History Books

Most people know the Panama Canal, but not as many know what went into it. McCullough take his vibrant story telling skills and uses them the chronicle the Panama Canal project from it's earliest French origins, through the disasterous failure of that first project, through the American version of the canal and it's completion.

With a rich detailing of the historical personages associated with the canal as well as the engineering and technical challenges involved, it is a masterful telling of the origins of one of the modern wonders of the world.

Highly recommended.

David McCullough takes the incredible story behind the creation of the Panama Canal and weaves a fascinating look at what is essentially the biggest ditch digging story of all time. Not trying to belittle this amazing engineering accomplishment in the least bit just trying to reflect on a writer who can make such a story so fascinating. Granted, this is not an easy read, logging in at over 600 pages with every detail and political intrigue along the way but it sweeps the reader up in the telling of this story. McCullough captures the essence of the 'can-do' spirit of the times and the amazing talents of these people who created the path between the seas.

For a non-student of history, this is a very good read. It's a real shocker that the Panama Canal was ever built after the financial & physical tradgedies that occured.

This is a great book! Long (more than 650 pages) and printed in small font size. However, it is so full of interesting information (told in good and entertaining prose), documented facts, and historic photographs, that it is real pleasure to read. It covers more than 40 years of history of one of the greatest construction projects ever: the Panama Canal. From the failed efforts of the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps to the completion of the canal by the Americans, David McCullough masterly describes with exquisite detail the intricacies of financial schemes, international politics and obscure legal maneuvers that made possible the construction of the waterway between the oceans. There is also plenty of human drama, tales of success and failure, survival and death, pride and shame. Particularly interesting to me where the sections detailing the development of measures to control mosquito-born diseases that decimated workers and engineers and their families. This accomplishment not only advanced science, but made possible the continuation and completion of the work. The final chapters provide many particulars about the dimensions and operation of the locks allowing the reader to understand and admire the amazing nature of this gigantic undertaking. McCullough displays in his book both the talent of a novelist and the precision of a historian.

I am booked on a Panama canal cruise in December 2008. Someone recommended this book to me. At 600 pages, I was a little intimidated by it! Not being really mechanically minded, I was afraid it would be dry and dull. Not in the least. In the first 50 pages I learned more about the Panama canal than I thought possible. I loved this book! So much intriguing information about how it came to be, how many people were involved in it, the huge amount of money invested in it, and on and on, thousands of facts written in a very readable, interesting fashion. Truly a marvel of engineering, this book will make the Panama canal one of the most interesting things you've ever learned about.

i read some of this book for a class.. but it is well written.. but its history,,,, so its boring.. u know?

I purchased this book from Richard Taylor and received the book in a speedy manner. The book was in new condition and it was stated on Amazon.com that the book was in new condition. I had questions about the order and emailed Mr. Taylor. He responded to my email in a speedy, excellent manner! I'm very happy about my purchase.

The reading structure allow the reader to visualize and understand American History from outside and inside. Wonderful maps, statistical charts, great photos, and a very good section titled: historical question. If you are the type of person in exploring new perspectives of the American History, do not hesitate to look this book.

As far as textbooks go, it was the formatting that make it what it is. Lots of pictures & primary sources compliment the information being covered in the text. Makes it not as boring a read as most history books. You actually find yourself reading all the little extras.

What makes this series truly great? The fact that they give you a choice on book format to purchase. In a college this textbook would be for a US history 1 & 2. You can chose to purchase the expensive and heavy Hardback if you know you are going to take both parts. Or you can buy a softback of Vol 1 or Vol 2, depending on which class you are enrolled in.

As an adult student, who only recently returned after over 10 year gap I had no reason to want to buy the big textbook. Already had US History 1 credits from the last time around. Through Amazon.com I was able to find the correct edition of the book, while the college bookstore refused to carry it!

Thankful that Amazon.com exists. :)

I read this book for my book club, but found it to answer many questions I was having (as a protestant married to a Catholic) about Catholicism. It is written in a down-to-earth way so that even I could understand it!

It's a good and also fairly quick read. I highly recommend it.

A single and interesting experience around human being and his need to go through the deep of his soul. A wonderfull withness of the dayly life and a sane relationship between a man and a woman.

The book arrived quickly after ordering. The perspective the book provides is that of a non-Catholic to begin with, which is interesting. The basis for the book is the Bible and there are plenty of references for those who doubt the accuracy of the book itself. Highly informative and makes me, as a Catholic, confident to spread the word.

This was an interesting book, but what I learned from it was surprising. What was notable was not their conversion from Protestant to Catholic, but the fact that they were Evangelicals, and remained that way regardless. The husband's story is full of zeal and enthusiasm and the wife's is loaded with struggle and torment. The book was way too dramatic, and I wonder if the couple converted not because of their love for Catholicism, but for their love of Scripture, which they analyzed for what seemed every minute of their waking lives. I don't doubt their sincerity, but their zeal can be a bit off-putting. For me, not a keeper.

The journey of faith is personal, yet it's fun to read about others searching, even if their approach, or where they end up, might be very different from one's own. "Rome Sweet Rome" has its moments, though I found Hahn's pedantic approach to conversion off-putting. Why are there so few negative reviews of the unbelievable amount of pure drivel this man has "mass" produced? Pun intended.

Words, sola scriptura, and authority matter a lot to Hahn. How can he consistently avoid writing about the Church's sex abuse scandals (how can so many Catholic theologians turn such a blind eye?), or, having studied Martin Luther, fail to address his infamous rants against Jews? Lutherans actually have been fairly open about this, especially the wise Kristal Stendahl. It would be a grace from God if all Christianity became more objective and honest about its history, thus allowing for real growth and real faith.

Hahn's self-importance precluded his waiting to convert to Catholicism until his wife became comfortable with this significant change and process. Unlike the suffering of the saints, Hahn couldn't humbly exercise patience and compassion towards his partner, but exhibited extraordinary vanity. His mantra should be, "I want, I want..." His desire for the Eucharist became his justification to break a marital promise/covenant (of course, misusing a scriptural passage to justify this action), leaving his wife to struggle on her own in an unfamiliar spiritual landscape that kept shifting under her feet. Kimberly Hahn's description of her pain was humble, and humorous. Her conversion experience, with its real challenges, appears to have been deeper than her husband's, thus the sections she wrote are more compelling. Opus Dei members assisted Hahn's adherence to the Church, while leaving his wife floundering spiritually and emotionally.

Like many who purchased Hahn's later books, I thought they might mirror real development of spirit as he learned about the early Catholic faith and its Judaic roots. Rather, Hahn bends Catholicism to fit a Protestant perspective, reinventing faith from an ivory tower built on a Babel of words. Real faith should be able to examine extremely difficult issues and find some way forward. While Hahn's scriptural quotations are usually accurate, his analysis and interpretation lack theological maturity. Hahn is not the best source for Catholic theology, his previous formation molded his perspective, and his misinformation is a serious theological issue for those seeking real faith. Yet his enthusiasm and sincerity pull thousands along, unquestioningly; there are few dissenting voices regarding Hahn.

In "Rome Sweet Rome," his vanity actually prompts him to brag about lingering in Pope John Paul II's private chapel, alone with the Pope, after the honor of being invited to a private mass. While the Pope knelt in prayer after all the other guests respectfully left, he was unaware that a lingerer remained to observe him. The Pope's private secretary had to hurriedly return to the private sanctum to collect the Lurking Hahn, who was busy enjoying his illicit thrill of being alone with Pope John Paul II. Perhaps this occurrence is one reason private masses with the Pope were since cancelled?

Others seeking a sincere, informed path in faith need to be provided another point of view. Having read many of Hahn's books (never again!), I feel obliged to warn others, as there are few critiques of Hahn's body of work and misrepresentations. Consistently, Hahn's scriptural quotations form a litany of words that obscure, rather than illuminate, truth, though he has quite the following.

I'd like to say some faith is better than no faith, and that if Hahn helps encourage people, fine. But faith has too often been horrifically misused in history, through bad ideas, to remain silent. Of course, Hahn is a fan of the fatuous Anglican writer N.T. Wright, another cultural relativist. Hahn was "convicted" to become a Catholic, and has found a wide audience, convicted to read his quantity of books, but theological bulk does not equal quality.

The depth of Benjamin's pessimism has, I think, been underestimated.

"The story is told of an automation constructed in such a way that it could play a winning game of chess, answering each move of an opponent with a countermove. A puppet in Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent from all sides. Actually, a little hunchback who was an expert chess player sat inside and guided the puppet's hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet called "historical materialism" is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight." Walter Benjamin, First "These on the Philosophy of History", p 253.

One can measure how far the contemporary Marxist (better said, the post or semi-Marxist) left has fallen by how many books have appeared, since the fall of the USSR, enthusing over the radically Universal and allegedly 'Progressive' nature of early Christianity. Walter Benjamin, who was first to place the wise but ugly dwarf (Theology) in the beautiful puppet (Historical Materialism) would be amazed (or perhaps not, see the letters between Benjamin and Scholem) to learn that puppet and dwarf are on the verge of switching places! That is, now the ugly dwarf (historical materialism) wants to hide in (and of course direct) the beautiful puppet of Christian theology. ...Crazy, you say? But even Habermas, the Keeper of the Flame of Critical Theory, has on occasion made somewhat similar noises. The best place, btw, to start reading about this new 'political-theology' probably remains Jacob Taubes.

But perhaps this emergent trend is really not so crazy after all. The only reason the Church became so cozy with Capitalism was its fear of Atheism. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended that fear. Now Christianity faces Capitalism alone. Or not, if the detente being proposed between the left and the Church is actually consummated. But every detente is a conspiracy of enemies to destroy an even greater enemy. The Church was with Capitalism because it had to defeat atheism. Now it is likely that the Church will join (a moderate) Socialism in trying to contain the 'soul-destroying' ravages of capitalism. This is only another move on the chessboard of History. ...But what did Benjamin think of History?

"A Klee painting named "Angelus Novus" shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." BENJAMIN, Ninth Thesis on History, p 257.

Picture this Angel, wings pinned back by the wind, shoulders forced back because of that - the Angel of History is almost in the position of the Crucified Christ; except that this crucification does not end. It is this tone of almost ontological despair that was new to the left. This Crucified Angel is the perfect image of the left-wing theoretical pessimism pioneered by not only Benjamin but also Adorno and Horkheimer that split the intellectual left into two camps: the revolutionary and the cultural. And though no one is likely to admit it, the cultural left has quietly come to think of revolution itself as but another 'progressive' force piling up bodies.

It is one of the little ironies of history that this despairing fantasy described contemporary reality exactly. The Angel of History is the image of dialectical knowledge. Rather than seeing disconnected events this Dialectical Knowledge grasps History as One (single catastrophe). Always facing the past ('the owl of Minerva takes flight at night', Hegel said; meaning that dialectical knowledge is retrospective) the 'contemplating' Angel is overwhelmed by historical action - the storm that has been blowing since the expulsion of humanity from paradise - and can never Himself achieve effective action. His knowledge grows in lockstep with the accumulating horror, but each new historical event only results (i,e., gets 'caught in the wings' of our Angel) in more contemplation. So we see how theory (our Angel) is 'irresistibly' propelled into the future. And we also see that the Knowledge dialectical theory gains is precisely equal to the debris the storm hurls at our Angel's feet. With an irony that strives to be equal to the wind blowing from Paradise Benjamin ends this meditation by calling this storm progress.

This is perhaps why Benjamin insisted over 50 years ago that the dwarf Theology must guide the puppet Historical Materialism. Theory can never be equal to action; circumstance piles upon circumstance so rapidly that theory cannot effectively act, and if it does act (presumably) it only adds to the debris. Thus theology (myth) must guide materialism's hand because theoretical knowledge is powerless to help. Benjamin quotes the following remarks of Willy Haas, with approval, in his large Kafka essay;

"'The object of the trial', he writes, 'indeed, the real hero of this incredible book is forgetting, whose main characteristic is the forgetting of itself [...] The most sacred ... act of the ... ritual is the erasing of sins from the book of memory.'
What has been forgotten - and this insight affords us yet another avenue of access to Kafka's work - is never something purely individual." (Benjamin, Franz Kafka, p 131.)

(The last sentence was Benjamin's own.) Theology is a non-individual forgetfulness. Thus myth (theology) is the only forgetfulness worthy of the name. What needs to be forgotten by all of us is the unsurpassable fact of the futility of theory...

It is difficult for most to look such despair in the face.

I have nothing to add to the reviews below except to note for scholarly interest that the essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' included in this collection is not Benjamin's final version. (Neither is this title a good translation of the German: 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit'. Zohn's translation in the selected writings is better: 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility'.) The text in this collection is the 1935 manuscript, as originally published in 1936; the text collected in the Selected Writings, Vol. 4 is the final 1939 version that, as far as I can tell, was not published in Benjamin's lifetime. The difference between the two texts is slight, consisting mainly of some additional sentences here and there and some changed words. At least one of these revisions is, I hypothesize, the result of Adorno's criticisms of his letter to Benjamin of 18 Mar 1936.

Otherwise, for most purposes, this is the best collection of Benjamin's essays available for an introduction to his thought. This volume collects some of the best of his essays that are otherwise spread throughout the selected writings published by the Harvard U.P.

Benjamin is arguably the twentieth century's most important thinker--if there is anything left to say about our lives, it is surely in this book.

In 1940 Walter Benjamin committed suicide at the Franco-Spanish border fearing that he would be unable to escape the grasp of Hitler's regime. He left behind perhaps one of the finest collections of literary theory of his era, complete with lucidly brilliant essays on Kafka, Proust, Baudelaire, and general Marxist theory.

In this wholly excellent collection of essays, a remarkable introduction to Benjamin's life and work is provided by the late philosopher Hannah Arendt, who overviews his political formations and literary output. It's a model form of critical essay writing.

Perhaps the most famous essay in this collection is Benjamin's `The Task of the Translator,' widely regarded as one of the most important and thoughtful contributions to the field.

"No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no sympathy for the listener."

He argues that translation is a mode, and that the translatability of the work is the primary concern in the process.

Also included is an analysis of the philosophy of history.

I picked up this book primarily for the purpose of reading Benjamin's critically acclaimed essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", as well as for his darkly poetic - and even apocalyptic - "Theses on the Philosophy of History". These essays are among Benjamin's most highly esteemed and are the last two selections in the book; regardless of whether you start with them or with the first essay, "Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting", you are likely to be drawn into Benjamin's literary world quite quickly.

In many ways, Benjamin's writing style is quite unassuming; reading even his most profound insights is like reading a letter from an old friend. His writing comes in layers; one must make time to savor his presence. This book covers a range of subjects, from critical literary essays (the aforementioned "Unpacking My Library", as well as essays on Kafka, Baudelaire and Proust), to more hermeneutical reflections ("The Task of the Translator"), to straight up philosophy/theory ("The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and "Theses on the Philosophy of History").

The 51 page introduction by Hannah Arendt is absolutely fantastic. It does not simply provide an overview of Benjamin's life, but sets that life within the culture of early 20th century Germany, focusing especially on the time between the two World Wars. She notes the influences of Zionism and Communism (and Marxism) on Benjamin's thought, as well as the broader cultural influence of a quasi-secularized Judaism in a culture where non-baptized Jews were still kept out of university teaching posts. Her introduction, like Benjamin's own writing, contains deep touches of the intimately personal (she selected the various essays that make up this volume).

In many ways, Benjamin was a deeply religious thinker. A friend of Gershom Scholem's (the founder of the modern-day study of Jewish mysticism), Benjamin and Scholem corresponded for a number of years. Although this particular volume pays little attention to his religious thought, "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (the final selection in the book which, in light of Benjamin's suicide, gives Illuminations a bit of a haunting finale), witnesses to Benjamin's poetic-religious insights:

"The soothsayers who found out from time what it had in store certainly did not experience time as either homogenous or empty. Anyone who keeps this in mind will perhaps get an idea of how past times were experienced in remembrance - namely, in just the same way. We know how the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This does not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogenous, empty time. For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter."

Highly recommended.

A very detailed chronology of the events leading upto, during and after the Holocaust in Europe.

This is a great little book for anyone who wants a concise but detailed and interesting overview of the Holocaust. It is easy to read, well laid out, and provides enough historical information for students and the general public alike. Any high school or college student who is studying modern European history will find this extremely useful.

I thought that the book was exactly what it said it was, namely, "A Concise History of the Holocaust." My only problem with it was that it was a little too concise. I think it could have used another 10 or 20 pages, perhaps as an epiogue, to bring out the horror of this event. I read this book as a potential textbook for a high school history course that I would love to teach. With additional handouts, I think this book would do very well as a textbook.

Dr. Doris L. Bergen has been a history professor since 1991 at University of Vermont and the University of Notre Dame. Her research and written works on Nazism, the Third Reich, Christian antisemitism, and the Volksdeutschen have made her especially qualified to write this brief history of the Holocaust. There is no specific mention of any direct or familial involvement with the Second World War (Bergen 263). War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust has an extensive bibliography which covers the entire spectrum on this topic, including general and specialized secondary research, official records, and firsthand accounts in the form of diaries and journals.
While unbiased accounts are the goal in historical research, it is extraordinarily difficult to be without an anti-Nazi bias when writing on the Holocaust. Such a traumatic event in the course of human affairs is inherently and undeniably emotional. A dispassionate account of the Holocaust would not only be uninteresting, it would be inappropriate on many important levels. Bergen uses her talents of discretion to balance the work by making it accessible on an emotional level to even serious students of history while not letting her anti-Nazi bias destroy the validity of her research.
The book is intended to be a concise history of the larger events of the Nazi takeover of Europe and their extermination of "undesirables." Bergen accomplishes this by describing the major and pertinent events of the period with minimal digression. She also keeps the events of the Holocaust in context of the larger context of the war in such a way that the reader is not lost in the details. This book attempts to give a human face to the atrocities committed by human beings on their fellow men, women, and children; it attempts to give a palpable understanding of the driving forces that made ordinary men into murderers and monsters; and it attempts to make the reader pause and reflect on this nightmarish catastrophe in an attempt to keep such a Holocaust from happening again.
This book describes the origins and policies of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi) and is careful to display evidence that their rise to power was far from inevitable. According to Bergen, the Nazis didn't pick new or arbitrary groups to focus their hatred on, instead they "reflected and built on prejudices that were familiar" in pre-Nazi Germany (1). The book exposes the friendly forces in the Weimar government that contributed to Hitler's ride by pushing aside the laws that could have stopped the Nazi party. These laws that "were simply not enforced" (48) allowed Adolf Hitler, an Austrian convicted of treason, to escape a serious jail sentence, become a German citizen, and run for president. Bergen claims "Without Hitler, Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust would have taken very different forms, if they had occurred at all" (31). In the course of supporting these claims, the book follows the events that destroyed tens of millions of lives. This book uses many highly personalized accounts of victims like Anne Frank, who hid in Amsterdam for two years, and of perpetrators like Adolf Eichmann, Hitler's expert in the transportation and deportation of Jews, to keep the book's personal focus.
War & Genocide was thoroughly researched and has a wealth of factual and statistical information that is vital in understanding the enormity of the atrocities of the war. The information was used with considerable discretion to promote the flow of the narrative. Bergen doesn't spare the reader from graphic accounts of killing and violence except for the most gruesome of details. The book is suitable as an introduction to the Holocaust because of its breadth of focus and narrative flow. The author's conclusions are strongly supported and are very much her own. She lets her own research and experience guide conclusions that often differ from some traditionally accepted rationalizations. She is weak on some of her conclusions regarding personal decisions and motivations of the perpetrators, instead leaving the reader to decide whether or not the evidence available supports their actions. I did not necessarily agree with all of Bergen's conclusions, especially concerning the personal motivations of individual Nazis. While the book did not include much new information, it made me reconsider some of my previously held notions.

This is an exceptionally useful and moving textbook on the Third Reich, World War Two, and the Holocaust. My students' response in an upper-level course on German history was outright enthusiastic. The range of aspects covered in this volume is impressive: we learn about the wider European cultural-ideological context as well as about specifically German preconditions for Nazi policies; the author discusses internal developments in the Third Reich as well as the international repercussions of war and genocide. Perhaps most important, Bergen confronts the difficult moral questions of these devastating and dramatic events. This is one of the most intelligent and helpful treatments of this topic. Bergen's writing sets new standards for clarity when relating complex historical developments.

Although I agree with the reviewer preceeding me that this might not be as strong of a book as was the masterpiece which preceeded it (by Earle), it is still a strong book and does (generally) what it sets out to do: to provide an accounting of major developments in military thought (i.e. western military thought) from the Renassance to the modern age.

As a text or as a reference, this is still a powerful and useful book. Each of the chapters discusses a major figure's thought in a fashion that can be dealt with easily in a sitting: for those people who don't want to sit and sort through Jomini (though everyone reading this should sit down with Clausewitz! ) or Douhet, to see their rights and wrongs....

I like this book. I bought my copy for $8.00 in NYC and have had it with me through a number of moves since....

"Makers of Modern Strategy" is a scholarly collection of high quality papers on strategy since Machiavelli to the present nuclear age. The beauty of the book is that one can focus on the era that one is interested in. There is no need to read the book cover to cover as the various essays are stand alone although they are presented sequentially and related papers are adjacent to each other. I have read and re-read some of the papers. The book is about strategy and the realities of war. The essays are clearly balanced and not biased. The phenomenon of war was clearly explained from the studies of past wars. It is clear that war has been a fundamental reality of social and political existence from an early stage of political organisation to the present times. The tragic aspects of war and the intellectual and emotional disturbances it creates could be discerned from the essays.

The book is divided into the following five parts:

Part One: The Origins of Modern War.
Part Two: The Expansion of war
Part Three: From the Industrial Revolution to the First World War.
Part Four: From the First to the Second World War.
Part Five: Since 1945.

The eminent contributors include Peter Paret, Felix Gilbert, John Shy, Gordon A. Craig, Maurice Matloff, Condoleezza Rice, Lawrence Freadman, Michael Carver and D. Clayton James. Their essays showed the role of force in the relations between states. It is now very clear to me that war has always been a compound of many elements ranging from politics to technology, to human emotions under extreme stress. Strategy is one of the critical elements of war.

The various essays trace the ideas and actions of past generations, as they used war to achieve their national goals, an analysis of military thought and policy in the recent past and present

My favourite part is Part Two. Here three great historical figures are highlighted namely Napoleon, Jomini and Clausewitz. I can now see the genius of Napoleon as one of the greatest soldiers in history in its proper strategic context. I think history need to rescue Jomini from the obscurity he is now relegated since it is largely him who has clearly related the greatness of Napoleon and the attempt to reduce war to some sort of science.

Makers of Modern Strategy add immense value to any study of warfare and strategy. I recommend it to Army Staff Colleges and those studying military history at postgraduate level.

As the title indicates, the Army's Command & General Staff College requires students to read Makers of Modern Strategy in the core history class. Professors can make best use of this book as a supplement. As other reviewers have noted, the chapters are disjointed with each other. Taken separately, however, many of the chapters help the history student or enthusiast to develop a depth of understanding on a particular subject. Authors such as John Shy, Douglas Porch, Michael Howard, and Condoleeza Rice, just to name a few, explore many of the strategic issues involved with the evolution of military thought.

From Machiavelli and Clausewitz to strategies of world wars and colonial wars, Makers of Modern Strategy adds value to any serious study of warfare. The high quality academic research and thought that underlies many of the articles is worth the price of the book. Highly recommended.

One of the essentials, a good starting point for the study of military history and strategy.

This second version of the book is disappointing. I would have thought that it being edited by an historian as good as Peter Paret would have improved on the original, which was edited by Robert Earle. However, it is weaker both in scholarship and accuracy, especially John Shy's essay on Jomini. Old myths are resurrected about the Swiss renegade whose own works are generally historically inaccurate.

Many of the older, more professional, historians, who are unfortunately no longer with us were much more careful in their research and writing, hunting down sources that newer historians either refuse to look for or refuse to use. they also were more blunt, calling a spade a spade, and weren't worried about offending people or in 'revisionist' (read inaccurate) history. Political correctness was unknown to these stalwarts.

Books of this type are highly useful. If you are looking for this particular volume, get the first version edited by Earle, even if you have to go looking in second hand book stores or on the internet in used book services. I did, and it is well worth the effort.

As many others have intricately described the particular subjects that are adroitly dealt with in this book, I will spend my time touting one of its primary virtues.

China is oft portrayed as a monolithic power -- a Communist behemoth in the process of ascending to parity with the United States, and thereby posing an existential threat to all we hold dear. Many are the pundits and politicos that ramp up various and sundry fears of the Middle Kingdom and its 1.3 billion, whether regarding economic or military issues.

This book does yeomen work in presenting to the average American a balanced view of China. Yes, China is rising; who could doubt that? But it is not on an inexorable collision course with the west. In fact, China has a great many problems of its own that it will have to deal with in the years ahead, so much so that to think that China is looking toward the day when it can challenge America for global supremacy is prima facie absurd. What's more likely the case, as Susan Shirk shows, is China's leaders are above all else concerned about their (surprisingly) tenuous hold on power, and care not a fig for surpassing the United States in per capita GDP or in military spending EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS IT WILL PRESERVE THEIR POSITIONS OF PROMINENCE.

In conclusion, hats off to Dr. Shirk for an excellent and well documented work, and for doing -- unwittingly or not -- her service to preserve peace.

Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Susan L. Shirk has provided a solid book on several of the key domestic and international pressures facing China today. The insights gained from her life experiences set this book apart from many others. Although the last chapter seems as if it was tagged on after-the-fact at the request of an editor, Ms. Shirk stays true to her central theme of public opinion and fear of losing Party control as the driving forces in all of the Chinese government's decisions, domestic and international.

This book exams the Chinese society very objectively and pinpoints the weaknesses China has, regardless how much it has developed in recent years and how strong people think China is. If you want to know the truth about China, this book is worth reading.

According to Susan Shirk, China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous their country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Economic growth and development have unleashed forces that have made it harder for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain control. These domestic anxieties compel leaders to act in two very different ways. China generally behaves like a cautious, responsible power preoccupied with its own domestic problems and intent on avoiding conflicts that would disrupt economic growth and social stability. However, whenever the public pays close attention to an issue, leaders feel like they have to stand tough in order to demonstrate the strength of the regime; thus, high-attention conflicts with Japan, Taiwan, and the United States present the most troubling opportunities for conflict.

Shirk's analysis is notable for going against the grain of a plethora of popular works predicting China's imminent rise to the top of the global order; she concludes that the PRC is a brittle authoritarian regime that fears its own citizens and can only bend so far to accommodate the demands of foreign governments. She points out that Chinese leaders are not invulnerable to their own people merely because the latter lack the right to vote. In addition, she goes to great pains to demystify the "black box" of Chinese elite politics, striving to avoid the trap of referring to the leadership as an omniscient authoritarian powerhouse. That being said, it is surprising that Shirk still tends to refer to "China's leaders" as a coherent body of individuals. She assumes that the factors she has identified affect all leaders' expectations and strategic calculations in a uniform fashion, an assertion that seems problematic at best and somewhat at odds with her personalistic descriptions of the forces driving elite interactions.

In the end, the author accomplishes her goal of getting readers to empathize with the problems of Chinese leaders, but she may also overstate her case. Is China really as brittle as she thinks? The Chinese regime has been marked by astonishing resilience, which suggests that it may not be entirely paralyzed by problems of dealing with public opinion and rising nationalism. On another general note, while Shirk often compellingly uses her experiences as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State to illuminate backroom politics and mysterious political figures, she also frequently falls into the trap of making generalizations from anecdotal or thinly-related evidence. For example, she makes claims such as, "[the CCP's] number one priority will always be the preservation of Communist Party rule," following up with less-than-credible evidence such as, "I learned this lesson...when I played the role of China's top leader in an unclassified `simulation'" (p. 8). Despite the fact that this work was written for a popular audience, it seems that Shirk should give her readers a little more credit and offer up more compelling proof of her arguments. Given that the author is also an academic who has studied China for over three decades, this does not seem to be an unreasonable demand. It is disappointing that Shirk failed to use her potentially powerful combination of academic expertise and policy experience to push this question further. That being said, this book provides an interesting, quick, and informative read for the non-China specialist and helps to create a more balanced picture of the problems that China faces as a rising power.

Shirk's book is very informative and certainly worth reading. However tragically she stumbles and falls on the last few pages where she expresses that the way to appease genocidal leaders is by "lavishing respect on them."? "The Chinese leaders and public crave respect and approval from the world community", and, the more we use well-publicised formal ceremonies to flatter China's leaders, the more it enhances the prestige of these dictator's egos. And if we seek to protect the businesses of our own nation, "This..inflames Chinese public reactions and robs China's leaders of any incentive to act responsibly.". This advice is tantamount to pandering to these psychopaths who have during their 60 years of ruling with an iron fist, have overseen the slaughter of millions of their own people, as well brutally murdering thousands of their own students who sought democracy. To continue to kowtow to the CCP's sons of heaven as a vassal world to its Chinese emperor, is to appease and flatter the childish tantrums of these lethal bullies. Buying off the KMT in Taiwan, Beijing seeks to undermine the democracy of that nation whilst threatening relentless war against the freedom of the Taiwanese people. The US stands with the totalitarian demands of China and seeks to betray Taiwan into the hands of these unelected warlords for 30 pieces of silver. Shirk's book is fatally flawed and becomes yet again another book which supports Chinese propaganda and the myths of ancient and present greatness.

There are 2 parts to this book. Part 1 is awesome! It is a great story of 2 men hiking part of the Appalachian Trail and the ups and downs they had doing it. It's funny, witty and well written. Part 2 however lags a bit. The author drives part of the trail and walk parts of it in day trips, not nearly as exciting as part 1. The only thing in my opinion that save part 2 is the history and facts the author talks about. Especially about Pennsylvania and the Delaware Water Gap. Overall I gave it 4 stars. It could have been so much better if he hiked the whole thing, but overall was still a very good read.

I had a long history as a streetwalker. Yes, a streetwalker. But, I never had even spent the night outdoors. However, when I read Bill Bryson's book I immediately decided I wanted to thru-hike the entire 2,175 mile trail.

There is a lot of criticism on the AT about Bryson's book, but one thing is undeniable. With his mass following and inimitable humor, he inspired legions of previous hiking virgins to attempt the AT. And that can only be good, as this mountainous wilderness trail holds wonders that your average American can only dream about. I definitely rate it as one of the top experiences in my life.

Better yet, it inspired me to write a book myself, called Skywalker. There is only one Bill Bryson when it comes to writing. However, it was easy to dissect his success. He wrote a book that appealed to the non-hiker, as much as the hiker. Further, he avoided the plague of so many trail narratives that get trapped in the day-to-day diary format, written by experts, for other experts, in a narrow "hikerese." Rather, he told a tale that is at once earthy, serious, lighthearted, but informative.

It may not be a classic, but it has increased the population of hikers on the AT, and in this day and age of anxiety and hyper-materialism that can only be to the good.

Skywalker '05 author Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail billwalker52@hotmail.com

This book is hilarious!

Bryson's sense of humor and his sense of adventure is very funny. Even a couch potato would love this book.

My husband and I plan to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in 2010, and I bought this book as research for our hike. I couldn't put the book down!

This is actually a review of two books, one old and one new. Both are nonfiction, and both are intended for grown-ups. There's nothing in them that kids will find objectionable, but they may find them boring. I found them to be funny, poignant at times, and thought-provoking.

The first is called A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, published in 1997. The second is called Scout's Honor, by Peter Applebome, published in 2003. Bryson is a writer and journalist who decided to walk the Appalachian Trail at around age 50, and Walk is the story of his adventures on the AT. Applebome is a writer and a journalist who decided to become a Boy Scout dad at around age 50, and Honor is the story of his adventures with his son's Boy Scout troop and with Scouting in general.

I read Walk several years ago, and just discovered Honor last week. Reading Honor reminded me of Walk, so much so that I couldn't review the former without talking about the latter.

Bryson and a friend decided, almost on a lark, to hike the AT which they had heard so much about, but Bryson was so inexperienced a hiker that he couldn't tell a Nalgene from a North Face. In fact, his introduction to backpacking and hiking occurred in a sporting goods store. He and his friend started at the southern end of the AT, in Georgia, on a snowy autumn day, and ended, with a few breaks, at the northern end in Maine several years later.

Bryson's writing is self-deprecating and intentionally funny. He plays for laughs, and he gets them. By poking fun at himself, he gives himself license to give all the other characters on the trail the same treatment he gives himself in his writing. The book is funny throughout. But just as Mark Twain and Will Rogers gave us lots of food for thought in the middle of their humor, so Bryson writes a series of thoughtful essays between the lines of his funny stories: lessons about people's character and behavior, about greed and status, about environmental awareness and social responsibility, and about what Thoreau called "the need for wilderness" or something like that. (Yes, Thoreau talked about it before John Muir did.)

When you finish Bryson's book, you will be as satisfied with the conclusion as he was with the end of the hike. You may also come away with a renewed appreciation for wild places and with an awareness of the personality flaws that make you similar to the characters Bryson writes about. It's definitely a book I would read again.

Applebome, like Bryson, knew nothing about hiking, camping and backpacking, until he moved his family from Atlanta to Chappaqua, New York, and his son wanted to join the Boy Scouts. He was reluctant to get into the hiking and the canoeing, the knot-tying and the sleeping outside on the hard ground surrounded by rain, snow, wind and critters. He had hoped that his son would express an interest in Little League baseball instead, but, wishing to score some Good Dad points with his son, he went along with him to the Boy Scout meetings and outings.

Even before he started, Applebome had anti-Boy-Scout leanings -- but as he became more involved with his son's troop, that changed. Interweaved with the funny and poignant story of his own adventures with his son's troop, Applebome tells a balanced, thoughtful, well-researched and honest story about the history of Scouting and its founders, its awkward attempts to adapt to social change, and the recent controversies surrounding it. The book isn't all narrative -- it includes a lot of reporting, exposition and editorializing -- but it's definitely worth reading.

Applebome comes the end of his book grateful for having been able to share the experience with his son, the troop leaders, and the other Scouts and their dads. He himself grows considerably through his experiences, and he faces a huge crisis of conscience when the Boy Scouts win the Supreme Court judgement in their favor with respect to gays in Scouting. The crisis of conscience occurs because he feels that the corporate organization that is the Boy Scouts of America is dead wrong on at least one of the "three G" issues (gays, God, and girls) and not faithful to the wishes of Scouting's founders, and yet he sees that the local organizations of Scouting, the councils and troops, are a powerful force for good in their communities and are getting a raw deal by both BSA headquarters and the left-wing liberals who get all over Scouting's case because of the three Gs.

Being a reporter and a problem-solver at heart, he takes a long, hard look at what Scouting could be (and should be), compares it to what it is, and makes several really good recommendations for fixing Scouting. One of the most interesting things he says is that the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, the moral foundations for Scouting (in the U.S.A.), are rock-solid and it woud be a very good thing if all boys (and men!) lived by those tenets. He also says (either himself, or quoting someone) that the Boy Scout Handbook, any edition, is just the kind of "advice to boys" that people have been longing to give to boys today.

Unfortunately, Scouting is increasingly irrelevant in a society which competes so heavily (and so much more effectively) for boys' attention with sports, video games, and so on. Applebome laments this turn of events, and yet he asserts, with his primary evidence being the members of his own son, that Scouting appeals to a certain group of boys who really don't care if other people think it's uncool, and that Scouting (practiced the way it should be) really is a Good Thing in the boys' lives and is a major influence in turning them into the kind of men this world needs. (Those are my words, not his. He said it differently.)

Scout's Honor is written to and for three groups of people: former Boy Scouts who are now adults; current and former Boy Scouts; and current and former Boy Scout leaders. It's high-energy food for thought for all three groups.

A Walk in the Woods is written for everyone, and will be especially enjoyed by those who love or hate hiking, backpacking, camping, wilderness and the fools they find there. Although it contains more mental junk food than food for thought, it will open your mind and is definitely worth reading.

Simply put - what a delightful read! I laughed so hard at times I needed to go "potty". What a great light-hearted book! This goes on my "keeper" pile for a future re-read for sure!

This book provides exhaustively documented evidence that our cultural myths, such as the idealized nuclear family of the 50's, were not typical of American history after all, and that some of today's problems are not new. It's slow going for most readers (unless you majored in sociology). It made me look again at my own memories of earlier times of my life. The end notes would be helpful to scholars in American history, sociology or even social work.

I have just finished reading this book. Throughout the entire reading, I often felt that the author was taking her point too far to the left. And I'm a liberal democrat! I believe 100% in the rights of women to work... but I also believe that same right applies to those who wish to stay at home with their children.

The author seems to downplay the importance, and the value, in staying home with children. While she is correct in the assertion that our nostalgia for bygone days clouds our vision of the truth, there is something to be said for taking responsibility.

In the author's call for more social action and responsibility, there seems an underlying hint that the problems in the American family come from without rather than within. I disagree with this completely and think that we should stop blaming the media, the schools, our neighbors, the government, and our children's social group for the ills within our own homes. While it is an honorable endeavor, helping society clean up it's act, we must first start in the home. We must first start with ourselves, and with our children, before we can have any hope of helping someone else.

Overall a good read, but this author is a product of her generation and her writing should be viewed as such.

34
Liberal
Military Spouse
Homeschooling Mom

Coonz dissects piece by piece the ideal of the "normal" family and lifestyle that neoconservatives frequently point to, as a solution to society's ills. Coonz's research is meticulous, and this book is a potent antidote to the fallacy that too often guides policy making in Washington and statehouses across the nation. i.e. that only the reestablishment of the "normal" traditional nuclear family is the path to our salvation. A+

The first thing I did when I got this book was to look up what the author had to say about the Moynihan Report (thinking that based on the subject of the book the author would have many interesting criticisms). Alas, all that existed was a few sentence dismissal. After that I couldn't take the book very seriously and just jumped around to various things that I found interesting. Some things were interesting, others were foolish.

The tendency of people to look back on their past and see only the good and not the bad is all too evident in the agendas of conservatives and so-called advocates of so-called traditional families.

Those of us who lived through the perfect era when dads worked, moms vaccuumed in pearls and kids have perfect lives behind white picket fences remember it far differently.

We remember when domestic violence was considered a "private family matter" and battered women had no escape except a casket. We remember the days before Rape Crisis Centers, and when the law required the victim to first prove herself innocent at her accuser's trial. We remember women who gritted their teeth and stayed in bad marriages until their children were grown because they knew they'd have no property rights in the divorce. We remember the days before Title 9, when the boys got the gym and the girls got the cafeteria. We remember the girls who were sent away for the summer to an aunt, a euphemism for an unwed mother's home. (Check out Ms. Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away" for more on this) and the women who could only quit their jobs while their sexual harasser was free to move on to his next victim.

There was no perfect era, there was no perfect home, there was no perfect family. Time we realized it, and stopped looking for an easy fix to real problems.