A first-rate read
Oliver C. Dorrell sheds some much-needed light on the often overlooked, and always fun to collect, Austrian family of M1-type helmets.
There are many helmet books out there, and a precious few that I find of this caliber. Dorrell approaches the subject with what seems to be both affection and scholarship; both of these are all too often missing from the usual stable of such books.
The art direction of this book is superior, richly illustrated with excellent photographs, drawings, and charts. Dorrell provides observation rather than conjecture, which is refreshing in this hobby. His approach is the "walk-around" style of presentation. His observations of each iteration of the Austrian M1 are clear, concise,,nearly complete.
He surprised me. My first stop, with any helmet reference book, are the final pages - where the sources should be. For some reason, all too frequently, collectors allow the so-called "experts" to make unsubstantiated claims, providing neither citations nor bibliography. Dorrell, provides both bibliography and references. Though I would have preferred citations, Dorrel relies heavily on his own observations, approaching the subject as a fellow enthusiast rather than a self-anointed guru.
The Austrian M1 family of helmets represent a group that too often go unnoticed by collectors, which is a shame as they are so interesting and so representative of the post-war/Cold War era in Europe, Dorrell explores every detail, compares every component, and seems to leave no stone unturned in his summary of these interesting helmets...and he provides the reader with many, many examples.
This is a solid piece of reference material, and a boon for both novice and advanced collector. I'm very happy to have this volume on my helmet bookshelf, it is informative, pretty to look at, and an altogether very useful book.
Let's see more of this and less of the helmet porn that passes for authoritative reference books filled with beautiful photos and unsubstantiated conjecture.
I really like this very worthwhile book, and I highly recommend it.
I'm hopeful that we'll see more from this collector.
2 comments:
I do check your webpage reasonably regularly and its stuff like this that is the reward. I'm delighted to see news of this book. Actually I was completely unaware of it before about ten minutes ago (as I type) so that's even more rewarding. I used to know Oli Dorrell a bit from helmet forums years ago and a bit of correspondence and his own webpages (which were rather good but seem to have disappeared some time back), and he's a good collector, someone of substance. Also, and this is the important bit for me, I'm a big fan of the Austrian M58 and M75 (there's a substantial heap of them just a metre away from my desk) and I've spent a lot of time trying to work out its details (some excellent threads on the Warrelics World Steel Helmets pages, good contributions from a character known only as 'Austromunga' who was *not* Oli Dorrell!).
So anyway, this is must buy. It's a bit disappointing that you haven't included any obvious pointer to how to actually get it - first investigation shows it is on Amazon UK (search on Austrian M1 Steel Helmet) but I'd prefer to buy direct if I can. So far though despite a bit of intense goggle-fu I have found nothing, other than Oli's page dedicated to his artwork.
Anyway, Mannie, great that you flagged up this book. I'll definately be getting a copy, one way or another, and real soon now.
Well, I got my copy from Amazon on 17th July, but this is my first opportunity to comment.
I am very impressed by this book. It is clearly written, facts properly organised, well laid-out, illustrations actually show what they should, and most importantly it has *lots* of new information for me and I thought I knew quite a lot about these Austrian helmets already (being a collector and determined reader of the long threads on them here, and believe me you needed to be determined to sort the facts out of austromunga's over-excited commentary...). It's a genuine delight, an excellent example of a single-topic helmet book, and could well be seen as a 'how-to', something anyone doing this sort of book should emulate. Very well done. I have the hardback edition, which is a nice product, opens well, easy to read, well printed and bound.
I could detail al the new bits and pieces I've learned but that would be a bit futile and anyway you should just Buy The Book - let's just say the book is worth every penny I spent on it. Excellent piece of work - I'm genuinely impressed and rather wish I had the energy and commitment to do something like that myself. I hope for a satisfying amount of sales - never going to be huge for this sort of book, but I'd certainly urge any Austrian or M1 Euroclone collector to get a copy.
I have done a bit of self-publishing, almost always text-based (quite straightforward) material though one had lots of illustrations and that was a massive pain in some ways, so I do know a bit about the amount of work and effort involved in this book, and I'm impressed by the result! Not keen on the body-text font, but that's just nitpicking.
(Yes, I know there may be errors and omissions - not that I have found any - but while you're pointing them out let me know which helmet books you think are perfect in every detail, I'll be interested to know about them as I haven't found one yet.)
Post a Comment