Currently Reading…
Making an effort this week to finish up books I have picked up or been sent to me by publishers, PR folks and authors, so I can review them….and two books pulled from the ominous antilibrary.
Here’s what is currently on my desk and nightstand:
Reading and taking notes:
Grand Strategies by Charles Hill
Narcos Over the Border by Dr. Robert J. Bunker (Ed.)
TEMPO by Dr. Venkat Rao
Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson
This would be an interesting group of authors to put on a panel for a strategy-related question, such as – “How can we fix our AfPak policy?” – as you would get a high-level practitioner-policy wonk-cognition expert mix.
TEMPO is not yet available for sale, but Dr. Rao was kind enough to send me a PDF of his manuscript, which I am reading on my iPad along with another author’s manuscript and a screenplay, both of which are embargoed. I’m enjoying them all but reading most of them for review is slower going than just reading one for my own interest. I frequently end up taking detours because the authors bring up so many intriguing points. For example, Charles Hill has a section on Grand Strategies on Montaigne, the brilliant intellectual diplomat of the politically tumultuous French Renaissance and Father of the literary essay. Hill made a number of assertions, so I stopped, pulled a copy of The Essays ( which I have never read) off a shelf, flipped it open to a page, and started reading for and discovered that a) Hill was right and b) it will be a profitable use of my time to go back and read The Essays some day.
Next Up in the Queue:
The Shaping of Grand Strategy: Policy, Diplomacy, and War
Counterinsurgency by Dr. David Kilcullen
The first book I mentioned recently, the second is one I have had sitting unread for quite a while but I need to read for an article I started writing. Among practitioners and policy makers, Colonel Kilcullen is the George Kennan of COIN.
What are you reading?
March 14th, 2011 at 3:36 am
I’m finishing up an Adam Elkus recommendation titled War in an Age of Risk by Christopher Coker:http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-074564287X.html
March 14th, 2011 at 4:28 am
Hi JF,
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Looks good. Will you be reviewing it?
March 14th, 2011 at 9:13 am
I have a stack of twenty library books on my desk. (The university allows post-grads to take out 20 at a time, otherwise, it would likely be more.) In concert with the anti-library sentiment, I have been facing an economic embargo on book buying recently, and hadn’t bought any books for about 14 days. This weekend, I bought Robert Crews and Amin Tarzi (eds), The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (London & Cambridge, MS: Harvard, 2008) and two books from the "Prickly Pamphlet" series. The first ten or so pages of the former have been very enlightening. The first twenty or so of the latter have been infuriating, confusing and frustrating. Mostly I’m reading about Afghanistan at the moment, but from my anti-library (which I’m working through as toilet readers) I’m reading Francis Wheen’s How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World. It’s pretty funny and reasonably informative. I do enjoy having a large anti-library, but sometimes I find it intimidating. Bookshops send me into anxiety attacks on a regular basis. There’s just too much to read! How do you cope, Zen (and others)?
March 14th, 2011 at 11:49 am
I’m reading Azar Gat’s "War in Human Civilization." Just started it, so right now it’s treading a lot of the same ground as Lawrence Keeley’s "War Before Civilization." Nevertheless, thus far it is quite impressive. And, since I just saw that the man had an op-ed on ROTC in the WSJ (at 103, he’s still got it!), I’m re-reading "From Dawn to Decadence" by Jacques Barzun.
March 14th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Chris – I really liked Barzun’s magnum opus. He’s in a scholarly class with Robert Conquest and, remarkably, he’s lived for 20 % of the time his book covered(!). I have to wonder if he is still teaching? C. Vann Woodward was still actively writing in his 80’s but not, I believe, teaching. Heard good recs for Gat but I have not read him.
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Joe wrote:
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"The university allows post-grads to take out 20 at a time, otherwise, it would likely be more…."
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One of the profs who schooled me in economic history as an undergrad and grad student was Allan Kulikoff, a highly regarded specialist on American slavery and agrarian history. I recall seeing him in the university library wheeling his personal -ahem – "liberated"- grocery shopping cart filled to overflowing with books to the circulation desk.
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How do I cope? One, I try to have reading material with me when I leave the house for "dead" time. Secondly, "lighter" books, fiction and PDF’s I can read on the treadmill but not more academic/theoretical ones. Long weekends are also helpful though there are periods where my sched is overloaded and reading a book just stalls
March 14th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
I finished it last night so I can post a review.
March 14th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Just finished Fischer’s "To Try Men’s Souls," quickly rereading Amanda Ripley’s "The Unthinkable," just started Shamir’s "Transformation of Command," and about to read John Giduck’s "Shooter Down" on the Virginia Tech incident, and cherry picking selected pieces of Osinga’s "Science, Strategy and War,"and Lagadec’s "Leadership for Unconventional Crisis."
March 14th, 2011 at 11:41 pm
Reading list madness here, Zen; pure madness. Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition A Theory of Judgement (Margolis) (which required a thorough review of Kuhn’s "Structure"—-in many ways Margolis "channels" Kuhn and Polanyi)—just about finished—-great book, but for me a bit ponderous. Rumsfeld’s autobio—about 50 pages in, its ok. The Seven Basic Plots (Booker)—took the author 39 years to write, there is more repetition than I first suspected—I admire his pluck and passion. Cherry-picking Baron’s Thinking and Deciding, and trying to chose between The Art of Not Being Governed (Scott) or Explaining Social Behavior (Elster) as the next target.
March 15th, 2011 at 1:00 am
Just finished Martin Windrow’s Our Friends Beneath The Sands: The Foreign Legion in Frances’s Colonial Conquests 1870-1935. It is a fascinating, well-written book on France’s "small wars" focusing on the conquest of Morrocco. Windrow’s style, blending history with interesting tid-bits on Legion characters and heros within the context of their on-going struggles in North Africa, make for a good read and a better understanding of the Legion’s accomplishments under huge burdens.
March 15th, 2011 at 1:23 am
Zen: off topic, but World Affairs Journal has done a "Afghanistan in 2020 Symposium" and I blogged it at CBz (and liked the CBz Afghanistan 2050 Roundtable.)
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: )
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I’m too distracted to finish the books I’ve been reading. I don’t like reading so many books at one time and will go back to reading some nice fiction – slowly and one at a time – after I finish up some of my more zenpundit-y titles.
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– Madhu
March 15th, 2011 at 1:23 am
that should be linked instead of liked.
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– Madhu
March 15th, 2011 at 1:29 am
You’re allowed to like the CBz roundtable as well as linking to it, Madhu!
March 15th, 2011 at 2:14 am
Distracted Doc Madhu,
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Thank you, I will go check it out. I heard they were doing it and thought, gee, someone owes Lex some props….
March 17th, 2011 at 2:56 am
Just finished "Senator’s Son: An Iraq War Novel" – not on the same level of war writing as say, "The Naked and the Dead," but excellent in its bottom-up view of misguided Iraq policy and its daily impact on a bunch of young Marines living in a world of gray. Currently reading, "My Life With the Taliban" by Abdul Salam Zaeef – the translated/edited work of Felix Kuehn and Alex Strick van Linschoten on the early roots of the Taliban from the point of view of a man who grew up into the organization.Finally, I just started, "Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers" by Robert Jackall. A well-researched view of the corporate world and its constantly emerging set of ethics and behavior. Figured since I’m always griping about the soul-crushing bureaucracy of the military I should at least educate myself on how and why bureaucracies work the way they do. It goes without saying this book is a bit depressing. 🙂