Syrian vehicles being mis-identified as Egyptian and vice versa. The reproduction of the photos is generally good, given the quality of the originals.

Overall, this would be a good addition to a serious library on the Arab-Israeli Wars, or a good starter book for someone interested in the topic.

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