Commanding the Pacific: Marine Corps Generals in World War II

This was a great overview for me. I suspect that, like a lot of people, the only Marine General I really knew much about before this book was Holland "Howlin Mad" Smith. The author did a nice job of weaving together pithy but informative biographical information with the bigger picture of how the Marine Corps developed between the wars. He also spent time giving good overviews of each of the operations involving the Marines in WWII. Mixed in with all of this was good illustrative stories regarding the commanders and solid analysis of the performance of each of these men. Taaffe also did a good job of citing sources often using two to three pieces to substantiate his claims.

I bought this for my husband, and ended up reading it before he got the chance to!Very well written. If you are a history buff, this is the book for you!