{"id":17937,"date":"2012-12-03T04:12:04","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T04:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=17937"},"modified":"2012-12-03T04:12:04","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T04:12:04","slug":"recommended-reading-viewing-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=17937","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading & Viewing"},"content":{"rendered":"

SWJ Blog –\u00a0The Generals… Readable but Flawed?<\/a><\/h3>\n

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In his groundbreaking 1976 book\u00a0The Face of Battle<\/em>, eminent historian John Keegan argued that the history of battle should focus on more than the generals and their decisions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keegan had grown weary of military histories explaining the outcome of battles and wars singularly on what generals decided. Instead, Keegan emphasized the complexity of battle, its chaos, and most importantly the role contingent factors played in the outcome of battles and wars.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keegan\u2019s book helped popularize what would become known as the \u201cnew military history\u201d that sought to explain and understand warfare not solely through the eyes of the general, but from myriad other military, social, cultural, and political factors.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tom Ricks\u2019s new book\u00a0The Generals<\/em>\u00a0regresses from Keegan and takes us back to a less complicated form of military storytelling in which wars\u2019 outcomes were determined solely by the performance of army commanders.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

HistoryGuy99 –The Liberator: One Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssy across Nazi Europe<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A few months ago I\u00a0learned that best selling author,\u00a0Alex Kershaw<\/a>, was about to publish a new book about World War II.\u00a0Alex,\u00a0had already gained a reputation for\u00a0his accurate portrayal of war\u00a0in three\u00a0earlier best selling books. When his latest,\u00a0The Liberator<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0arrived, it\u00a0immediately went to the\u00a0top of my growing must read pile. where\u00a0within a fortnight; I settled down to read about\u00a0one man’s 511 day and 2000 mile journey across the blood stained surface of Nazi held\u00a0Europe. The story is more than one mans journey,\u00a0but\u00a0describes in moving detail,\u00a0the men of the 3rd Battalion,\u00a0157th Regt.<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a045th Infantry Division<\/a>,\u00a0who fought\u00a0from the beaches of Sicily, on to\u00a0Salerno, and Anzio, then into the belly of Vichy France and into\u00a0the deadly forests of Vosges; and finally\u00a0ending inside the hell of Dachau, where to a man, they\u00a0reached\u00a0their breaking point.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Glittering Eye –\u00a0How Not to Negotiate<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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….My understanding is that the president\u2019s proposals rest on three legs:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Raise taxes on the highest income earners while leaving the remainder of the \u201cBush tax cuts\u201d intact.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Leave Social Security and Medicare alone.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Make raising the debt ceiling automatic.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I wasn\u2019t entirely surprised at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell\u2019s reaction (he broke out laughing). My immediate reaction was that the president had\u00a0opened with the insult price<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Milpub (Seydlitz89) –Fall 1942 – The Turning Point of the War in Europe<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    ….One gets the impression that the Russian Front was not seen as a single theater, but rather as five separate fronts: Finland, Army Group North facing Leningrad, Army Group Center facing Moscow, Army Group B at Stalingrad, and Army Group A in the Caucasus. Thus each individual front competed individually with those in the West and keeping Italy in the war was Hitler’s priority towards the end of 1942. This possible perspective regards only the operational decisions, not those involving logistics, production, genocides, and other matters that Hitler reserved for himself. That the situation with Army Group B was dangerous was recognized relatively early on with the 20 November order to establish Army Group Don from the staff of the 11th Army under the command of Field Marshall von Manstein to take command of Army Group B and other forces coming in. This headquarters was to be tasked with reestablishing the front on the Don\/Volga. This distinction is important, it was not first to reestablish contact with Stalingrad, but to re-establish the front as it had existed prior to the Soviet offensive, it was assumed that those forces in Stalingrad would remain in place. A withdrawal from Stalingrad and the Volga was never seriously considered until it was too late. Manstein and his staff were at Vitebsk and due to the weather and rail conditions were unable to arrive in theater until 24 November.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    The Committee of Public Safety –Entrails of\u00a0deceit<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Entrails of deceit\u00a0(cont.)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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    ….Whaley had written specialized studies of deception for the Central Intelligence Agency (later declassified and published as\u00a0Codeword Barbarossa<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stratagem: Deception and Surprise in War<\/a><\/em>) as well as books on magic (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Magic<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0Who\u2019s Who In Magic<\/a><\/em>). Bell was a painter and art critic who\u2019d started writing about terrorism during the 1960s, especially as\u00a0practiced by the\u00a0Provisional Irish Republican Army<\/a>. Whaley and Bell had direct experience of fields where deception was the coin of the realm. They\u2019d picked up more experience during their fruitless efforts to get academia and government to properly study deception.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    As a side-effect of their experience as well as their target audience,\u00a0Cheating and Deception\u00a0<\/em>discusses many of the manifestations deception can take on in everyday life. It includes specific explorations of the role of deception in magic, warfare, gambling, sports, business, science, and art.\u00a0True to the spirit of their topic, Whaley and Bell even manage to sneak their more scholarly theory of deception into Chapter 2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    They claim their theory is the\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>general theory of deception ever devised.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Gene Expression –TreeMix: Who were the West Eurasian ancestors of Ethiopians?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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    Lions of Judah?<\/p>\n

    David Ronfeldt –\u00a0Why the Republicans lost: excessive tribalism \u2014 a partial TIMN interpretation<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and Q\u2019s & A\u2019s about \u201cTIMN in 20 minutes\u201d (6th of 7): space-time-action (STA) orientations<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Thomas P.M. Barnett-\u00a0Lesson in eBook\u00a0marketing<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The Agonist (Kattenburg)-Writerly Reads<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    New York Times Review of Books<\/em> – The Jihadis of Yemen<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The American Conservative<\/em> –\u00a0<\/strong>On the Value of Old Educational Models<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Revenge of the Reality-Based Community<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The Wilson Quarterly<\/em> –Bloody New World<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Scientific American<\/em><\/strong>–\u00a0Why Is it Impossible to Stop Thinking, to Render the Mind a Complete Blank?<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    RECOMMENDED VIEWING<\/strong>:<\/p>\n