Monocular viewpoint, narrowly first-person, often racist and jingoistic, weakly-written: Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers could have been so much better. It tells the story behind the famous photograph of the US flag raising over Iwo Jima on 1945-02-23. Or rather, it tells a story of that event, one based on family history and propaganda, now known to be far less accurate than once thought.

If only the book were more nuanced and less certain of itself — like most things in life ...

^z - 2020-06-14