ON MY READING TABLE
I cruised through Border’s recently and netted a few good catches that I have read or am starting to read. First off is BOYD – the Robert Coram biography of fighter pilot turned master military strategist, John Boyd. Skeptical of the tendency of biographers to oversell the importance of their subject, I emailed Dr. Barnett and asked him in his capacity as a professional military expert to give me an assessment of Boyd’s contribution to American military thinking. Tom sent me a one word reply:
” Substantial”.
With that endorsement, I began reading and Coram, a talented writer, draws the reader in just a few pages. It reminded me a little bit of I how I felt when I read Caro’s Master of the Senate.
Secondly I also finished Michael Scheuer’s Through Our Enemies Eyes ( I had already read Imperial Hubris ). You read Scheuer for the trees, not the forest. He’s a detail man on radical Islamist terror groups and al Qaida in particular. You learn useful things but you don’t walk away wanting to put the guy in charge of the GWOT ( reforming CIA management, yes – grand strategy, no). The book is ready for an updated edition to encompass recent events but it remains valuable to anyone intersted in al Qaida and Islamism.
My third book is a two-for-one translation of Japanese classics – The Book of Five Rings by Myamoto Musashi and The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by Yagyu Munenori. I am re-reading the first, having done so once before about twenty years ago and look forward to the second which I have never read. The translator, Thomas Cleary, is noteworthy for translating works in Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Pali. Whoa ! I don’t even know what Pali is ( I’d guess an Indonesian or Indian language) and Japanese, Chinese and Arabic are all notoriously difficult and subtle languages to master. Where I come from, Cleary is what we’d call ” learned”.
Lastly but far from least is The Coming of the Third Reich by Cambridge historian, Richard J. Evans. The only reason I’ve left this one for later is that I’m fairly deeply read in the Nazi period already and I’m trying to raise my knowledge level in other subfields these days. Evans is accomplished at his craft and has a sharp, analytica,l mind. In his In Defense of History, Evans managed to make historiography interesting and relevant to the non-specialist ( a task which takes some doing, trust me) as he deconstructed the deconstructionist and pomo attack on History as a discipline.
Ah, if only there were ” Reading Fellowships ” to sit home and dive into the books. That would be something.
February 9th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
On the Coram book — it read like a hagiography to me.
The problem I have with it is that it’s really hard to pin down exactly *how* Boyd influenced things. Coram just tends to assert that Boyd was the genius behind any number of things, e.g. Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine. I’ll have to read the Vandergriff book to get more details, I think. The Coram book tends to be biographical and light on specifics. I also think that the acolytes are a bit strange.
February 10th, 2005 at 2:56 am
Hi prak
Hagiography is the occupational hazard of the biographer. Though sometimes the opposite is true as with Conor Cruise O’Brien’s handling of Jefferson. Difficult sometimes to maintain one’s objectivity when you’ve wrapped your life around the details of another person’s for several years running.
I haven’t gotten far enough in the Coram book yet. If Boyd briefed the right audiences at the right times he could have had a large effect on the institutional culture. I’ll have to wait and see.
I’m also starting to read old RAND papers that are available online by Alfred Wohlstetter on the recommendation of a reader, Jacob H. Very interesting mind.
February 10th, 2005 at 3:14 am
Pali is a now-extinct Indo-European language once spoken on the Indian subcontinent. It is the language of the earliest Buddhist text and, consequently, has something of the same relationship to Buddhism that Greek (or maybe Aramaic) has to Christianity.
February 10th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
Got a link for that Wohlstetter stuff? I’d like to read it.
February 10th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
You can find an excellent collection of Albert Wohlstetter’s early work here:
http://www.rand.org/publications/classics/wohlstetter
February 11th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Dave & Anon
Much obliged ! Linguistics is far afield for me and I’ll check out W.
October 21st, 2005 at 2:31 am
We Offer The best methods to Stop Premature Ejaculation to learn more please click the next link Premature Ejaculation and visit our web site about Premature Ejaculation or
retrogade ejaculation or
Pre Ejaculation
or Male Ejaculation
or Stop Premature Ejaculation or
Premature Ejaculation cure or
Premature Ejaculation treatment or
Premature Ejaculation help or
prevent Premature Ejaculation
===================================================================================================
Also we Offer:
We offer help for acne cure you can find information in
acne cure or
natural acne cure or
natural cure acne treatment or
acne home cure or
nature cure acne
===================================================================================================
Also we Offer:
We offer help for dog obdience you can find information in
dog trainer or
dog training or
dog obedience
===================================================================================================
Also we Offer:
We offer entertaiment and you can get this visting
Download music or
free Download music or
free music Download or
mp3 Download music or
mp3 music download or
Download music or
free Download music or
free music Download or
mp3 Download music or
mp3 music download or
===================================================================================================
Also we Offer:
We offer help in penis enlargement visit
Penis enlargement or
Penis enlargement pills or
Penis growth
===================================================================================================
Also we Offer:
We offer help in search engine position visit
search engine positioning or
search engine position or
internet marketing or
blog submitter or
blog or
blogger
===================================================================================================
Also we Offer:
We offer help in Travel bargain visit
travel bargains or
discount travel or
discount airfare or
airline tickets or
cheap hotels
October 25th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
hello, your blog is interesting to read, I have a website about internet marketing, it should be helpful to you in making more web money. This is a global trend that more and more people can make a living online, so make sure you visit it.
October 29th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
YOUR BLOG IS GREAT. I WILL BE BACK. HERE IS MY WEB SITE AN IS RELATED TO discount airfare also we have discount airfare It pretty much covers discount airfare and other similar topics available.
October 30th, 2005 at 6:32 am
I just came across your blog about dog training and
wanted to drop you a note telling you how impressed
I was with the information you have posted here.
I also have a web site about dog training
so I know I’m talking about when I say your site is top-notch!
Keep up the great work, you are providing a great resource on the Internet here!
October 30th, 2005 at 7:46 am
Hey, you have a great blog here! I’m definitely going to bookmark you!
I have a home payplan rich safelist site/blog. It pretty much covers home payplan rich safelist related stuff.
Come and check it out if you get time 🙂