Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 123

BOOK REVIEWS

examine how an alien ruler gains legitimacy in the
eyes of its subjects.
In the popular imagination, foreign rulers are
invariably detested by a unified native population, but
this is rarely the case in the real world. Hechter argues
that the belief that native rule is always better is misguided. While alien rule is a particularly difficult type
of governance, the author correctly points out that
all political leaders face the same problems that aliens
do. Every leader has to govern fairly, inspire trust, and
encourage growth in order to maintain legitimacy
and power without resorting to expensive forms of
oppression. Alien rulers often replace failed or defeated native rulers and have the highest probability of
success when they replace native rulers who are seen
as incompetent or unfair.
For a professional military audience, Hechter’s
chapter on military occupation is a must read.
Military occupations usually cause resentment and
resistance from local populations, and occupations
themselves can vary greatly in brutality. Popular perceptions of military occupation emphasize brave resistance movements, but Hechter correctly points out
that there are often as many collaborators as resisters.
Collaborators can have a variety of motivations, ranging from personal gain to a sincere desire to improve
governance within an occupied territory. Occupiers
can increase the number of collaborators through
fair and competent administration; but, for this to
happen, occupying forces require significant incentives. Still, the author points to military occupations,
such as the post-World War II occupations of Japan
and Germany, as examples of occupiers successfully
setting up friendly governments with real legitimacy
among the occupied population.
While making a clear distinction between exploitative and beneficial alien rulers, Hechter argues that
there are real benefits from alien rule. Some of his
suggestions may seem outlandish; for example, in his
conclusion, he suggests there may be a future for an
international market for governance where bureaucrats
and politicians can be hired from outside a country.
However, considering the necessary multinational responses to failed states, environmental change, natural
disasters, and economic collapse, countries may—at
times—be justified in inviting foreigners in to govern.
John E. Fahey, Krakow, Poland
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2015

MERCHANT MARINE SURVIVORS OF WORLD
WAR II: Oral Histories of Cargo Carrying Under Fire
Michael Gillen, McFarland & Company, Jefferson,
North Carolina, 2014, 216 pages

I

f you want to read interesting, first-person stories
of civilian seamen as they navigated the perils
of World War II—this is the book for you. It is
worth your time to briefly set down the Clausewitz and
listen to what life was like for the merchant seaman
directly from those men.
In a previous issue of Military Review, I wrote a
review of John Bruning’s Battle for the North Atlantic:
The Strategic Naval Campaign that Won World War
II in Europe. My primary criticism of that book was
its dedication to the sacrifices of merchant mariners
without actually interviewing any of them to get a description of their struggles. Serendipitously, Merchant
Marine Survivors of World War II forms the perfect
reparation for that omission.
This book is a quick read that provides twenty
transcriptions from taped interviews with World War
II merchant mariners who recount their personal
adventures. Each of the interviews are only a few pages
long, and you can easily read one or two and set the
book down to read again another time. The author
himself is uniquely qualified to record and report on
the stories—he is a merchant mariner himself. He
graciously provides a photocopy of his own “Merchant
Mariner’s Document,” or Z-Card, right inside the front
cover. Reader beware; the stories are transcribed with
minimal alteration—and the language is quintessential
sailor talk—so don’t hand this book to the kids.
The transcriptions are gripping in their details of
the perils faced by mariners. The stories include accounts of ship sinkings and their aftermaths, anecdotes
that both fascinate and horrify. For example, in one story, men who spent days on a lifeboat in the cold North
Atlantic had to have their feet amputated after being
rescued. In another instance, a sailor recounts being
adrift with a shipmate in a life raft and, after seeing a
ship pass nearby without stopping, his companion gives
up hope and quietly dies in the far corner of the raft.
He reports that his companion died of a “broken heart,”
but he maintained hope of rescue and was saved.
121