What Are You Currently Reading? 2007

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Originally Posted by Tom Odom

I am reading Ambassador and Mrs Krueger's book on their aborted tour in Burundi. I especially like the chapter devoted to my evil ways in Rwanda. :eek:

Next is Abu Buckwheat's book on the insurgency in Iraq. :D

Tom

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I'll update my part of my own thread.

Recently finished:

Tenet's At the Center of the Storm (OK, because my expectations were low)
Robb's Brave New War (excellent)
Mary Habeck's Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (excellent except for the policy recommendations)
Robert Kaufman, In Defense of the Bush Doctrine (horrible)

Since I'm rushing to finish the manuscript for my Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy (and I just completed a 16K word draft chapter on the formation of the Bush strategy up to the Iraq decision), I'm trying to limit my reading. I am playing with Evan Jenkins, That or Which, and Why: A Usage Guide for Thoughtful Writers and Editors and I'm dipping into Shakespeare to clear my mind. This morning I also worked through two excellent articles: Paul Pillar's "The Right Stuff" in the current issue of The National Interest, and David Betz's "Redesigning Land Forces for Wars Amongst the People" in Contemporary Security Policy.

We Were Soldiers is indeed great.
How about Karnow's Vietnam, and Herring's America's Longest War? I read reviews on Amazon and they said that the Herring book was more about diplomacy.
Also, with regards to the argument over "The US could have won if it did this or that," or "There was no way to win the Vietnam War," any recommendations for the best books or articles on both sides?
Thanks.

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Originally Posted by jlechelt

We Were Soldiers is indeed great.
How about Karnow's Vietnam, and Herring's America's Longest War? I read reviews on Amazon and they said that the Herring book was more about diplomacy.
Also, with regards to the argument over "The US could have won if it did this or that," or "There was no way to win the Vietnam War," any recommendations for the best books or articles on both sides?
Thanks.

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I usually recommend Karnow as a very readable and balanced introduction for people who have not delved into the Vietnam literature (students, for instance)

Probably the most discussed "we could have won it if we did this" are Andy Krepinevch, The Army and Vietnam and Harry Summers, On Strategy. They recommend, though, diametric opposites. I'd have to look through my stuff at the office for something that would fall into the "nothing would have mattered" school (which I myself am close to).

wanted to do before we went in and I do mean a realistic assessment thereof -- a nagging little item with which we continually seem to have a great deal of trouble... :mad:

Viet Nam presented some achievable goals; unfortunately, they wandered out of reach while we tried to fight a land war in Europe in the rice paddies of SE Asia for seven long years. There was never going to be a 'win' -- just as there was and will not be one in Iraq but an acceptable outcome was reachable (and is in Iraq).

Limited war is a dangerous and tricky proposition... :wry:

For Viet Nam, I'd also recommend Lewis Sorley's A Better War and Bruce Palmer's The 25 Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (the only book by a GO I ever recommend to anyone...)

Edited to add:
Oops. Just realized I inadvertently lied -- Slim's Defeat into Victory is another General's book worth reading. After racking my tiny brain, I'm pretty sure just those two...

I just finished John Keegan's Intelligence In War. It is excellent. He uses some historic examples beginning with Nelson's search for the French fleet on its way to Egypt. His discussion of code breaking was especially interesting. The Poles made a significant contribution to breaking Germany's Ultra code. One of the lessons he takes from the intelligence derived is that it is not always that helpful, because some of the dots are always missing. The German invasion of Crete is given as an example where being forewarned wasn't enough. He also looks at the US Magic intercepts and how they led to the victory at Midway, with the assistance of a lot luck. It is a very good read.

I am currently reading Bruce Catton's The Coming Fury which is the first volume in his Civil War Trilogy. It is outstanding. I have been meaning to read his books on the Civil War for about 40 years and am glad I finally got around to it.

For those looking for Vietnam War books, Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken should be your top choice. He has access to sources out of North Vietnam that were not available when most of the books were written in the 1970s. If you are interested in counterinsurgency warfare, you will enjoy this book.

Another Vietnam book worth reading is Admiral U.S.G. Sharp's Strategy for Defeat. It is mainly about the air war.

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Originally Posted by St. Christopher

Funny aside: Over my holiday on the beach this past weekend, I read World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. It's a fictional account of the aftermath of a zombie invasion, and some of the IW/COIN stories in there are pretty good. It's funny to read and start thinking about how you'd apply conventional and unconventional tactics of war in the event of a zombie invasion.

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OK, I went and read "World War Z" just because I thought it would be fun. What I found was an excellent analysis of pandemic. Zombie's are an allegory to pandemic (walking wounded, unable to care for themselves, requiring uninfected to feed them), etc.. So what is show from patient zero all the way through the end of the book is a series of events where containment is broken and contagion spreads. The ideas that zombies don't die and carry the contagion (unless you whack em in the head) shows a lot of the medical, social, welfare problems in the brutality of the solutions needed.

The examples of the soviets (purge) when dealing with the undead may seem ludicrous and fanciful but is based on what happened in Stalinist times when Army units refused to fight. Some times the issues are pretty hard to talk about in the real world but "World War Z" discusses them no-holds barred. It was a great book that you can't take to seriously but can read in a day that is filled with lots of "huh?" moments. I suggested it to a DHS/CDC specialist and I can't wait to hear what she says.

I read part of the book to my wife and we've decided we need to write an academic paper on what bad sci-fi stories can tell you about homeland security.

The Americans at Normandy: The Summer of 1944--The American War from the Normandy Beaches to Falaise

I haven't read something stupid in a while. (Note I said read, not said).

Just finished Florence of Arabia by Christopher Buckley for purely recreational reading. He has a flair for the absurd that ought to resonate with those who have savored the AO. A little slow in the beginning during the shaping ops, but after it set up the situation and characters, it just had me in stitches.

One passage that I think resonates a little too much in the non-fiction world:

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On Capitol Hill, the cries of "Who lost Matar?" grew louder and louder. Senators pounded their podia, demanding answers. The president declared that he, too, wanted answers. The CIA said that although it would have no official comment, it, too, perhaps even more than the president and senators, wanted answers. The secretary of state said that there might in fact be no answers, but if there were, he certainly would be interested in hearing them. The secretary general of the United Nations said that he was reasonably certain answers existed, but first the right questions must be asked, and then they would have to be translated, and this would take time.

There were those who urged caution, and those who urged that now was a time not for caution but for boldness. Then there were those who urged a middle course of cautious boldness. There were extremists on both sides: the neo-isolationists, whose banner declared, "Just sell us the damned oil," and the neo-interventionists, who said "Together, we can make a better world, but we'll probably have to kill a lot of you in the process."

Privately, the American president was said to be torn -- between dispatching an aircraft carrier (perhaps the most dramatic gesture available to a president, short of actually landing on one); and dispatching a nuclear submarine. A distinguished naval historian pointed out on public television that submarines are every bit as lethal as aircraft carriers, but, being underwater, are harder to see and therefore "less visually impactful." It was, as another historian said on public television, "a time of great ambiguity." And yet even about that remark, reasonable people differed.

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About a quarter of the way through Gordon Corrigan's Mud, Blood and Poppycock. I think he overstates his case, but generally does a good job overturning myths about WWI.

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Originally Posted by Merv Benson

I just finished John Keegan's Intelligence In War. It is excellent.

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You might like The Craft of Intelligence by Allen Dulles. An absolutely first-rate discussion of intelligence by one of the U.S. intel community's "Grand Old Men". Hmmm... now that I'm thinking about it, I need to put into the cue for a re-read.

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Originally Posted by jlechelt

We Were Soldiers is indeed great.
How about Karnow's Vietnam, and Herring's America's Longest War? I read reviews on Amazon and they said that the Herring book was more about diplomacy.
Also, with regards to the argument over "The US could have won if it did this or that," or "There was no way to win the Vietnam War," any recommendations for the best books or articles on both sides?
Thanks.

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HR McMaster's, Dereliction of Duty.
Best.

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Originally Posted by jlechelt
Also, with regards to the argument over "The US could have won if it did this or that," or "There was no way to win the Vietnam War," any recommendations for the best books or articles on both sides?
Thanks.

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Strongly, strongly recommend Eric Bergerud's THE DYNAMICS OF DEFEAT: THE VIETNAM WAR IN HAU NGHIA PROVINCE (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991). This works takes on both Summers' and Krepinevich's arguments, arguing that it didn't matter what the U.S. did, without a strong government in Saigon that enjoyed the support of the indigenous population, it was merely a matter of time. The Communists understood this, we apparently refused to, even though many within the most senior levels of government--to include McNamara and Westmoreland--articulated such appraisals as early as 1965. In this vein, Lewis Sorley's A BETTER WAR: THE UNEXAMINED VICTORIES AND FINAL TRAGEDY OF AMERICA'S LAST YEARS IN VIETNAM and Mark Woodruff's UNHERALDED VICTORY: THE DEFEAT OF THE VIET CONG AND THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY: 1961-1973 don't quite answer Bergerud's arguments, at least to me.

McMaster's DERELICTION OF DUTY is excellent, certainly. It argues the war was mounted primarily out of political expediency...and is a fairly depressing yet fascinating read. But it doesn't provide strategy arguments regarding the central question asked in the quote above.

For a contrary view, check out Mark Moyar's TRIUMPH FORSAKEN which argues we should have left the Diem brothers in power which provides the most articulate response to Bergerud. Also see Michael Lind's THE NECESSARY WAR: A REINTERPRETATION OF AMERICA'S MOST DISASTROUS MILITARY CONFLICT which argues we had to fight the war no matter how it came out. Both these works are very controversial.

As with most controversies, there is a lot of depth (and reading) needed to be well-grounded in the arguments and differing assumptions/interpretations of the facts. We're a very long way from any sort of definitive treatment of the arguments for and against the war and strategic options....

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Originally Posted by SteveMetz

I'll update my part of my own thread.

Recently finished:

Tenet's At the Center of the Storm (OK, because my expectations were low)
Robb's Brave New War (excellent)
Mary Habeck's Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (excellent except for the policy recommendations)
Robert Kaufman, In Defense of the Bush Doctrine (horrible)

Since I'm rushing to finish the manuscript for my Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy (and I just completed a 16K word draft chapter on the formation of the Bush strategy up to the Iraq decision), I'm trying to limit my reading. I am playing with Evan Jenkins, That or Which, and Why: A Usage Guide for Thoughtful Writers and Editors and I'm dipping into Shakespeare to clear my mind. This morning I also worked through two excellent articles: Paul Pillar's "The Right Stuff" in the current issue of The National Interest, and David Betz's "Redesigning Land Forces for Wars Amongst the People" in Contemporary Security Policy.

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'nother update.

Now reading

John Keegan, The Iraq War
Niall Ferguson, War of the World

In the queue

Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force
Martin van Creveld, The Changing Face of War

Started, but current on hold

Colin Gray, Another Bloody Century
Ralph Peters, Wars of Blood and Faith

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Originally Posted by MattC86

To flip this around, here's a question: Anyone read or know of a good biography of George Marshall?
Matt

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Pogue's 4 volume biography on Marshall is awesome. It's available in paperback from the George C. Marshall foundation, Lexington, VA.

http://www.marshallfoundation.org/pd..._gift_shop.pdf

Ed Cray's General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman is a good one volume bio, but not on Pogue's level.

Stoler's George C. Marshall Soldier-Statesman of the American Century
is a short read, but decent intro to the man.

In the queue:

Robert D. Kaplan, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground.

John Robb, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization.

John J. Tierney, Jr., Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare in American History.

And on the fiction side, a book I'm very much looking forward to reading, Phillip Jennings' Nam-A-Rama.

Abu Buckwheat / Malcolm Nance's The Terrorists of Iraq: Inside the Strategy and Tactics of the Iraqi Insurgency- Get this book. It's everything that SWJ'ers say it is.

Laurent Dubois' Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution - About halfway through. The social background of the slave system in French St. Domingue, the wealthiest single colony in the New World, is detailed quite well. We are still, unfortunately, denied a clear view of the slave insurgency at its birth and thus unable to discern exactly how it was organized and led, except that it was executed with exceptional competence. A very fine and readable history.

Caroline Finkel's Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire - About halfway on this one as well. Pretty good "sultan's history" of the empire - a good framework for building on more. Wish there was some more on the military and bureaucratic institutions of the empire, but Finkel has done very fine work considering the size of her subject. Random telling detail: Post-16th century, the term "Turk" in Ottoman writings was typically used disparagingly.

Just started Dr. Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.

Finished Gilles Dorronsoro's Revolution Unending: Afghanistan 1979 to present. Superb social and political history of late modern Afghanistan. Demolishes many a preconception if all you've read is romantic stuff written by British officers pre-1900 (most of my own reading about Afghanistan falls in this area, sadly). Surprisingly one of my Afghan expat friends didn't know half the stuff in here despite the fact that her grandfather is mentioned in the book.

Shay's book is good. Been meaning to pick up his second one for some time.

Almost forgot: just pre-ordered my copy of Robert B. Strassler's followup to The Landmark Thucydides, which gets released on November 9: The Landmark Herodotus. Very, very excited about this one. I can't wait to see it sitting on the shelf next to Thucydides.

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Originally Posted by CR6

Pogue's 4 volume biography on Marshall is awesome. It's available in paperback from the George C. Marshall foundation, Lexington, VA.

http://www.marshallfoundation.org/pd..._gift_shop.pdf

Ed Cray's General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman is a good one volume bio, but not on Pogue's level.

Stoler's George C. Marshall Soldier-Statesman of the American Century
is a short read, but decent intro to the man.

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Thanks - I actually just finished Cray's book yesterday. It was a pretty good one volume, but it had so many of those annoying little factual errors as to make it a bit trying. None of them were major issues, but they detract from the overall credibility of the work. As one of my professors once said, "I opened up a major biography of Jefferson Davis. The first sentence read, 'Jefferson C. Davis was the product of. . . .etc, etc.' and Jefferson C. Davis was a Union officer who murdered a fellow general. Jefferson F. Davis was president of the Confederacy. How can you trust a guy who can't get his subject's name right?" And the Cray George C. Marshall biography was the same way, though maybe not quite as bad. John Marshall is referred to as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court on the first page - he was the fourth. Ridgway is referred to as a Major General during his stint as CINC-Far East - he was a full general. Just annoying stuff like that which detracted from an otherwise readable and enjoyable biography.

I did see all four volumes of Pogue's massive work in the Cornell library, and it was enough to intimidate me thoroughly.

Interested in seeing how "Chasing Ghosts" is; I saw it at the library and might pick it up on my next run. I'm finally reading Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, with Shultz's Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias also competing for time with my textbooks. . .

Matt

"Chasing Ghosts" is, IMO, not very good at all. I've got some thoughts on it here. Short version: he relies on dated sources, makes some assorted historical errors, and generally seems more interested in making a point (something he denies enough times that I tend to doubt it...."methinks he doth protest too much") than he is dealing with history. Of course, YMMV, as it almost always does with books....:)

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Originally Posted by Steve Blair

"Chasing Ghosts" is, IMO, not very good at all. I've got some thoughts on it here. Short version: he relies on dated sources, makes some assorted historical errors, and generally seems more interested in making a point (something he denies enough times that I tend to doubt it...."methinks he doth protest too much") than he is dealing with history. Of course, YMMV, as it almost always does with books....:)

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What is the Asprey work you refer to on that page? Is there any comparable work on the history of American irregular warfare experience?

EDIT: nevermind, read the whole thread. . . found the book.

Matt

From the Small Wars Journal Reading List:
War in the Shadows - Robert Asprey. "Ranging from Alexander the Great's battles with Asiatic Scythians, through the Russian Revolution, and on up to the turmoil in the Middle East and the battle in Northern Ireland, War in the Shadows is a book of monumental sweep and singular perspective. It also contains a comprehensive and hard-hitting strategic evaluation of the Vietnam War - one of the most significant analyses of the war that won't go away. War in the Shadows tells the story of the countries currently torn by armed insurgencies and clarifies the causes of each conflict. It provides the broad viewpoint necessary for understanding them in the historical terms of guerilla warfare. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and a highly unstable new world order, this brand of rebellion has never been more powerful and potentially disruptive."

You can also order it off that page here (which gives the site some kickback from Amazon...:)).

As far as the American experience, I'm not aware of a single distilled volume (and I'd be suspicious of one at this point). Our experience tends to be isolated in specific periods or wars (which is why I was so disappointed with "Chasing Ghosts"...he had a chance and really blew it). It's possible to put together a decent overview with a short reading list (say 5 volumes or so), though.

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Originally Posted by Steve Blair

"Chasing Ghosts" is, IMO, not very good at all. I've got some thoughts on it here. Short version: he relies on dated sources, makes some assorted historical errors, and generally seems more interested in making a point (something he denies enough times that I tend to doubt it...."methinks he doth protest too much") than he is dealing with history. Of course, YMMV, as it almost always does with books....:)

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Interesting... I'll probably still pick it up, though it sounds to me like it will be a lot like Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace, perhaps. Any thoughts on a comparison of the two?

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Originally Posted by MattC86

I'm finally reading Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, with Shultz's Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias also competing for time with my textbooks. . .

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Ahh, Galula... right up there with Roger Trinquier as a classic text on COIN. I've been meaning to pick up War in the Shadows, too.

Boot at least uses current sources. "Chasing Ghosts" does not. I think his most "modern" source is Robert Utley's work on the Frontier Army. Just about everything else he cites was written before 1970, and one whole section is based on his own PhD work (which is dated as well). He doesn't use any recent Civil War scholarship on the border conflicts between Kansas and Missouri, and ignores Linn's work on the Philippines. How you can write meaningfully on the Philippines without consulting Linn is beyond me.

Whitehead - Religion in the Making

"Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe" ~ A.N.W.

Oh, yeah...the point of the thread...:o

Hampton Sides "Blood and Thunder"

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Originally Posted by Steve Blair

....As far as the American experience, I'm not aware of a single distilled volume (and I'd be suspicious of one at this point). Our experience tends to be isolated in specific periods or wars....

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Perhaps not exactly falling into the type of book under discussion, but this two-volume set is written from the point of view of evolving doctrine - of course it does that by looking closely at the events that influenced that doctrine....

U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941

U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942-1976

True enough, Jed. I'd actually forgotten about those...:o

Just finished Anthony James Joes' Urban Guerrilla Warfare. Interesting book, but he seemed to say, essentially, that urban guerillas can cause a lot of damage and headaches, but in the end are doomed to fail, as they violate too many of Mao's cherished tenets on insurgency. He even claimed, in the end, the Chechens were defeated in Grozny, because the Russians took the city.

I felt he focused too much on who won the battle instead of who won the "war" - the political dimension and context, so critical in insurgency/COIN ops, was seemingly entirely omitted. Interesting but flawed read. Short, though.

Just started Michael C. Fowler's "Amateur Soldiers, Global Wars." Has anyone read this? If so, what do you think of his arguments? In essence, he takes Hammes' 4GW concept to the extreme - really to a 5GW - in challenging the traditional concepts of political power, armed forces, and victory. It's an interesting and provocative read, so far, but is so nontraditional in its concepts and arguments that I'd be very interested in what any other SWC members have to say about it.

Also, if could be so bold, can I suggest (if only for my own benefit) that posters write a quick blurb about the books they read in addition to identifying it, so that we can get an idea of whether it is worth tracking down or not?

Matt

MattC86 - Is he referring to the First Chechen War?

He should remember that in 1996 the Chechens retook the city from the Russians in one of the most amazing examples of an insurgent force defeating a modern military that I know of. Some 3,000 Chechens infiltrated Grozny, immobilized a garrison of 11,000 or so Russians, and destroyed Russian attempts to relieve the city. The defeat brought about the negotiated settlement and ultimate Chechen victory. Certainly an outstanding example of the guerrillas' ability to "swim" in the "sea" of the population of Grozny.

Of course, the Second Chechen War showed what happens when critical political splits occur in the insurgency itself.

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Originally Posted by MattC86

Just finished Anthony James Joes' Urban Guerrilla Warfare. Interesting book, but he seemed to say, essentially, that urban guerillas can cause a lot of damage and headaches, but in the end are doomed to fail, as they violate too many of Mao's cherished tenets on insurgency. He even claimed, in the end, the Chechens were defeated in Grozny, because the Russians took the city.

I felt he focused too much on who won the battle instead of who won the "war" - the political dimension and context, so critical in insurgency/COIN ops, was seemingly entirely omitted. Interesting but flawed read. Short, though.

Just started Michael C. Fowler's "Amateur Soldiers, Global Wars." Has anyone read this? If so, what do you think of his arguments? In essence, he takes Hammes' 4GW concept to the extreme - really to a 5GW - in challenging the traditional concepts of political power, armed forces, and victory. It's an interesting and provocative read, so far, but is so nontraditional in its concepts and arguments that I'd be very interested in what any other SWC members have to say about it.

Also, if could be so bold, can I suggest (if only for my own benefit) that posters write a quick blurb about the books they read in addition to identifying it, so that we can get an idea of whether it is worth tracking down or not?

Matt

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We need to get Tony on here if he's not already. I'm going to email him.

Abu Muqawama's counterinsurgency reading list to include bare bones essentials, intermediate reading (colonial and modern), advanced reading, political Islam and Islamist violence, fiction and films can be found here. Recommended additions to the list by site visitors can be found in comments.

One that I would add is The Village by Bing West.

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Originally Posted by SteveMetz

We need to get Tony on here if he's not already. I'm going to email him.

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So he can shred my probably misinformed and half-as*ed review of his book? Uh-oh.

Thanks for the link, SWJED.

Matt

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Originally Posted by tequila

MattC86 - Is he referring to the First Chechen War?

He should remember that in 1996 the Chechens retook the city from the Russians in one of the most amazing examples of an insurgent force defeating a modern military that I know of. Some 3,000 Chechens infiltrated Grozny, immobilized a garrison of 11,000 or so Russians, and destroyed Russian attempts to relieve the city. The defeat brought about the negotiated settlement and ultimate Chechen victory. Certainly an outstanding example of the guerrillas' ability to "swim" in the "sea" of the population of Grozny.

Of course, the Second Chechen War showed what happens when critical political splits occur in the insurgency itself.

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I'm still not up on my history with regard to the Chechen Wars. Joes was referring to the first war and talked only briefly about the second. He did describe the Chechen retaking of Grozny, but still categorized the Chechen urban insurgency as a failure, along with his other case studies. I think he thought of the battles in Grozny as less of a true urban insurgency and more of a more-or-less conventional, Hue-like urban fighting.

Matt

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Originally Posted by MattC86

So he can shred my probably misinformed and half-as*ed review of his book? Uh-oh.

Thanks for the link, SWJED.

Matt

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LOL. He's pretty thick skinned. Anyone who writes has to be.

From my comfortable position in Wiltshire, Abu Muqawama's list hits the right notes except one. Any student of the classics, and I thought that Abu Muqawama, from my dealings with him was one, one with a refreshing radicalism, would put Bunch of Five ahead of Gangs and Countergangs. If anyone wants the distilled truth of the undispute British master, Bunch of Five has to be near anyone's bedside table - to pick up on the back cover of the Chicago Press edition of 3-24.

I've always been a bit suspicious of T. E. Lawrence, especially after reading David Fromkin's take on the man.

For similar readings from the insurgent's vantage point, I'd recommend Milovan Djilas' WARTIME.

Mao's On Protracted War and On Guerrilla Warfare are fine distillations of Maoist guerrilla theory.

I just finished Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and there's a lot more to young Koba's early terrorist/criminal enterprises than we had previously thought. It's a great look into how terrorism relies on simple robberies, heists and shakedowns to finance itself. He doesn't draw any larger lessons from this, but it's very nicely done.

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Originally Posted by tequila

I've always been a bit suspicious of T. E. Lawrence, especially after reading David Fromkin's take on the man.

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Interesting link, tequila. I find the man very intriguing. Just watched 'Lawrence of Arabia' for the first time. Great movie. Started reading 'Revolt in the Desert', but with school and all it will be a while before I finish it.

The Battered Bastards of Bastogne by George Koskimaki

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Book Description
The Battered Bastards of Bastogne is the product of contributions by 530 soldiers who were on the ground or in the air over Bastogne. They lived and made this history and much of it is told in their own words.

The material contributed by these men of the 101st Airborne Division, the Armor, Tank Destroyer, Army Air Force , and others is tailored meticulously by the author and placed on the historical framework known to most students of the Battle of the Bulge.

Pieces of a nearly 60 year old jigsaw puzzle come together in this book, when memoires related by one soldier fit with those of another unit or group pursuing the battle from another nearby piece of terrain.

George Koskimaki is a noted historian of the 101st Airborne Division. His other books include D Day With The Screaming Eagles and Hell's Highway. He lives in Northville, MI.

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Talk about soldiering. Modern warriors are soft compared to these guys.

Finished the BBB.

Now reading FM 3-24.

JP

I am currently reading The Guns of August. I'm really enjoying it.

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Originally Posted by Mktennis

I am currently reading The Guns of August. I'm really enjoying it.

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One quibble I've had with that book, which I also enjoyed, is that it is somehow sold as a great treatise on how the Great Powers blundered into the First World War, when I found that its treatment of how the war came about was quite short and incomplete. Much better was its treatment of the initial battles and the depiction of the popular cultures in France and Belgium that led up to the war, and Tuchman's fine writing style.

Vedic Ecology/Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st Century - I'm planning a 10+ character post on Karma Yoga and shock n' awe warfare

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Originally Posted by goesh

Vedic Ecology/Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st Century - I'm planning a 10+ character post on Karma Yoga and shock n' awe warfare

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Is that like Zen and the Art of Waterboarding?

The Tao and Sensory Deprivation Tanks: the Subtle Nuance of Pax Americana - Mukasey will want to read it once I've finished the Karma Yoga monograph

Christopher Hitchens's Blood, Class and Empire and God Isn't Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; Matt Simmons's Twilight in the Desert; Michael T. Klare's Blood and Oil; Scahill's Blackwater.

Tuchmann was a hottie, too.

Finishing "American Orientalism" by Douglas Little. It was an assigned reading from a course on "Americans, Israelis, and Arabs" back in school. We only read the chapters on the peace process. I wish I had read the whole thing back then, it gives a pretty good summary of all the major US policies and interests in the Middle East since 1945.

I'm reading Britain and the Arabs by John Bagot Glubb since I can't find his Story of the Arab Legion