The Ghosts of War

by Daniel Cohen

A collection of stories starring ghosts associated with wars features tales of Samurai ghosts, the Headless Lady of Recruit House, and the Polish mercenary of the American Revolution. Reprint.

Genres: Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Daniel Edward Cohen was born on March 12, 1936, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents divorced when he was very young and his mother, Sue Greenberg, married Milton Cohen, a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Daniel Cohen attended Chicago public schools and was a "hanger-on" in the bohemian community around the University of Chicago while in high school in the early 1950s. He attended the University of Illinois at Chicago where he abandoned an interest in biology for journalism. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in journalism in 1958. Cohen married Susan Handler, a writer, on February 2, 1958. He briefly worked as a proofreader for Time, Inc. in Chicago; but, demoralized by the paternalistic organizational culture, he took a job as assistant editor of Science Digest magazine in 1959. He was transferred to New York City shortly after being hired.

In addition to his editorial work, Cohen wrote articles for Science Digest and for other publications. Encouraged by praise of his articles on paranormal subjects, Cohen published his first book, Myths of the Space Age, a collection of skeptical essays on paranormal creatures and phenomena, in 1967. The Cohens moved to a farmhouse in Forestburgh, New York, in 1969 so Daniel could write full time. He originally planned to write popular science books, but the demands of the market led him to concentrate on books about ghosts, monsters, UFOs, and psychic phenomena. Since then, Daniel Cohen has written on an astonishing variety of subjects beyond just the paranormal: historical and current biographies; advice for teenagers; world history; science and technology; animals and nature; urban legends; and popular television, music, film, and sports personalities. He has noted that he writes mass-market paperbacks for children who are reluctant to read and not especially gifted. Thus, he chooses subjects of interest to such readers.

Susan Cohen was born on March 27, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois, to Martin and Ida (Goldman) Handler. She earned a B.A. degree from the New School for Social Research in 1960 and an M.S.W. degree from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, in 1962. She worked as a social worker in the mid-1960s before writing The Liberated Couple, a feminist tract, in 1971. She wrote eleven gothic romances and mysteries under the penname Elizabeth St. Clair between 1974 and 1981. Susan and Daniel Cohen began collaborating on books in 1982 to help alleviate Daniel's workload. They have written books primarily on popular entertainment, advice for teenagers, and animals. The Cohens currently live in Cape May Court House, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Vasilis St. · Rating 2 out of 5]

"...though I didn't make these tales up, somebody surely made up some of them. In other cases, an ordinary or explainable event is made to seem extraordinary, even supernatural, because of poor memory, overactive imagination, and the unconscious
embellishment that comes with retelling an experience. And then there are those cases which, well, make you wonder."

[Mary Mittmann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Many of the stories in the book were very difficult to get into.

[Eden Silverfox · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book of ghost stories relating to war. I didn't like it as much as other books I've read by Daniel Cohen, but it still had some interesting stories in it.