Hate, Hope and High Explosives; A Report on the Middle East

Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good. 21 cm, 284, Endpaper map. Indices. Ex-library with usual library markings, pencil erasure residue on front endpaper. George Fielding Eliot (22 June 1894 - 21 April 1971) was a Second Lieutenant in the Australian army in World War I. He became a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and later a Major in the Military Intelligence Reserve of the United States Army. He was the author of 15 books on military and political matters in the 1930s through the 1960s, wrote a syndicated column on military affairs and was the military analyst on radio and on television for CBS News during World War II. In 1937 he wrote (with R. Ernest Dupuy) the widely cited "If War Comes." In 1938 he wrote "The ramparts we watch," a widely cited book which made predictions of the coming war and made recommendations for strengthening national defense. During WWII, he wrote on the war and military strategy. Another nonfiction military book he wrote was "Bombs bursting in air." In this book Fielding outlines the likelihood of German bombing raids on London which would be made possible from bases in Belgium and the Netherlands. He laid out the defense needs for projecting American Air Power into the Atlantic, which would later be realized with the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. He broadcast coverage of the second world war from London. On 7 December 1941, when U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor were attacked by the Japanese, Eliot not only broadcast on radio, but on the 10 hours of CBS television coverage of the attack. This was the first extended television coverage of a breaking news event. The author set out to investigate the military potential of the Middle Ease, an exposed flank of the Soviet empire. In a superb job of reporting , he bring the facts which give the Mediterranean and the Middle East an importance in world affairs. His able military analysis , his keenly alert reporting of the human story of Jew and Arab, of Turk and Greek and Irianian. The author accurately apprised the strength of Jewish arms even before the courage and discipline of the Israeli Army successfully backed its new state.