| Books - History - Asia |
| 1-20 of 100 1 2 3 4 5 Next 20 |
click price to see details click image to enlarge click link to go to the store
| 1. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin | |
 | Paperback
(2007-01-30)
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $6.98 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0143038257 Publisher: Penguin Books Sales Rank: 84 Average Customer Review: 
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story ofGreg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit. Reviews
| |
| 2. India: An Illustrated History by Prem Kishore, Anuradha Kishore Ganpati | |
 | Kindle Edition
list price: $14.95 Asin: B002ZRQ6SQ Publisher: Hippocrene Books Average Customer Review: 
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Reviews
Dr. Lionel Maithri Perera
| |
| 3. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda | |
 | Hardcover
(2010-12-01)
list price: $36.00 -- our price: $19.63 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0061712612 Publisher: Harper Sales Rank: 146 Average Customer Review: 
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Michael Korda's Hero is the story of an epic life on a grand scale: a revealing, in-depth, and gripping biography of the extraordinary, mysterious, and dynamic Englishman whose daring exploits and romantic profile—including his blond, sun-burnished good looks and flowing white robes—made him an object of intense fascination, still famous the world over as "Lawrence of Arabia." An Oxford scholar and archaeologist, one of five illegitimate sons of a British aristocrat who ran away with his daughters' governess, Lawrence was sent to Cairo as a young intelligence officer in 1916. He vanished into the desert in 1917 only to emerge later as one of the greatest—and certainly most colorful—figures of World War One. Though a foreigner, he played a leading and courageous part in uniting the Arab tribes to defeat the Turks, and eventually capture Damascus, transforming himself into a world-famous hero, hailed as "the Uncrowned King of Arabia." In illuminating Lawrence's achievements, Korda digs further than anyone before him to expose the flesh-and-blood man and his contradictory nature. Here was a born leader who was utterly fearless and seemingly impervious to pain, thirst, fatigue, and danger, yet who remained shy, sensitive, mod-est, and retiring; a hero who turned down every honor and decoration offered to him, and was racked by moral guilt and doubt; a scholar and an aesthete who was also a bold and ruthless warrior; a writer of genius—the author of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, one of the greatest books ever written about war—who was the virtual inventor of modern insurgency and guerrilla warfare; a man who at the same time sought and fled the limelight, and who found in friendships, with everyone from Winston Churchill to George Bernard and Charlotte Shaw, from Nancy Astor to NoËl Coward, a substitute for sexual feelings that he rigorously—even brutally and systematically—repressed in himself. As Korda shows in his brilliantly readable and formidably authoritative biography, Lawrence was not only a man of his times; he was a visionary whose accomplishments—farsighted diplomat and kingmaker, military strategist of genius, perhaps the first modern "media celebrity" (and one of the first victims of it), and an acclaimed writer—transcended his era. Korda examines Lawrence's vision for the modern Middle East—plans that, had they been carried through, might have prevented the hatred and bloodshed that have become ubiquitous in the region. Ultimately, as this magisterial work demonstrates, Lawrence remains one of the most unique and fascinating figures of modern times, the arch-hero whose life is at once a triumph and a sacrifice and whose capacity to astonish still remains undimmed. Reviews
| |
| 4. WAR by Sebastian Junger | |
 | Hardcover
(2010-05-11)
list price: $26.99 -- our price: $15.49 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0446556246 Publisher: Twelve Sales Rank: 207 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Reviews
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) Sebastian Junger is the well-known author of The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont. He is also a world-class war correspondent with over a decade of experience. This book is the product of five months spent embedded with a platoon in U.S. 2nd Battalion in the Korengal valley, Afghanistan. For five months, Junger existed like a regular soldier in the U.S. army: He ate MREs, went on patrol, took cover when the bullets started to fly. As Junger likes to explain in the book, he was the target of the same bullets as the other men in the platoon, and he had the same responsibility to Army rules. Even one broken minor rule risked lives. Junger remained vigilant, won the companionship of these soldiers, and garnered enough of their trust to record their thoughts and beliefs about what it's like to be in combat. That's what this book is about. The war in Afghanistan happened to be just a convenient location to do field research. At one particular scary moment, Junger was in a Hummer that got hit by a roadside bomb. The bomb exploded under the engine block, ten feet away. The blast shook Junger's emotions for days. Needless to say, this book was almost never written.
Good thing it was. Junger provides excellent war correspondence, describing combat as a first-hand observer. Junger's prose remains apolitical, his goal to show the reader what it's like to be in battle, not make a political statement. The book is broken into three sections: "Fear," "Killing," and "Love." All three sections describe combat, but each section is loosely structured around its theme. In "Fear," Junger loosely analyzes why or why not soldiers might be afraid to fight; in "Killing" we learn why soldiers kill, how they feel about ending the life of an enemy combatant, and how they feel when one of their own receives that fate; in "Love," Junger makes an attempt to learn why soldiers would die in combat for their comrades. In fact, this section talks about bravery probably more than the first section. In one particularly long chapter, through interviews with soldiers and references to Army studies, Junger tries to figure out why one young man barely out of his teens (yes, let's not forget that these men are practically still boys) would jump on a live hand grenade. Junger's prose reads like amazing stuff. I suspect that this book will receive mostly positive reviews, mainly for its reporting. Certainly it deserves it. But the book is not without its faults, and I'd like to point out a few. The faults are mostly literary and organizational, however, and none hampered my reading pleasure. If you're a normal guy who just wants to read about fighting, or if you loved A Perfect Storm and just want another good read, then you'll probably not notice or care about these little problems. Without reservation, buy this book. If you're more literary minded, then maybe you'll prefer to read more this review. Embedded with Junger was a photojournalist named Tim Hetherington. Between them they shot over 150 hours of video, which was made into a recently released documentary called "Restrepo." (This name comes from the name of a fallen American soldier and the name of an important military outpost in the Korengal valley where Second Platoon spent a lot of their time.) Some (not all) of the combat scenes in the book read like he was watching video, and describing what he saw. This is not bad, but the strength of prose over video is that a writer can slow down time and stretch emotionally charged moments into pages. The writer can dig deep into the thoughts of his characters or himself, set up suspense, tackle fear, do whatever it takes. The best parts of the book are when Junger writes about his emotions and other fighters' emotions, when he writes philosophical about combat, and how he and the soldiers cope with the combat (conveniently recounted a few pages earlier). Much of the philosophy and memoir-style introspection jumps back and forth with combat scenes. Rarely do I recommend that a book be 50 to 100 pages longer, but I wish this book was. I wish that Junger combined his introspective musings and thought provoking observations, while he was describing the action. This type of writing style would have slowed down some of his action scenes and made his writing perfect. As it is, it's pretty good already. The one other minor complaint I had about the book was organizational. Chapter One describes a very specific start date for Junger's embedment (Spring 2007), but then in subsequent chapters I got a little confused about the chronology. Besides a few references to the heat or snow, it was difficult to get a feel for the exact chronology. Not that it matters too much -- this book is about fighting, and to the men stuck at outpost Restrepo, in the mountains of Afghanistan, far away from home, both physically and emotionally, it doesn't really matter what part of the year it is. Maybe Junger was trying to convey this. The book has an extensive bibliography that includes up-to-date literature on killing and combat. Junger spends some time philosophizing about fighting, killing, and cognitive processes during battle, and he backs up his writing with multiple studies. PTSD and other "mental casualties" are acknowledged, as well. Not only does WAR try to describe what it's like to be in combat, but it makes a serious attempt to try and figure out why men actually enjoy it. (Yes, believe it or not, my feeling by the end of the book was that these men do.) Towards the end of the book, Junger provides a neurological explanation: "The dopamine reward system exists in both sexes but is stronger in men, and as a result, men are far more likely to become obsessively involved in such things as hunting, gambling, computer games, and war. When the men of Second Platoon were moping around the outpost hoping for a firefight it was because, among other things, they weren't getting their accustomed dose of endorphins and dopamine." Then there is the sociological perspective. The men profiled in this book did not necessariily join the Army to die for thie country (although some do). Above all, it's the strong personal bonds, almost love, between young men who have been through challenging training and hardship, drive much of what takes place in war -- courage, bravery, willingness to die -- it all comes down to personal bonds. Men will die for their friends.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) There aren't many books that really tell the reader what it means to be in battle. Those that have been there don't feel comfortable trying to explain it to those that haven't. As more than one combat veteran has told me, "you just wouldn't understand." Most reporters, even those embedded in a war, haven't really experienced what it means to bean active participant in battle- trying to kill someone before he kills you. There are some very good books about what it's like to be in the middle of a war, like Bernard Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place; Fall was a French reporter who was there at the siege of Dien Bien Phu. But even though Fall could describe what it felt like to survive the incessant shelling and attack on the base, he wasn't a combatant. He was still a reporter, an observer.
Sebastian Junger is a writer of rare skill who can paint a frighteningly real picture of places few of us would ever think of going. His first book, The Perfect Storm, gave readers a taste of what it would be like to be on a doomed fishing boat in the North Atlantic, at from home, at the mercy of the sea. In War, he takes the reader to an Army outpost in Afghanistan, where Junger and filmmaker Tim Hetherington spent five months over the course of a year and a half with a platoon of young soldiers, fighting a war that we've all read about, but that few of us can imagine. This isn't the tourist war reporting we're used to, where the embedded reporter rides along at the rear of an armored column; Junger puts himself in a situation where he runs all the risks of the soldiers he's reporting on, including getting blown up by an IED that is detonated under the Humvee he's riding in. He manages to survive only because the Taliban soldier triggering the bomb pushed the button a fraction of a second too soon, and the blast is absorbed by the engine rather than the men riding in the Humvee. We're with Junger- and the soldiers of the platoon- as they go on a night time patrol, walk into an ambush, and fight off an assault that nearly overruns their little camp. Junger does not moralize on the war itself; as he explains, to do so would distance him from the men he's writing about, who aren't terribly concerned with politics or the geopolitics of the war. They're concerned with only one thing- survival- which means killing the man out there before he kills you. Isolated in mountainous terrain, with air support a good hour away, the men of Second Platoon, Battle Company, have to rely entirely on one another. Each man knows that every other man in his platoon will (and often do) die for him- otherwise there's no way they could survive where they are. War is full of stories of what seem like astounding heroism in the face of deadly fire- but what are to then men of the platoon, simply what they do. As one solider puts it, going out there to this lonely outpost is what takes bravery; everything after that is just doing your job. Junger goes into some detail asking the question of why men willingly go into battle and sacrifice their lives for each other, quoting studies from WWII through the Gulf War. There's a good deal of interesting data and hypothesis, such as the curious fact that the largest sustainable hunter-gatherer community is about the size of a platoon- anything larger, and things like self-sacrifice and acting for the good of the community appear to break down. Or that chimpanzees, with whom we share 99% of our DNA, don't exhibit the same kind of self-sacrifice we see in humans. When neighboring groups attack a smaller, weaker group, they don't band together for aid- instead, those who can run away, leaving the slower and weaker chimps at the mercy of the invaders. Self-sacrifice in battle is a uniquely human behavior. What it comes down to in the end is that soldiers do it out of love for their fellow soldier. As one remarks to Junger, who asked why he says he'd throw himself on a grenade to protect his squad, "Because I actually love my brothers... Being able to save their lives so that they can live is rewarding. Any of them would do it for me."
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) With "The Perfect Storm," Sebastain Junger crafted a harrowing and heartbreaking story of men in danger--cut off and reliant on one another for survival. It is the ultimate non-fiction story of man versus nature, and as we know, that's not always a fair fight. It is, quite literally, one of my favorite books. So it is with much excitement that I picked up Junger's "War," a document relating his personal experiences as a reporter while being embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan. Junger has already enjoyed success on this topic in a series of articles as well as a documentary film "Restrepo" (an award winner at this year's Sundance). I thought if anyone could understand the hearts of men in conflict it would be Junger. And "War" does prove to be a fascinating and intimate look at how individuals come together to form a collective unit.
One of the pleasures of "War" is its surprisingly apolitical agenda. Anyone hoping that this book is a comprehensive examination of the American presence in Afghanistan will need to look elsewhere. Junger wants to keep things at a more personal level and "War" is really his homage to those on the front lines. Much like "The Perfect Storm," it is a study of camaraderie and brotherhood under extreme circumstances. Junger does an amazing job capturing the specifics of what it was like to be stationed in the Afghani conflict. From the battles to the boredom, this is an unflinching look at the realities of modern warfare. Along the way, Junger also studies the sociological and psychological influences present. It is the unusual and extraordinary bonding within the group that leads to altruism and, ultimately, heroism (although the men themselves never consider their acts heroic). As much as I admired "War," however, there was an element that kept me distanced as well. Junger's intent to honor the soldiers he knew and lived with is evident--but, unfortunately, the men aren't really distinguished as individuals. In "The Perfect Storm," the power and majesty of the action is enhanced by the full-bodied and thoroughly three dimensional portraits of the men involved. That's how I wanted to get to know these soldiers as well. But aside from one or two instances, we might admire or be intrigued by what someone has said or done--but we never fully get to know them. It's what keeps "War" from being a truly great book, in my opinion. Still, Junger's "War" is a compelling look at male bonding. Told from an unusual and refreshing angle, "War" is a noteworthy look into a situation that many of us have only seen from afar.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) ...with no light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
America is entering its 10th year of war in Afghanistan, and Sebastian Junger has written the most essential book on the actual fighting in this forever war. He is the author of The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea an expression that has now entered the American language; I've read it, and think it is truly excellent. Thus, when I saw this offering via the Vine Newsletter I had no hesitation in hitting the "send me a copy" button. And I was not disappointed, since Junger, "walked the walk," a rarity for journalists who prefer to "talk the talk." Junger, at the age of 45, though not required to carry the same loads, kept pace with the soldiers half his age in the rugged terrain of the Korengal valley; on a global scale, a postage stamp size place 10 km by 10 km, east of Kabul, near the border with Pakistan. As he said about one of the bases he was on: "The base is a dusty scrap of steep ground surrounded by timber walls and sandbags, one of the smallest, most fragile capillaries in a vascular system that pumps American influence around the world. Two Americans have already lost their lives defending it." The author ate the same food, slept in the same vermin-infested bunkers, and walked the patrols with the "grunts," and definitely took the "in-coming" with them. He did this over a 4-5 month period, between June, 2007 and June, 2008. It was the ultimate determinate--dump blind luck--and in his case, of the 10 foot variety, that permitted him to live long enough to write this book. Junger's book is NOT a description of the typical experience for troops in Afghanistan (or Iraq, now, for that matter.) He placed himself literally and metaphorically "on the cutting edge" of the combat experience. "Nearly a fifth of the combat experienced by the 70,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan is being fought by the 150 men of Battle Company. Seventy percent of the bombs dropped in Afghanistan are dropped in and around the Korengal Valley" (p 55). (Battle Company is part of a 600-man battalion called "The Rock," in the 173rd Airborne Brigade.) Junger forms friendships with the men who routinely protect his life, and as he says: "Pure objectivity--difficult enough while covering a city council meeting--isn't remotely possible in a war; bonding with the men around you is the least of your problems." He has also done a fair degree of academic research, which is referenced, as to why soldiers fight - no surprises here; they fight for their "buddies." The author has some excellent descriptive passages on the clinical aspects of that tremendous "rush" that one can receive while in combat, and why it can literally be addictive. For the last four months of 1968 my unit was "op conned" (military lingo for "under the operational control of") the 173rd Airborne, when it was based out of LZ English, in northern Binh Dinh province. Thus, I experienced some affinity in the read. Is Afghanistan Vietnam redux, as so many right-wing think tanks proclaimed when it was the Russians who were fighting the Afghans? Junger does not mention Vietnam much, and I would have appreciated a "differential diagnosis." Clearly airborne troops who have volunteered for military service are more `gung-ho' than reluctant conscripts, and perhaps less interested in the "bigger issues" of the war; which suits the "brass" just fine. When the men in a unit all train together, and deploy together, there is a far higher degree of cohesion; of being willing to die for your buddy; but the downside, which Junger briefly describes, is when a year's worth of combat experience transfers out at the same time, to be replaced entirely by a unit of "cherries." One of the central issues in all wars is censorship, truth famously being the first casualty. Junger perhaps describes his own book inadvertently, when he says: "The public affairs guys on those bases offered the press a certain vision of the war, and that vision wasn't "wrong," it just seemed amazingly incomplete... I thought of those as `Vietnam moments.' A Vietnam moment was one in which you weren't so much getting lied to as getting asked to participate in a kind of collective wishful thinking (p 132). On the next page he says: "Once at a dinner party back home I was asked, with a kind of knowing wink, how much the military had `censored' my reporting. I answered that I'd never been censored at all..." I wasn't at a dinner party, and I didn't wink, but I was in a van rolling down Highway 1, on my first return to Vietnam, in 1994, when I had the opportunity to ask one of the "big name" journalists of that war the same question. He huffily replied that he had never been censored. I gently probed, OK, maybe not "censored," but how about not reporting a story that "was too hot to handle." Again I received a `negative', and so, perhaps uncharitably, since his wife and daughter were also in the van, I reminded him of some of things we didn't talk about. He grudgingly "surrendered." After "The Perfect Storm" there were a couple of people who would not speak to Junger, because of his portrayal of some individuals, none of whom he had known prior to the event. You don't have the sense the same will be true of this book; as he states in the introduction, he did share sections with the men involved to "make sure they are comfortable with what I wrote." Much of the book is the combat, the "exciting" part of war; but what of the non-combat; the boredom of not being attacked for weeks? It is discussed somewhat, but the solace of alcohol is only briefly mentioned, and of hash, never. Can this be true? Also missing were some of the other "universal themes" of war, at least for front line troops, which were depicted in classic accounts of combat, such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) Specifically, the dangerous, mind-numbing incompetence of some of the officers, and the enormous disconnect with the civilians on the home front who are "criminally" indifferent to the experience and fate of the grunts. Also, Junger says there were no "comfort women" (to use that term we seem to reserve for Japanese WW II use of Korean women) in the Korengal, and that may actually be true, though Bernard Fall reports of them at Dien Bien Phu, and they were generally at even remote fire bases in Vietnam during the American deployment. Are they anywhere in Afghanistan? Like the "secret" bombing of Cambodia, THEY know, it is only the home town folks who are kept in the dark. But the ultimate in "you don't want to go there" was covered by one sentence: "The men know Pakistan is the root of the entire war, and that is just about the only topic they get political about." In Vietnam we knew the origins the weapons that the NVA and the VC were using: Red China and the Soviet Union. But where is all the weaponry and ammunition coming from for the "Anti-Coalition forces"? Who makes it, and how does it get there? After all, Pakistan is an ally of the United States, and a beneficiary of billions in financial aid. e.e. cummings visited this issue, concerning the "Good War," WW II, with his poem about American soldiers being killed by pieces of the 6th Street El, a reference to the scrape iron the US sold the Japanese just before the commencement of the war. Time for a re-visit? My nephew is in the Marines; and departs for deployment in Afghanistan's Helmund Province today. He will be in a vastly different area that the one depicted in the book, though the foe will be similarly ill-defined. He is under no illusions about the war, and hopes to make it the 8 months to the end of his enlistment. But will his children, and my grandchildren be given the opportunity to fight in this graveyard of empires? Will we be able to afford this opportunity? I disagree with Colonel Ostlund's assessment (p 171): on economic arguments, we lose - we simply cannot afford endless war. One of the best books on war written by a journalist; a solid 5-stars for what is included, all of which was meticulously fact-checked. It is the "blue pencil" omissions, the topics "too hot to handle" that cost it a star. Update: On April 14, the New York Times (as well as others) ran an article stating that all US Forces would be abandoning the Korengal valley. Another impossibly remote outpost, like LZ English, in northern Binh Dinh province, that was not really necessary for the security of the United States, and whose ownership was returned to the people who lived there. Plus ca change... plus la meme chose. A Thanksgiving update... truly in more ways than one, and an assessment from another person who "has paid his dues." My nephew survived his tour of Helmund province, and is whole of body, but carries concerns for what he has witnessed. He will be receiving his honorable discharge from the Marines on Dec. 13. In regards to his concerns, he said the following: "But I really do need to find myself again. I no longer support any type of war, and only support the people in the military, not the suits that send the young men and women over there. Too many young lives have been lost for a meaningless cause, and some of the people that do make it are changed forever. So, I have got some soul searching to do." Plus ca change, redux. Junger covered the case of the soldier who felt compelled to go back... but what of all the others? - JPJ
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) Sebastian Junger is one of those writers it seems everyone talks about these days. And with good reason. His nonfiction books are written with an engaging narrative that is reader friendly and causes pages to turn in rapid succession. Moreover, Junger takes his readers into the unlikeliest of places, fishing in freezing waters, to the top of the world's most dangerous mountains, and now to Afghanistan with a group of soldiers that know each day might be their last.
Junger's strength in this story comes from the men he met. They're all people most of his readers already know: brothers, fathers, and sons who have been pulled into combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. The stories comes from front page news and television stories, only Junger weds them all to the heart of the men in ways neither of those other media can. I expected some of the emotional drain that I got from the book, but Junger simply shines in this story. He brings his readers close to the men, puts them firmly in their world, and makes us mourn the loss of those that fall in battle -- and afterward. If you want to know what it's like to be in one of these Army fire teams, Junger will take you there. But the book isn't for the faint of heart or those afraid of the dark side of humanity.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) I enjoyed "The Perfect Storm" by Sebastian Junger, so when I saw that he wrote a book about his experiences as an embedded journalist with an Army unit in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan, I had to check it out. I was not disappointed, as his insights into how war affects those who fight in it were quite fascinating.
In the interests of full disclosure I must admit that I never saw combat. Sure, I served for six years in the Marines and am a Gulf War One-era veteran. But I had to settle for watching its festivities on CNN. With that in mind, when I review books like this I feel like a virgin writing about the Kama Sutra. So I can't say for sure that Mr. Junger isn't full of crap when he discusses his experiences as a journalist in modern warfare. However, the book rings true as far as my pogish military experience can validate, and also jels with other memoirs of actual combat veterans both of this war and previous conflicts. As a virgin may read the Kama Sutra to gain second-hand insight, a non-combatant can read books like "War" for the same reason. And as one who has read many books on warfare, this one stands in the company of those dealing with the subtle and internal facets of the warrior experience. Although the setting is within the Afghan conflict, "War" is not a detailed historical regurgitation. Instead, Mr. Junger focuses on how the experience of war affects those who engage in it. The book's three parts each deal with an elemental aspect of warfare: Fear, Killing, and Love. We see how the boredom and terror of combat welds men together, brings out their best and worst qualities, and alters them forever after. "War" reminded me of the movie "The Hurt Locker [Blu-ray]," with its demonstration of the old saying, "When you dance with the Devil, you don't change him - he changes you." Of course, Mr. Junger didn't actually fight, so the book isn't quite a first-hand memoir of combat like "Helmet for My Pillow." But his journalistic (and risk-taker's) perspective provides compelling insights into how America's young men are faring in our latest and longest-running war. Recommended.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) Having read a number of books about Iraq and Afghanistan, I was prepared to enjoy War by Junger. After all, I really enjoyed The Perfect Storm, which was well researched and compelling. I have to say War felt more like a set of small vignettes and stream of conscious writing than it did a book. Rather than one unifying theme (other than Afghanistan) the book is broken into three sections: Love, War, Killing, but even those sections aren't necessarily coherent.
Instead of following a chronological timeline or drilling deeply into one battle or timeframe, Junger recounts his interactions with solider who serve in Afghanistan over a long period of time, in heavy firefights and in absolute boredom. I'll tip my hat to him - unlike a lot of people who have written about the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he's been with the troops, under fire and in some fairly serious action. Yet a lot of this book falls flat. The reason is that there's no one person or concept that unifies the story and holds it together. While Junger writes about individual soldiers, it's hard for the reader to identify with the soldiers. Often the most compelling figure, and the one that seems to draw the most empathy is Airborne, the adopted puppy. Junger jumps from scene to scene, with different soldiers in different locations, so no one person or group forms a nucleus of the story. Perhaps he is trying to suggest that its the uniform that counts, but we can't get too interested or excited about the uniform, especially when we read about the command issues and lack of supply for the troops. Others have given this book high marks, and I can't say I didn't like it. But unlike other books written recently, like Joker One or House to House, I won't be coming back to this one. It feels too abstract, too distant from its subjects and too disconnected from the reports we've received in other books and movies. Maybe Junger is intentionally trying to distance himself from that kind of writing and reporting. If so, he may have discovered a new way of writing about war, but it's one that I found disconnected and ultimately uninteresting. ... Read more | |
| 5. Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Education in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $8.10 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0143118234 Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) Sales Rank: 241 Average Customer Review: 
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
| |
| 6. The Gun by C. J. Chivers | |
 | Hardcover
list price: $28.00 -- our price: $16.80 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0743270762 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Sales Rank: 618 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Throughout, The Gun animates unforgettable characters—inventors, salesmen, heroes, megalomaniacs, racists, dictators, gunrunners, terrorists, child soldiers, government careerists, and fools. Drawing from years of research, interviews, and from declassified records revealed for the first time, he presents a richly human account of an evolution in the very experience of war. Reviews
| |
| 7. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $10.88 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0385523912 Publisher: Spiegel & Grau Sales Rank: 1254 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) As Barbara Demick says in her epilogue, North Korea is something of a mystery. How has it avoided the collapse that experts have been predicting for 15 or more years? How has it been so successful at keeping citizens ignorant of the outside world and the outside world ignorant of its machinations? And, because of these successes at insulation, is it even possible to understand what life is like in North Korea?
Fortunately, Nohing to Envy gives us a "yes" answer to this last question; here is a book where we hear the stories of six North Korean defectors. In interweaving chapters, Demick reconstructs these tales of struggle with the skill of a novelist (and anyone not told that this is a work of journalism may be forgiven for thinking it a dystopian novel a la 1984 (Signet Classics) or We (Modern Library Classics)). Dr. Kim is a medical doctor, devoted to the Workers party; Mrs. Song is a wife forced to find any way she can to feed her family, including daughter Oak-Hee in increasingly dismal times; Kim Hyuck is a boy whose father gave him to a state orphanage rather than have a son he couldn't support; Jun-Sang and Mi-Ran are secretly boyfriend and girlfriend, each with private reservations about, and struggles with, North Korea that remain private for fear of governmental repurcussions. Through these tales, we are able to glimpse life in a nation gone horribly wrong, where selling anything privately or insulting the Workers Psrty can land you years of time in prison or a labor camp, where emaciated children sing songs extolling North Korea, and one's station in life is dictated by how loyal one's family has been to "the Party." The stories are wonderfully told and, at times, I found myself putting the book down out of disbelief, outrage, and thankfulness for my own circumstances. I don't think anyone could read these stories and not feel very strongly. Of course, Demick is also telling stories of defectors - by definition, stories about the strength of human spirit and tenacity. Nothing to Envy not only tells of economic collapse, but people's initiative in bringing about (illegal) markets to buy and sell goods. She not only tells of spirits being broken, but spirits persevering. And just as readers will certainly feel heartbreaks in these pages, so will they also feel joy in reading about some really brave people who broke the rules and thought for themeslves. I cannot reccomend this book strongly enough! Readers of fiction (and biography) will get lost in the stories; readers of foreign affairs and political science will relish the descriptions of life under a most secret regime. Nothing to Envy is as captivating as a human story as it is informative as a political description.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) I find myself fascinated by the lives of North Koreans: So completely different from ours in the first world. What is most fascinating is that they don't even know what they're missing, indoctrinated virtually from birth that the U.S. is evil and their Dear Leader is a god. This book is for people like me, that want to know more about what it's really like to live there, day by day. The book is full of little details like the very modest housing, the lack of heat in the wintertime everywhere, and how rations worked before they were cut off; to say nothing of the many ways to avoid starvation or watching what you say all the time for fear of being reported to the authorities for the North Korean equivalent of blasphemy.
The book follows six people through their lives in the DPRK in the 1990's, including the huge famine which occurred at that time; and, ultimately, their decisions to defect (a foregone conclusion since otherwise their stories would not be told). I found myself fascinated by them, especially how each figures out that their country's leadership has let them down. The author even managed to fit in a love story which, far from being hokey, is especially riveting due to the circumstances. The book is well-written and easy to read, the only mar being occasional repeated information which is easy to overlook. I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface with this review. If reading this makes you want to know more, you won't be disappointed by the book.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) This is a gripping book. The six defectors interviewed by Demick describe North Korea as a totalitarian state in a post-apocalypse condition. That's why the visions of Orwell and McCarthy come to mind.
North Korea suffered two tragedies. The first one was the split of the Korean peninsula at the end of WWII and Stalin installing a like-minded dictator at its helm, Kim Il-sung. The latter eradicates religion and replaces it by his own cult of personality. In achieving a God status in his country, he bests Stalin, Hitler and Fidel Castro. Upon his death in the early nineties, many North Koreans will commit suicides. And, North Koreans will believe (through intense political propaganda) that if they cry enough Kim Il-sung will come back from the dead. The son of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il will succeed him as a son of God. North Korea's second tragedy was the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the latter collapsed it interrupted its assistance in food and oil. North Korea did not have enough fuel on its own to maintain its electrical grid. On the first page of the first chapter you see a picture of the Korean peninsula at night. South Korea is full of bright spots (urban areas lit by electricity). But, North Korea is pitch dark! In the post Soviet Union era, North Korea suffers shortages of electricity, running water, and food. Millions have already died of starvation. People are not paid. They are compensated by food rations. But, if you don't work you don't eat. The ones who don't receive food attempt to survive by milling bark, grasses, shrubs, leaves. The majority of the country still suffers from malnutrition. Millions more would die if not for foreign assistance. But, the government misallocates food assistance by giving it to the ones who need it the least such as the army and the Pyongyang residents. Meanwhile, rural areas are starving. Within the book, a defecting doctor describes it best as she crossed the border in China and finds a full bowl of rice served to a dog and stated "dogs in China eat better than doctors in North Korea." While Koreans physical attributes were reasonably homogeneous a while back, they have since diverged dramatically. The North Koreans are half a foot shorter and tens of pounds lighter because of malnutrition. North Koreans born in the late eighties to early nineties are recognizable as they are shorter with heads disproportionately large relative to their bodies with overly thin and frail limbs. In the early nineties before foreign aid rallied after the collapse of Soviet Union subsidies, society took a McCarthy's turn with many crimes, suicides, and even cannibalism (homeless orphans overtaken by starving adults in remote areas). Only a totalitarian State could prevent such a society to fall into chaos. Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il have created a cult of personality supported by an obsessive self-surveillance society. North Koreans main activity is reporting on each other. The surveillance starts from the bottom up with "people's group" were everyone reports on everyone else. At dinner if you expressed a mild criticism of the current regime, you could be reported by a neighbor. Soon, after you could be abducted by the police and disappear in a camp forever. Many surveilling police forces are very specialized. If you sleep with your lover, a specialized police force can barge in the middle of the night and ask your lover for its travel permit. If the adequate documents are not produced the person can end up in prison. Another specialized police force watches that people wear the correct garments with the buttons showing support for the regime. Another one checks in that your TV or radio (a few people have electricity for a few moments a day) is set on the proper North Korean program. If you tweaked this equipment to listen to South Korean programs, you can incur severe punishment including death. Another police force makes sure that the portraits of the dictators are clean. If not you are in trouble. Society is categorized in three classes: 1) the core class representing the professionals and government leaders; 2) the wavering class representing some sort of middle class; and 3) the hostile class representing entertainers, artists, nonproductive elements, and everyone of foreign origins. The hostile class is the one most intensely spied upon by others. Thus, it is most vulnerable to be imprisoned in camps and gulags for no obvious reason. Propaganda is relentless. The dictator is the benevolent father of the nation. Without his hard work and superior intelligence you would be dying of starvation twice as fast as you are. Everybody else is the enemy. This includes Americans, Chinese, South Koreans, and even Russians and East-Europeans who failed at communism because of their genetic weakness. Capitalism is rotten. In other words, you have "Nothing to Envy." Meanwhile, reality is stunningly bad. Chapter 7 describes the decrepit health care system. Hospitals lack all basic supplies and remedies. Many operations are conducted without anesthetic by tying the patient to boards. Children come in the hospitals and die because their weakening bodies from starvation can't fend off mild colds or flues that escalate into pneumonia. Chapter 8 describes the conditions in school that are equally horrible. Given that schools are broke, children are required to bring a ration of wood for heating and their own lunch. A teacher/defector observed a tragic pattern. At first, the children stop bringing their ration of wood. Next, the children don't bring their own lunch (and therefore don't eat during the day). And, soon after children do not even attend school.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) It's 1 am December 22nd as I write this, and I doubt I will even be able to sleep tonight, because this book is one that is haunting my every thought.
Loving books as much as I do, I force myself to read books which I know will make me feel sad, and even mad. This is one of those books. Started reading it a few days before Christmas and am glad I did, since its a book that kicks you in the gut and makes to verbally acknowledge just how blessed one is, here in the states, where for the most part, even the poor at least have some plain, healthy food to eat at least daily. Now I tend to be one of those people who when I lay in bed, ready for sleep, and I go over the days activities, I pause to give thanks for clean water, simple food, indoor plumbing, a bed to sleep in and while not well off by any standards, I am nonetheless lacking for none of the basics of life. This book literally made me cry, which is good. How one could read of North Koreans living in such horrid conditions, cutting grass and weeds to make some awful soup, because they are so hungry. Or parents bringing children to fifth world medical clinics because they have no milk, not even rice. On page 112 we read of a young female doctor who is trying against all odds to help her people. 'The problem was with the food. Housewives started to pick weeds and wild grasses to add to their soups to create the illusion of vegetables. Corn was increasingly the staple again instead of rice but people were adding leaves, husks, stems, and cobs to make it go further. That was okay for adults, but it couldn't be digested by the young stomachs of children. In the hospital doctors discussed this problem among themselves, and gave the mothers what amounted to cooking advise. 'If you use grass or bark, you have to grind it very fine, then cook it a very long time so it is soft a d easy to eat.' Dr. Kim told them.' One reads how the doctors harvest herbs in the surrounding areas and try to make their own medicines and herbal treatments, because they have no other choice. Another problem one reads about is pellagra which is caused by lack of niacin in the diet and often seen in people who only eat corn. The hospitals which may have had antibiotics years ago had none now. Mothers didn't eat enough to produce breast milk so baby and toddlers died. And if they could have afforded rice they would have tried to make rice milk, but there was no rice. Think of any horrid situation a country who doesn't care about her citizens can have and this is North Korea. Only a small are of North Korea is open to visitors and then they have a 'minder' who takes them around and only allows them to see certain things and speak to certain people. Dr. Kim who had begun medical school at age 16, finally is able to escape with the help of the underground and she ends up in China and then South Korea where in her forties she has to start medical school all over again, but succeeds. And the book also covers the story of others who at great risk, did what they had to in order to escape North Korea. Since returning to North Korea if caught would have meant either a hard labor camp or even death. Visualize for a moment someone in their thirties who because of malnutrition looks like they are twelve years old. Or if a child survives to adult hood they may not be over five feet tall, even if male. This is a book that will stay with me the rest of my life.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy is probably the best account, for the layman, of the last two decades in North Korea. Demick has used her time as the bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times' Seoul desk to gradually gather enough sources to paint a portrait of the hermit nation. This book is the story of a few people from Chonjin. None are members of the Worker's Party, and each is now a defector. They include a shy scholar, a doctor, a teacher, a young woman from a family with Japanese blood, an older woman with a lot of community pride, a young man who learns to steal food in spite of his proud father's scorn. The title refers to the refrain of a patriotic song. "We have nothing to envy.." It is a phrase that lends itself to irony.
If I am honest with myself, I have to recognize the paradox posed by reading a book about North Korea. There is no doubt that the people of this nation are in peril. It deserves our concern. It begs for some kind of conversation. What can be done? It would demand that we understand why our existing political remedies fail to make a difference. Yet reading, by itself, falls short of action. If concern is the only response, then what does that mean? I am reflecting on my own culpability. I am a better reader when I am also entertained. I am concerned about NK, but I didn't pick up any of the human rights reports on this subject. It is much like the beautiful photography by Sebastiao Salgado of famine in the Sudan. We readily consume glorious reportage of tragic suffering. A recurring theme is that survivors live only when they learn to put their interests ahead of anyone else. The young man lives, while his father starves to death in a train station. The schoolteacher watches her pupils starve, but she is not foolish. She doesn't share her meager rations with her students. When people have to work all day to put together 500 calories a day, there is little room to offer kindness to strangers. The book has three parts in my mind. The first section attempts to offer some degree of sympathy for the country. She mentions that even if there is no electricity at night in much of the country, that means walks at night are uncluttered. The sky is lit up by stars. There is very little pollution. True....I suppose. The next section goes into the grisly bits that underscore the larger truth: this is a horrible place to live. The people are living under a slow emergency. The country's leaders have given up any pretense that society is functioning. People spend their days scavenging for food. The eat tree bark, or sticks, or grass. The hospitals don't have electricity, let alone medicine. A character in this story acknowledges the truth - the country has become one large prison. Its citizens are hostage to the failed philosophies of its leadership. When the government admits that there is widespread homelessness in their paradise, they establish a series of community structures. Those structures turn out to be small jails. In the last chapter, Demick departs from strict reportage and moves into some reflection with a fair bit of speculation. She reverts to using symbolic imagery. Swallows, for example, are the young children cast off from their families that learn to survive by stealing bits of food from the illegal black market farmer's markets. The economy's lack of energy can even be seen in how people stand. It is not unusual, she says, to see a large group of people setting on their haunches for hours at a time. They are conserving their energy. Besides, they don't have anything else to do. I didn't understand that the implosion of this economy was predicated by the end of a ready supply of oil. North Korea could no longer look to allies in the Communist World with fuel (Soviet Union), because after 1989, they weren't there. North Korea had developed into an industrial nation. In Chonjin, where these subjects in this book are all from, huge mines and factories are silenced without oil. Even the coal mines, which should provide a ready supply of energy, won't produce without the oil needed to power the earth moving machines. This contributes to a lack of food, because most fertilizers require oil. Farming requires fuel to run machines. Demick's book avoids layering the reporting with too much opinion. She lets the facts speak for themselves. Some of the details in this book are fascinating. For example, she explains why North Korean clothing has such a distinctly colorless look. It turns out that this is not an accident or a poor electronic reproduction. It is vinalon, a textile invented in North Korea that is made from a mixture of coal, limestone, and vinyl. It is often called Juche Fiber. Vinalon dies won't hold color, so it tends to be dark. Another oddity is the tradition of giving candy to children on the birthdays of Kim Jong-Il and Kim il-Sung. The rest of the year,they starve like everyone else. The Party uses the candy in conjunction with its other propaganda: Each home has pictures of the two leaders. The pictures are required to be displayed in every families, and they are inspected for cleanliness. It is front of those pictures that the children are given their candy. The association between their leaders and great benevolence is thus constructed. Details like these don't need any additional persuasion to make the main point. Going back to my own ethical quandary, I am left even more uncertain about what the West can do to resolve this situation. North Korea's leadership uses our overtures of aid to generate aid donations. That food is not making its way to the people. The government uses what fertility is left in the soil to grow poppies for heroin. North Korea is supposed to be a producer of methamphetamine as well. It would be hard to imagine a country more deserving of regime change. Our aid programs seem to only delay the inevitable. Each day only serves to push more people into starvation. Not everyone wants to know about a place like North Korea. I do, but I'll admit that I could find very few people who wanted to hear about the details that are within this book. I don't think that there are many better alternatives than this book. There is a famous documentary from the BBC, a series of academic journal publications, and the reports from human rights observers. Those have their own strength, but none can match this book for its ability to put this crisis into the context of the lives of North Korea's common citizens.
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) Barbara Demick writes an amazing book on the lives of 6 different defectors, she brings insight into the lives of people that we know so little of their day to day life. I found it striking that many people in this book knew of times that were better, and slowly their resources and freedoms were taken away. None of these changes happened over night, but in any other country teachers don't watch their students starve to death, doctors must go out and search for their own herbs to heal their patients, and people constantly watch what they say in front of their neighbors.
Lives are intertwined in this book beautifully. We see what it is like to be a single adult and making it to college despite a caste system that would ordinarily pull us down. We see how even a doctor steals food from the collective to survive. We see a family struggle with the a careless comment made to a neighbor, when it carries so much weight. Having known many Russians from the communist era, I have heard their stories about shortages, and getting goods on the black market, their stories pale in comparision to the struggles the people have in North Korea. The entire country is indoctrinated from birth to live for the country, do to for our country, and to sacrifice for our country. These people are asked to do this in a way we would consider unimaginable. We hear of when times were better, and how factories fell into shambles, of when they had electricity, and times when they have electricity for only a few hours at a time, and a time when there was plenty to eat, and then through a famine where 1/5 of their population died. Once you set this book down, you will always remember the struggles of those who were lucky enough to leave their homeland.
| |
| 8. Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan -- and the Path to Victory by Anthony Shaffer | |
 | Hardcover
(2010-09-24)
list price: $25.99 -- our price: $12.99 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 031260369X Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Sales Rank: 1389 Average Customer Review: 
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer had run intelligence operations for years before he arrived in Afghanistan. He was part of the “dark side of the force”---the shadowy elements of the U.S. government that function outside the bounds of the normal system. His group called themselves the Jedi Knights and pledged to use the dark arts of espionage to protect the country from its enemies. Shaffer’s mission to Afghanistan, however, was unlike any he had ever experienced before. There, he led a black-ops team on the forefront of the military efforts to block the Taliban’s resurgence. They not only planned complex intelligence operations to beat back the insurgents, but also played a key role in executing those operations---outside the wire. They succeeded in striking at the core of the Taliban and their safe havens across the border in Pakistan. For a moment Shaffer saw us winning the war. Then the military brass got involved. The policies that top officials relied on were hopelessly flawed. Shaffer and his team were forced to sit and watch as the insurgency grew---just across the border in Pakistan. This wasn’t the first time he had seen bureaucracy stand in the way of national security. He had participated in Able Danger, the aborted intelligence operation that identified many of the future 9/11 terrorists but failed to pursue them. His attempt to reveal the truth to the 9/11 Commission would not go over well with his higher-ups. Operation Dark Heart tells the story of what really went on--and what went wrong--in Afghanistan. Shaffer witnessed firsthand the tipping point, when what seemed like certain victory turned into failure. Now, in this book, he maps out a way that could put us on the path to winning the war. Reviews
| |
| 9. The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard Mcgregor | |
 | Hardcover
list price: $27.99 -- our price: $18.47 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0061708771 Publisher: Harper Sales Rank: 1599 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review An eye-opening investigation into china's communist party and its integral role in the country's rise as a global superpower and rival of the united states China's political and economic growth in the past three decades is one of astonishing, epochal dimensions. The country has undergone a remarkable transformation on a scale similar to that of the Industrial Revolution in the West. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been left largely untold—the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. As an organization alone, the Party is a phenomenon of unique scale and power. Its membership surpasses seventy-three million, and it does more than just rule a country. The Party not only has a grip on every aspect of government, from the largest, richest cities to the smallest far-flung villages in Tibet and Xinjiang, it also has a hold on all official religions, the media, and the military. The Party presides over large, wealthy state-owned businesses, and it exercises control over the selection of senior executives of all government companies, many of which are in the top tier of the Fortune 500 list. In The Party, Richard McGregor delves deeply into China's inner sanctum for the first time, showing how the Communist Party controls the government, courts, media, and military, and how it keeps all corruption accusations against its members in-house. The Party's decisions have a global impact, yet the CPC remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law, unaccountable to anyone or anything other than its own internal tribunals. It is the world's only geopolitical rival of the United States, and is steadfastly poised to think the worst of the West. In this provocative and illuminating account, Richard McGregor offers a captivating portrait of China's Communist Party, its grip on power and control over China, and its future. Reviews
| |
| 10. Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell | |
 | Hardcover
list price: $24.99 -- our price: $16.49 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0316067598 Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Sales Rank: 3115 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
| |
| 11. The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer | |
 | Paperback
list price: $18.00 -- our price: $12.24 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0553381482 Publisher: Bantam Sales Rank: 1446 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
One of the saddest truths about the turn of the new Millennium is the realization that the veterans of the so-called "Greatest Generation," those who defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, are now rapidly passing into history. As such, it has become even more important that the stories of their heroism and sacrifice be written down for posterity while the heroes themselves are still around to tell them. With his new book, "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors," literary agent and author James D. Hornfischer has documented one such lesser-remembered World War Two tale with a reverence befitting the brave men who fought and died for America's freedom. The events of the book take place during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which stands as the largest naval engagement in world history, and was fought between the Japanese and American navies in the vicinity of the Philippines as General Douglas McArthur's forces were invading to take the archipelago back from the Japanese. The Leyte Gulf campaign has been well documented in other books about the Pacific war, so Hornfischer focuses most of his attention on one particular engagement off Samar Island. There, a small task force of American escort carriers and destroyers (the "Tin Cans" of the title), held off a far superior enemy fleet of battleships and cruisers with a combination of near-suicidal bravery and spectacular seamanship coupled with a healthy dose of sheer good fortune. "Tin Can Sailors" is exhaustively researched, which gives the narrative the kind detailed nuance that elevates it above the level of mere reportage into inspired storytelling. Hornfischer sets the stage by introducing the main players, both the ships and the men who sailed on them. He gives an overall view of events leading up to the battle to assist the casual reader in placing it in context, and also presents enough of the Japanese point of view to give an appreciation of how desperate the forces of the Rising Sun were at this stage of the war. Desperate enough, in fact, to risk virtually their entire remaining surface fleet on a gamble, the success of which hinged on their ability to bluff hard-charging American Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey. If not for the almost superhuman courage of the Tin Can Sailors, they might well have succeeded and seriously imperiled McArthur's invasion forces. The battle scenes in the book are particularly well depicted; some of the first hand accounts are every bit as graphically disturbing as, say, the first half-hour of the movie "Saving Private Ryan." Such images are absolutely vital to the telling of the story, and the author handles them deftly, never lapsing into sensationalism. Hour-by-hour position maps showing the locations of the ships are helpfully provided to assist the reader along with a generous selection of photographs. The extras make "Tin Can Sailors" one of the best battle books I've read in terms of helping the reader see the action as it is taking place. The epilogue contains a list of those who died fighting the battle, and what's immediately striking is that America lost more fighting men in just over three hours in this one small corner of World War Two than it has during the entire nine-plus months of the Iraq war. Overall, "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" is a first rate work of history that will be enjoyed equally by both military buffs and more casual readers. The book was obviously a labor of love for its author, and he should be saluted for his efforts in writing it.
James Hornfischer didn't just find a great story to tell, he crafted it with a very skillful narration. A writer of non-fiction who can capture a reader and pull him into his story is rare and the author does this very well. He had me cheering as Ernest Evans led the Johnston on the attack against the entire Japanese fleet. He left me horrified by the effects of the pounding that the Tin Cans took and stunned by the heroism and sense of duty of those who manned their posts until the very end. The book gives a nice overview of the Pacific Theater until the point of this battle. Hornfischer clearly explains what has happened so that you can understand the context of the Battle off of Samar. He does this without going too far in depth and losing the reader. The explanations of the development of the Navy and Naval Aviation were clear and concise. I learned quite a bit about the planes that were used and the men who piloted them. The same can be said for his explanations of the different naval vessels and what made them unique. If you like books told from numerous first-person accounts that personalize a story and let you get to know those involved, then this book is for you. It is an honorable salute to those who survived and the heroes who did not.
Early on the morning of October 25, 1944 Taffy 3, made up of six U.S. escort carriers and a screen of eight destroyers stumbled into a vastly superior Japanese naval force made up of four battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers. The Japanese fleet was within range of the American force virtually before either group was aware of the presence of the other. The Japanese began bombarding Taffy 3 almost immediately. To save the carriers, the small force of American destroyers and destroyer escorts throw themselves at the Japanese task force believing that by sacrificing themselves they can buy precious time for the American carriers and allow them to flee southward toward another grouping of friendly ships. Naval aviators from Taffy 3 also do all they can to thwart the on rushing Japanese, but many planes are launched quickly from the carriers armed with the wrong type of ordinance. Still, between the attacking aircraft and destroyers, they manage to slow, at least temporarily, the Japanese fleet. In the end three American destroyers are sunk and nearly 1000 sailors and airmen die. Though the battle was small two huge firsts took place on October 25, 1944. The first and only American aircraft carrier was sunk by enemy naval surface gun fire. Also, October 25 marked the first successful kamikaze attack of World War II. Well written and well researched The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors will be an easy read...it is gripping and a page turner. One aspect that Hornfischer is clear on is the cause of the battle. He clearly feels that Halsey must bear most of the blame for this near disaster. Halsey was guarding the northern flank of Taffy 3. Though the attack that nearly distroyed Taffy 3 came from the West, Halsey was not in position to give assistance since he had run off to the north looking for a rumored grouping of Japanese aircraft carriers. Disaster was averted to be sure, but only because of the heroism of the skippers of three destroyers and their crews. If you're a history lover then you'll love this book.
James D. Hornfischer covers all three areas--plus some postwar history, including the reason the Navy has been wary of celebrating what he calls "the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour. If his prose rarely rises above the workmanlike, that's OK, because it seldom sinks to cheap melodrama and also (so far as I can tell) avoids the kind of amateurish mistakes and ignorant howlers that marred the likes of Craig Nelson's "The First Heroes." Indeed, Hornfischer does an excellent job of conveying the WWII naval milieu, probably because (despite his evident youth and lack of naval background) he seems to have done real research, incl.uding his own interviews. We come to know that there are human beings involved; this is not just a tale about sheet metal and shellfire. That means we are powerfully affected when he talks about the cost. He does not shrink from the terrible sufferings and horrible deaths involved, whether from scalding steam or explosions or fires in battle--or from delerium, exposure and sharks during an aftermath of long-delayed rescue. The center of this story comes after the battleship duel (a disaster for the Japanese): When the decoy succeeds, Japan's powerful Center Force is left free to swoop into Leyte Gulf and destroy Gen. Douglas MacArthur's invasion force on the beach. Standing in the way (and utterly unaware) is Taffy 3, whose job is simply air support for the troops. It's hard to express the imbalance between the two forces, which is so great it makes David vs. Goliath resemble a sporting proposition. The Japanese have 11 destroyers, 2 light cruisers, 6 heavy cruisers and 4 battleships (the largest of which, the Yamato, outweighs all of Taffy 3's ships combined). Taffy 3's excellent Fletcher-class destroyers are, as Hornfischer aptly notes, its only ships "not conceived as lesser versions of a more capable vessel." Taffy 3's 6 aircraft carriers, for example, are mere escort or "jeep" carriers (never intended for fleet actions). Its remaining ships are 4 of the frankly desperate "destroyer escorts," mainly intended for antisubmarine work. The clash of these forces makes for exciting reading; as a Hollywood script it would be laughed out of town as outrageous fiction, but it is in fact true and inspiring. It would be unfair to the book to go into details here, but I should add that Hornfischer is particularly good on the ship-by-ship tactical end. Too many other accounts have focused excessively on Japanese confusion: While that did weigh in the balance, it's also clear that in some cases David simply outfought Goliath--and out-thought him, too.--Bill Marsano is a long-time amateur of naval history.
First, he has addressed what the noted historian, John Keegan, was not willing to consider in his book, "The Face of Battle" (Viking Press, 1995): | |
| 12. Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds by Robin Olds, Christina Olds, Ed Rasimus | |
 | Hardcover
list price: $26.99 -- our price: $17.81 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0312560230 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Sales Rank: 3580 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
| |
| 13. The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.99 -- our price: $10.19 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0316014001 Publisher: Back Bay Books Sales Rank: 3321 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
| |
| 14. Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of K-129 by Norman Polmar, Michael White | |
 | Hardcover
list price: $29.95 -- our price: $19.77 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 1591146909 Publisher: Naval Institute Press Sales Rank: 4501 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Reviews
| |
| 15. Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $10.88 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 038549565X Publisher: Anchor Sales Rank: 5245 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
Sides weaves American Caesar Douglas MacArthur's departure, the 1942 fall of Bataan, and the prisoners' three-year aftermath into the effort by untested Rangers to rescue the POWs in late January 1945, when only 500 sickly men survived in an old camp north of Manila. In some respects, these POWs were the lucky ones, even as they lost hope in a rescue thirty-three months in the offing. Moving back and forth between prison life and the rescue effort, Sides builds the story well. The joy of rescue mingles with the possiblity of a last-minute massacre. The Japanese treatment of American POWs in WWII holds a special place of horror in the minds of Americans of "the greatest generation", and this book makes the terror real. At the same time, the Japanese are not all portrayed as monsters or torturers. In fact, it's the humanity amidst the stark terror and misery that surfaces in this book, the small acts of kindness, the apparently random administration of mercy, and the kindred spirit of POWs. The Ranger rescue demonstrates American soldiering at its best, at a time when wounds about actions in Vietnam not only remain, they have recently resurfaced. Sides makes it clear war is based on hate and horror but honor as well. More students of history need to read and know this story, somewhat forgotten or overlooked in the magnitude of events that followed: V-E Day, Hiroshima, V-J Day. The book falls a bit in its narrative. I felt like this was destined if not designed to be a magazine or a movie treatment more than an historic analysis. Despite meticulous attention to tracking down details, Sides' writing left me feeling a bit flat, unconnected to the key figures. Sure, I cried at the end. I was moved by the heroism and commitment of the Rangers. But I thirsted for more, even knowing that reconstructing events is difficult fifty-plus years out. The veterans of this rescue deserve the accolades. They deserve your reading this book.
Beginning with a description of the torture and execution of prisoners at the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp on Palawan, Philippines, the book describes the daily ordeal - it can't be called life - that these men endured. By December 1944 the Japanese on Palawan knew that it was only a matter of time before the Americans returned. The officer in charge, the one the men called the 'buzzard' decided to rid himself of his prisoner problem. From their positions in trenches the Americans watched as Japanese carrying liquid filled buckets approached. "With a quick jerk of the hands, they flung the contents into the openings of the trenches. By the smell of it on their skin, the Americans instantly recognized what it was - high octane aviation fuel from the airstrip. Before they could apprehend the full significance of it, other soldiers tossed in lighted bamboo torches." The details provided by the book are obviously gruesome. That Nielsen and 10 others survived the incineration is miraculous. It was these survivors' accounts as told to Army intelligence that prompted the US to send in Rangers to free the 513 Americans held prisoner at Cabanatuan. The narratives of four other survivors is interwoven with the exploits of the Ranger officer who led the mission. "Little MacArthur's" story and that of the other 120 Rangers and 200 Filipino guerrillas who successfully freed the prisoners, is as heroic and as uplifting a story as the survivors tales are grim and gruesome. The author is correct in calling these men the "ultimate survivors." We can only be glad that there are a few still alive today to retell their story. The author spoke to 30 in researching his book. Similarly with IN HARM'S WAY, this WWII narrative is written by a young man (the author is 39). These survivors who refer to themselves as "Ghosts" because they felt abandoned should take some gratification in knowing that their story is still of great interest and their courage a source of inspiration to young writers today. "It is with books as with men; a very small number play a great part." (Voltaire) I salute the GHOST SOLDIERS.
How is it that we are who we are, or do what we wish, or live in a nation where the words "choice" and "freedom" are taken for granted? My grandfather was not one of the Bataan survivors, nor did he ever have to endure the horrors of captivity at the hands of the Japanese Army. However, as a veteran of the Americal Division, he saw enough bloodshed and death to last him a lifetime. Because of him, I take the opportunity to read as much as I can on the Pacific War so that I may better understand his experiences in battle as a young man not all that older than myself today. "Ghost Soldiers" is one of those books that grabs you from the first sentence and does not let go until the final page has been turned. Masterfully written, exhaustively researched, and superbly paced, Hampton Sides employs the same technique that Mark Bowden used in 1999's "Black Hawk Down" in that the historical account reads more like a novel than a work of military history. The characters and events however, are entirely real. Sadly, many of the true heroes of "Ghost Soliders" did not survive their ordeal and never returned home. Every American should read this book. Not just those who are interested in military history, or those professionals in this country's armed forces who seek to further develop and immerse themselves in the profession of arms. No, the ones who need to read this book are those who abhor war and who cannot even begin imagine the unthinkable acts of cruelty and suffering heaped upon young men whose only crime was that they were on the losing side in the early going of the Pacific War. The ones who need to read this book are the ones who show little interest in the history of this great nation that they are citizens of, yet show little appreciation or knowledge of how America got here. Only after reading "Ghost Soldiers" will those begin to understand the meaning of the popular catchphrase "freedom isn't free." To the brave prisoners who suffered, yet lived, and all of those who endeavoured to bring them out of their hell before it was too late, they have finally received their just due. However, for this grateful son and soldier, this book doesn't even begin to make up for their selfless service and sacrifices to preserve our way of life. But it is a very good start...
Ghost Soldiers traces American GI's from the Bataan Death March through their internment in the Japanese prison system and the eventual liberation of several hundred during a daring raid on the prison at Cabanatuan by an army Ranger unit. It is a gripping and well written story that will keep you fixed to the pages of this fine book. The first chapter is searing and just about the saddest piece of history I've ever read. The massacre of American prisoners at Palawan tipped the US Army to the danger faced by other POW's operating under a Japanese policy of prisoner annihilation as the Empire's prospects faded late in the war. Knowing that 500 prisoners were at the Phillipine camp Cabanatuan ahead of the US Sixth Army unleashed what is perhaps the war's most dramatic rescue mission in early 1945. Hampton Sides is a good writer who knows how to keep a story moving. He weaves back and forth between the prisoners and their Ranger rescuers withoug breaking the story pace. He also traces the history of the prisoner's experiences under Japanese authority. The sadistic barbarity with which the captors treated American prisoners is amazing for its uniformity. Sides brings enough of Japanese culture and military training into the story to show how almost everyone from top commanders to lowly prison guards were perhaps predisposed to the atrocities that visited our soldiers with stunning regularity through their long months of starvation and neglect. The threads of the story come together nicely with a climatic battle scene that will glue your attention to the pages. This is a well written story that deserves to be remembered both as a testament to the barbarity of the war-era Japanese army and the heroics of POW survival and American arms.
The accounts of deprivation and starvation in this book are so accurate it brought back a flood of memories. While the years have somewhat dimmed the horrors of death and destruction during the battle of Manila, if I live to be a hundred I will never forget starvation. So true was the segment discussing recipes. Hours were spent talking, even arguing, about which recipe would produce the tastiest results. This book also reinforces the things we learned about the importance of faith, hope, resilience and a sense of humor...without which we would not have survived. Hampton Sides presents a true picture of life in a Japanese internment camp.
Review: Although I had heard a lot about the Bataan Death March (called "the Hike" by some of those who survived it), the details of how and why it happened had escaped me. The Japanese mistakenly thought that they had captured 40,000 fairly healthy troops. Instead, they had almost 100,000 who were in bad shape. No one bothered to adjust, and the suffering mostly occurred due to gross negligence compounded by a lack of concern about POWs and random cruelty by undisciplined soldiers. Piled into a camp designed for 9,000 people, the 50,000 who resided there at any time died at the rate of 10 percent within an average of 50 days due to rampant disease and cruelty. The commandant at Camp O'Donnell, Captain Yoshio Tsueneyoshi, told the prisoners, "You are members of an inferior race, and we will treat you as we see fit." Eventually dispersed into small camps, the prisoners were turned into slave labor for the Japanese, doing everything from growing food (which they were not premitted to eat) to building runways. Only their own efforts slowed down the rate of death. Friendly Filipinos, American spies, and sympathizers smuggled food and medicine into the prisoner of war camps and saved many, many lives. Over time, the healthiest were sent off to Japan to continue their role as slave labor in coal mines and on the docks. Due to the gradually shrinking Japanese base, one survivor recounts surviving two sinkings before a third ship got him to Japan. The conditions were horrible on the ships, and many died in transit due to the bad treatment and the attacks by the Allies. Those who remained at Camp Cabanatuan had suffered from more kinds of diseases than you or I have ever heard of. The Japanese only provided medicines when the diseases threatened their own soldiers. The attack occurred with little time to prepare, few resources, and grave challenges. The Rangers and guerrillas had to cross major roads twice, that were clogged with Japanese military traffic. Major roads led into the camp that could have brought reinforcements. They only had surprise going for them. Due to the support of the guerrillas and the communities in the area, the attack went surprisingly well. The operational details are carefully and thoroughly assembled in a way that makes you feel like you are part of the battalion undertaking the assault. After you finish reading this heart-thumping, throat-clogging story, I suggest that you think about the importance of our commitment to save anyone we can without considering the cost. Particularly in the midst of inhumanity, this commitment raises morality and our potential for goodness to a new level. We should all be very proud of and remember those who did what they could to help! The reactions of the POWs as the troops arrived will stay with you for the rest of your life. Extend a helping hand to all those in need, without considering your own comfort or self-interest.
The book focuses on the surrender of the Phillipines to the Imperiel Japanes Army, the treatment of allied POWs by the Japanese, and subsequent rescue mission by US Army Rangers. All three topics make for fascinating, eye-opening discovery. The author uses a lot of personal accounts and quotes from soldiers who lived through this saga, which adds an element of realism that I have not found in many other books. This technique drew me into the story and gave me a whole new perspective about what happened to these soldiers. Your heart will ache when you learn about the treatment of the POWs, and leap with joy during the rescue mission portion. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a unique story from WWII. This book is not a dry, boring history book. Instead it tells the sad story of what happened to our soldiers in the Phillipines during WWII, and the inspiring story of the men who rescued them. The fact that any of the POWs survived their ordeal is a miracle, and the story of how the US Army rangers completed this "mission impossible" is fascinating. For anyone currently serving in the military, get it and read it. It will give you a whole new appreciation of those who have gone before us (some paying the ultimaye price), and motivate you to do well the duty that lies before you. ... Read more | |
| 16. The Places In Between by Rory Stewart | |
 | Paperback
list price: $14.95 -- our price: $10.17 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0156031566 Publisher: Mariner Books Sales Rank: 6303 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
| |
| 17. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll | |
 | Paperback
list price: $18.00 -- our price: $12.24 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0143034669 Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) Sales Rank: 4438 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Reviews
No longer. Very few countries worldwide have been more important to the U.S. over the past quarter century than this remote, primitive, landlocked and little-understood area tucked in between Iran, Pakistan and the former U.S.S.R. In this weighty and immensely detailed book, Steve Coll, who reported from Afghanistan for the Washington Post (where he is now managing editor) between 1989 and 1992, sorts out for the patient reader one of the most complex diplomatic and military involvements the U.S. has experienced in this century. The cast of characters is immense, rivaling for sheer size (and personal quirkiness) any novel by Dickens or Dostoyevsky. It ranges from four U.S. Presidents through a platoon of bemedaled generals from five or six countries and a regiment of scheming diplomats down to hard-pressed pilots, miserably ill-equipped guerilla fighters, steely-eyed assassins and suicide bombers. There are more political factions here than most readers will be able to keep track of --- not to mention the factions that spring up within factions. It is all quite dizzying, but also fascinating and important. Coll is a conscientious reporter. He does his best to keep the reader informed and to make his more important players come alive as human beings. His book is not easy reading, but it rewards well anyone who buckles down and stays with it to the end. A couple of general impressions: First, Coll demonstrates time and again how much of the really important things that government --- any government --- does in foreign relations is done in deep secrecy, far from the eyes and ears of the average consumer of "news." Secondly, he leaves the impression that disdain and hatred of non-Muslims is pretty much pervasive throughout the Muslim world, coloring the actions and judgments even of those Muslims whom westerners might not consider "extremists." Another leitmotiv in this almost Wagnerian epic drama is a pervasive lack of interest on the part of American policymakers in the developing crisis in Afghanistan, followed by paralyzing intra-agency squabbles and turf battles once the threat of terrorism became unavoidable. One is reminded of Dickens's satirical governmental invention, the "Circumlocution Office" in Little Dorrit with its famous motto: How Not To Do It. Coll covers in exhaustive detail the defeat and withdrawal of the Soviet Union; the factional warfare that ensued; the rise of the Taliban from a small cadre of student zealots to a force that ruled most of the country; the emergence of Osama bin Laden; the clumsy and ineffective efforts of the U.S. government to get meaningful cooperation from Saudi Arabia and/or Pakistan in stabilizing and democratizing the region; and the ominous events that led up to --- but did not precisely signal -- the attacks of Sept. 11th. He is especially good on the lack of interest and decisive action by the U.S. after the Russian withdrawal and on the paralyzing rivalries between competing governmental spook shops that caused this breakdown. Action plans would be developed, only to be derailed by fruitless internal debates and objections. "How Not To Do It" indeed! An additional strength of the book is Coll's knack for thumbnail portraits of the participants. Most memorable are his word pictures of two CIA directors: the religiously driven cold warrior William Casey and the consummate organization man George Tenet. Also well done are his portraits of Afghan warriors like the unlucky Ahmed Shah Massoud (whose assassination closes the book) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Osama bin Laden himself, though dutifully described, remains necessarily an offstage influence rather than a full-bodied presence. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia come off in Coll's pages as unreliable allies, to the point of being deceitful in their dealings with the U.S. GHOST WARS is not beach reading by any means, but those who have the patience to get through it will emerge well informed indeed. Of course, everything changed on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Can a second volume be far behind? --- Reviewed by Robert Finn
Having no expertise in the region, it's difficult to evaluate the accuracy of Coll's account. However, his narrative appears remarkably free of partisan finger pointing as Coll faults Robin Raphel, Clinton's assistant secretary of state for South Asia, for her relative inexperience and naivet� as she serves as apologist for the Taliban while working to keep the U.S. neutral in the Afghan civil war, while highlighting Hillary Clinton's important role in defending women's rights and increasing awareness among the American people of the dangers posed by that regime. Bill Clinton, himself, is shown in both positive and negative aspects as he recognizes relatively early on the dangers that Muslim terrorism poses for the homeland, while at other times, notably in an early meeting in 1993 with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar and Saudi spy chief Prince Turki, he conducts a "typical Clinton session, more seminar than formal meeting," asking his guests' opinions of where US foreign policy should go, leaving the Saudi's confused, "He's asking us?" Overall, I came away from the book more convinced than ever that America's historic desire to disengage from the world will not be a successful strategy in a post 9/11 world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we walked away from Afghanistan, redirecting American aid to Africa, and for long stretches had no CIA personnel located in that country. Our counter terrorism efforts were largely administered through untrustworthy clients like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who diverted American resources to their own ends. When faced with overwhelming evidence that Osama bin Laden had planned and executed major terrorist attacks against Americans and our embassies late in Clinton's term of office, we had few military options because we had little ability to project American power into this remote area of the globe. In 1999, we had 60,000 American soldiers stationed in Germany facing a non existent Soviet threat,. but lacked the strength to take out a few terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Perhaps the most important contribution of this book is remind America citizens that the world is indeed a much smaller place than it once was, and ocean barriers provide significantly less security than they have in the past.
The most important point in the book is not one the author intended to make. He inadvertently but most helpfully points to the fact that at no time did the U.S. government, in lacking a policy on Afghanistan across several Administrations, think about the strategic implications of "big money movements." I refer to Saudi Oil, Afghan Drugs, and CIA Cash. Early on the book shows that Afghanistan was not important to the incumbent Administration, and that the Directorate of Operations, which treats third-world countries as hunting grounds for Soviets rather than targets in their own right, had eliminated Afghanistan as a "collection objective" in the late 1980's through the early 1990's. It should be no surprise that the CIA consequently failed to predict the fall of Kabul (or in later years, the rise of the Taliban). Iran plays heavily in the book, and that is one of the book's strong points. From the 1979 riots against the U.S. Embassies in Iran and in Pakistan, to the end of the book, the hand of Iran is clearly perceived. As we reflect on Iran's enormous success in 2002-2004 in using Chalabi to deceive the Bush Administration into wiping out Saddam Hussein and opening Iraq for Iranian capture, at a cost to the US taxpayer of over $400 billion dollars, we can only compare Iran to the leadership of North Viet-Nam. Iran has a strategic culture, the US does not. The North Vietnamese beat the US for that reason. Absent the development of a strategic culture within the US, one that is not corrupted by ideological fantasy, Iran will ultimately beat the US and Israel in the Middle East. The greatest failure of the CIA comes across throughout early in the book: the CIA missed the radicalization of Islam and its implications for global destabilization. It did so for three reasons: 1) CIA obsession with hard targets to the detriment of global coverage; 2) CIA obsession with technical secrets rather than human overt and covert information; and 3) CIA laziness and political naivet� in relying on foreign liaison, and especially on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Both Admiral Stansfield Turner and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski come in for criticism here. Turner for gutting the CIA, Brzezinski for telling Pakistan it could go nuclear (page 51) in return for help against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Although the book does not focus on Bin Laden until he becomes a player in Afghanistan, it does provide much better discussion of Bin Laden's very close relations with Saudi intelligence, including the Chief of Staff of Saudi intelligence at the time, Bin Laden's former teacher and mentor. There appears to be no question, from this and other sources, including Yossef Bodansky's book on Bin Laden and David Kaplan's US News & World Report on Saudi sponsorship of global terrorism, that Bin Laden has been the primary Saudi intelligence agent of influence for exporting terrorism and Islamic radicalism to South Asia, the Pacific Rim, Africa, Europe, Russia, and the US. CIA and the FBI failed to detect this global threat, and the USG failed to understand that World War III started in 1989. As with other evils, the US obsession about communism led it to sponsor new emerging threats that might not otherwise have become real. However, the book also provides the first documentation I have seen that Bin Laden was "noticed" by the CIA in 1985 (page 146), and that Bin Laden opened his US office in 1986. It was also about this time that the Russian "got it" on the radical Islamic threat, told the US, and got blown off. Bob Gates and George Shultz were wrong to doubt the Soviets when they laid out Soviet plans to leave Afghanistan and Soviet concern about both the future of Afghanistan and the emerging threat from Islamic terrorism. The middle of the book can be considered a case study in how Pakistani deception combined with American ignorance led us to make many errors of judgment. Some US experts did see the situation clearly--Ed McWilliams from State ("Evil Little Person" per Milt Bearden) comes out of this book looking very very smart. The final portions of the book are detailed and balanced. What comes across is both a failure of the US to think strategically, and the incredibly intelligent manner in which Bin Laden does think globally, strategically, and unconventionally. Bin Laden understands the new equation: low-cost terrorism equals very high cost economic dislocation. Side note: CIA provided the Islamic warriors in Afghanistan with enough explosives to blow up half of New York (page 135), and with over 2000 Stinger missiles, 600 of which appear to remain in the hands of anti-US forces today, possibly including a number shipped to Iran for re-purposing (ie London, Dallas, Houston) One final note: morality matters. I am greatly impressed with the author's judgment in focusing on the importance that Bin Laden places on the corruption of US and Saudi Arabian governments and corporations as the justification for his jihad. Will and Ariel Durant, in "The Lessons of History," make a special point of discussing the long-term strategic value of morality as a "force" that impacts on the destiny of nations and peoples. The US has lost that part of the battle, for now, and before we can beat Bin Laden, we must first clean our own house and demand that the Saudi's clean theirs or be abandoned as a US ally. Morality matters. Strategic culture matters. On these two counts, Bin Laden is winning for now.
I was a little perplexed by some of the previous reviewer's comments regarding the need for additional editing. Unlike Leebaert's volume (which I agree could have been gone over a couple more times), Ghost Wars read like a thriller. I ripped through this book in a couple of days. I can't recall a single chapter that did not hold my attention thoroughly. I actually enjoyed the "inside the Beltway " elements - they helped to humanize what might otherwise make for dry historical reading.
| |
| 18. Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $10.88 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 0743246985 Publisher: Touchstone Sales Rank: 3538 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love. Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician.As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history. Reviews
Another thing that bothers me is that the author chose to translate "xuan-chuan-bu" ("the Department of Propaganda") as "the Department of Public Affair". She noted this was "in order to describe their functions accurately". But the former translation is far more accurate, literally and in terms of function. Perhaps this change was made because the author's father was a co-director of such a department in the Communist Party. Such a change seems unnecessary to me.
I am from Mainland China. I came to U.S for graduate study five years ago. I felt difficult to breathe when I closed the book because it reminds me the stories of my family in china. The similar thing happened to them, not so worse than Ms. Chang's, but also painful and intolerable. They experienced the collapse of Qing dynasty, warlord chaos, Japanese invasion, civil war and communist control. My parents moved from Shanghai to an inland small town with dedicated hearts to communist party in 1956 but they suffered all the time. They are must ordinary people. My mother is as old as Jung Chang's mother - Hong, there were endless meetings against her in each of political movements in 20 years. My mom is not a party member, working in a factory as a product planning staff. She was badly treated only because she was from a landlord family and with a oversea sister. My grandfather, my father suffered similar spiritual torture. My home was searched several times in Culture Revoluation, almost all books, magzines and jewelry (including the wedding ring of my parents) are burned or confiscated.A few months after I was born in 1968, my father was sent to "Cadre school" (kind of labor camp) to receive re-education. My uncle was marked as "rightist" in 1957 and his whole family was discriminated all the time until 1978. My elder sister went to the countryside too and her annul wage was merely 50 pounds of yams and 200 pounds of wheat. I didn't suffer so much compared with my parents and my sisters. Everything is getting better since 1978. I was a good student and went to college with many dreams. Again, in 1989, the gunshot and blood in Tianmen Square broke them all prior to my graduation. The history of china is like a cycle: the periodic construction and destruction. My heart is saying I should go back to my homeland, but who knows I can avoid the same fates of my parents? In fact, I read Wild Swans in Chinese first. I happened to borrow it from my local library east Asia section, it's translated to Chinese and published by Taiwan. I can't stop reading when I opened the book. All the depiction is like real life movie floating before my eyes. I highly recommend it that's why I browse your website to get a original version for myself and for my American friends.
The strength of Wild Swans lies in its illumination of Chinese middle-class life, a subject that has largely remained shrouded. The narrative is experienced most intensely during the unraveling of the family at the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution. The targets of the revolution are Communist Party officials, dubbed "capitalist-roaders" and "class enemies", which includes Chang's mother and father. As student rebels arbitrarily classify officials as class enemies, the noose slowly tightens around Chang's family. The description of Mao's witch-hunt painfully illustrates the constant terror and fear of middle class life fueled by Communist Party propaganda and disinformation. Reading Wild Swans brought tears to my eyes and chills to my skin. The three daughters of China are heroines who survive inhuman conditions and manipulation. The narrative yields two compelling story lines. One is a story of Chinese culture, family, loss, and love. The other story describes the atrocities inflicted by Mao Zedong on his own people, which left me thirsting for a deeper understanding of modern Chinese history.
Wild Swans is also a very telling account of how societies have been willing to totally overturn their societies in favor of the Communist ideal. Readers interested in communism may want to compare Wild Swans to accounts about communism in Russia. Chang ends her account with Mao's death and how she was able to leave China, but it left a lot of unanswered questions. It left me wanting to learn more about Chinese history from a broader political and historical perspective. I'm very eager to learn how China has changed since Mao - which Chang hints has changed for the better in some ways while allowing some of the old corruption under the Kuomintang to seep back in. ... Read more | |
| 19. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $10.88 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 080504695X Publisher: Holt Paperbacks Sales Rank: 5737 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review
Reviews
Phil Caputo could have been virtually anyone in America in the early `60's. A young, idealistic, all-American boy who joined the Marines in search of adventure, and out of a patriotic desire to answer John Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you. . ." He and his platoon marched off to war to find glory and honor. What they found was, "death, death, death." Caputo takes you into the muddy foxhole with him, making you feel the heat and annoyance of the ever-present insects, and the sniper shots that all united to deprive you of the precious commodity of sleep. He takes you on patrol with them down, "Purple Heart Trail," where the main enemies were the heat, the insects, and endless mines and booby traps. The reader can feel the rage of the infantrymen who fought endless battles with an enemy that was everywhere, yet nowhere. Gradually enthusiasm turned to pessimism; pessimism to despair; and despair to rage; rage that ultimately vented itself in mindless violence against anything Vietnamese. They were then left with the heat, the insects, and guilt borne of actions taken that they would never have dreamed of a few short months before. Caputo and his enthusiastic, young, Marines could have been anyone who has ever fought: the patriots at Lexington and Concord, who later found themselves half starved and freezing at Valley Forge; or any number of Union or Confederate soldiers from Bull Run to Appomattox. They could have been "Doughboys" who went, "Over There," to "Make the World Safe for Democracy," only to find themselves "fighting" immersion foot and mustard gas in the trenches of France; or perhaps even soldiers serving under, "Ol' Blood and Guts" himself, George S. Patton; "Our blood, his guts," as the GI's said. Their stories all verify Gen. Robert E. Lee's famous quote: "War seldom avails anything to those unfortunate enough to have to fight it." A Rumor of War ranks up there with Gen. Harold Moore's, "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," and Col. David Hackworth's, "About Face." All three show how debates that raged in Washington, Paris, Saigon, and Hanoi were ultimately scored. Whether you were a "hawk or a dove," a liberal or a conservative, a professor or student, you will benefit from reading this book that answers the question authoritatively: "Hey! What was Vietnam really like?"
Very realistic book that cannot leave you indifferent, definitely up there with Remarque's "All quiet on the Western front." If you want to know what fighting the Vietnam War was really like, I can't imagine how any book can possibly be better than Rumor of War. ... Read more | |
| 20. Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan by Doug Stanton | |
 | Paperback
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $10.88 (price subject to change: see help) Isbn: 1416580522 Publisher: Scribner Sales Rank: 5029 Average Customer Review:
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
|
Editorial Review Horse Soldiers is the dramatic account of a small band of Special Forces soldiers who secretly entered Afghanistan following 9/11 and rode to war on horses against the Taliban. Outnumbered forty to one, they pursued the enemy army across the mountainous Afghanistan terrain and, after a series of intense battles, captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which was strategically essential to defeat their opponent throughout the country. The bone-weary American soldiers were welcomed as liberators as they rode into the city, and the streets thronged with Afghans overjoyed that the Taliban regime had been overthrown. Then the action took a wholly unexpected turn. During a surrender of six hundred Taliban troops, the Horse Soldiers were ambushed by the would-be POWs. Dangerously overpowered, they fought for their lives in the city’s immense fortress, Qala-i-Janghi, or the House of War. At risk were the military gains of the entire campaign: if the soldiers perished or were captured, the entire effort to outmaneuver the Taliban was likely doomed. Deeply researched and beautifully written, Stanton’s account of the Americans’ quest to liberate an oppressed people touches the mythic. The soldiers on horses combined ancient strategies of cavalry warfare with twenty-first-century aerial bombardment technology to perform a seemingly impossible feat. Moreover, their careful effort to win the hearts of local townspeople proved a valuable lesson for America’s ongoing efforts in Afghanistan. Reviews
| |
| 1-20 of 100 1 2 3 4 5 Next 20 |
sixth grade book, May 15, 2009
It's not interestingly written!, February 13, 2009