Rick Atkinson. Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.
On August 2, 1990, multiple mechanized and armored divisions of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Army rushed across the desert border between Iraq and Kuwait, seizing Kuwait City and occupying the oil-rich emirate of Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush promptly sought international condemnation of Iraq’s actions and immediately began to plan a coalition military response to Saddam’s deliberate breach of Kuwait’s sovereignty. In his book Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Rick Atkinson provides an unabashed historical narrative account of the United States’ response and the Gulf War, known in the American military annals as Operations DESERT STORM and DESERT SHIELD.
Throughout the book, Atkinson portrays CENTCOM commander General Norman Schwarzkopf as a bombastic leader who is quick to anger and berate subordinate commanders, yet a brilliant military planner. Schwarzkopf and his staff masterfully planned a two-corps “left hook” flanking attack through Kuwait and Iraq, supported by a Marine amphibious demonstration, designed to fix the Iraqi’s attention towards the gulf. In February of 1991, Schwarzkopf’s masterstroke breached through the Iraqi lines, rupturing the main line of defense. Atkinson’s recounting of DESERT STORM from the viewpoint of multiple individuals involved brings the events of the war to a more personal level, understandable by both military professionals and amateurs alike.
Additionally, Atkinson’s recounting of events, such as downed American pilot Colonel David Eberly’s time as a prisoner of war in Baghdad, brings the element of humanity to military history. He details Eberly’s struggle to maintain sanity, writing, “Each morning he [Eberly] tried to do twenty or thirty pushups, an ever more difficult ordeal for a body now reduced to barely more than a hundred pounds of bone and sagging flesh.”[1] Stories such as David Eberly’s capture and imprisonment are described in detail throughout the book and are a stark reminder of war and conflict’s human aspects and struggles.
Crusades is a significant contribution to the military history of the Persian Gulf War and operations DESERT STORM and DESERT SHIELD. Atkinson’s ability to synthesize timeless military philosophy with prime examples of military leadership, differing leadership styles, and indomitable will during an important event in American military history is an invaluable contribution to the historiography of modern military history. Military leaders, academic scholars, and armchair historians will appreciate Atkinson’s dedication to his research and focus on oral history. Atkinson’s exhaustive notes and bibliography are an excellent starting point for any student of war seeking a deeper analysis and further research into the Persian Gulf War.
[1] Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), 358-60.
To purchase a copy and for more information, head to the book’s webpage here.
For more information on the military operation, see the Department of Defense page, “Desert Storm: A Look Back.”
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