Levine, Alan J. 1950–

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Levine, Alan J. 1950–

PERSONAL:

Born December 25, 1950, in New York, NY; son of Leo M. (a mathematician) and Helen (a teacher) Levine. Education: New York University, B.A., 1971, M.A., 1974, Ph.D., 1977. Politics: Conservative. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Kew Gardens Hills, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, 1989—.

WRITINGS:

The Soviet Union, the Communist Movement, and the World: Prelude to the Cold War, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1990.

The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1992.

The Missile and Space Race, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1994.

The Pacific War, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1995.

The United States and the Struggle for Southeast Asia, 1945-1973, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1995.

Race Relations within Western Expansion, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1996.

The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1999, Stackpole Books (Mechanicsburg, PA), 2008.

Captivity, Flight, and Survival in World War II, Praeger (Westport, CT), 2000.

From the Normandy Beaches to the Baltic Sea: The Northwest Europe Campaign, 1944-1945, Praeger (Westport, CT), 2000.

Stalin's Last War: Korea and the Approach to World War III, McFarland (Jefferson, NC), 2005.

"Bad Old Days": The Myth of the 1950s, Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick, NJ), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Alan J. Levine once told CA: "I am not sure what my primary motivation for writing is—self-expression, I suppose, and the fact that it may be one of the few things that I am ‘good at.’ An important component, although it may sound strange, is undoubtedly a good deal of irritation at the mess others have made of important subjects and outrage at the amount of sheer lying that has gone on about some of the matters that I write about.

"My friends and family do not share my particular interests. I cannot pick out any particular person or thing that has influenced my work overall, though many other writers have certainly influenced my views on particular subjects.

"How do I write? My methods may be old-fashioned. I usually write my first draft at my desk, in longhand, and only type up a second draft at my computer. That is partly because I find that I use a lot of different sources at one time, which crowds my writing space, and I move back and forth a lot, with many afterthoughts and insertions, some only tentative, within the manuscript. None of this lends itself to working directly on a computer. Also, I am perhaps the world's worst typist. I aim at a minimum of five pages a day, working in the morning and afternoon. In the case of my most recent books, I have found that I have been able to write more and more each working day, but I need more frequent days off than I used to need.

"Why do I pick the subjects I do? I choose subjects about which I myself am curious, but which also seem to me to be objectively important, and in which there is something ‘wrong’ with the usual account, or else there is no usual account in the first place. The sole exception to this is, perhaps, my work on escapes in World War II. That originally interested me from the point of view of describing sheer adventures, many of which were unknown or forgotten. But even this work acquired some unexpected serious overtones when I got into describing the conditions of captivity in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps.

"In the other issues and events I write about, I have consistently found that there are gaps in the historical literature or no convenient and accurate short account of important events, and I have chosen to try to fill these gaps. Examples are The United States and the Struggle for Southeast Asia, 1945-1973, The Missile and Space Race, The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945, The Pacific War, and The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943. The first four books deal with aspects of World War II and the Cold War about which there are serious misconceptions, and not a little lying. In Race Relations within Western Expansion I was moved to write by outrage at what I take to be the general insanity of public discussion of important issues.

"I might note that some of the things I write about are subjects That have interested me since childhood—notably World War II and space exploration. My other books are the product of more purely adult interests."

In Stalin's Last War: Korea and the Approach to World War III, Levine takes a look at the Korean War in a very broad context, including the worldwide issues of the day that pertained to the Cold War. He addresses the war not just from the point of view of the United States and North and South Korea, but also from the view points of Britain, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. He includes a number of interesting facts, including Truman's opinion that the entire war in Korea was designed to serve as a means of distraction from the Communist advance on Europe. Levine looks at Stalin's actions closely and includes a number of issues that more than likely played into his decisions as major motivators. Jonathan M. House, in a contribution for Military Review, remarked that "this book is a refreshing reexamination of a perennial topic and as such is well worth the reader's time."