Carver originally planned to write a defence of Ritchie's command of Eighth Army using Ritchie's letters, after being appalled by the way Auchinleck's biographer John Connell and Corelli Barnett had treated Ritchie. Unfortunately there wasn't enough material to produce a book length defence, so Carver instead wrote an overview of Eighth Army's battles from 1940-42. Carver, unsurprisingly given his experience, provides a far more insightful and balanced view than those authors, influenced as they were by Dorman-Smith. It's hard to disagree with his conclusion that "the British commanders...were neither better nor worse than those who succeeded them" and that Ritchie was a competent commander who was the victim of the situation he was placed in. ( )