2 comments about Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives).

1. 
   This is one of several volumes in the HarperCollins Eminent Lives series. Each offers a concise rather than comprehensive, much less definitive biography. However, just as Al Hirschfeld's illustrations of various celebrities capture their defining physical characteristics, the authors of books in this series focus on the defining influences and developments during the lives and careers of their respective subjects. In this instance, Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-1527).
   
   Obviously, this is not a definitive biography nor did Ross King intend it to be. However, for most readers, it provides about all of the information they need to understand the meaning and significance of this excerpt from the final chapter in King's biography: "The key to some of the ambiguities may lie in the nature of the man himself. Machiavelli's numerous undertakings - diplomat, playwright, poet, historian, political theorist, farmer, military engineer, militia captain - make him, like his friend Leonardo, a true Renaissance man. Yet, like Leonardo, who denounced the 'beastly madness' of war while devising ingenious and deadly weapons, Machiavelli is awash in paradoxes and inconsistencies...Probably his greatest contradiction was that he understood better than anyone else in the sixteenth century how to seize and maintain political power - and yet, deprived of power himself in 1512, he spent many long years in the political wilderness, making a series of bungling and fruitless attempts to regain his position."
   
   With remarkable precision, concision, and eloquence, King examines not only Machiavelli's life and career but also the cultural, political, and religious environment in which he was so actively involved more than 500 years ago. The Prince (or The Ruler) is Machiavelli's most famous work but was not published until four years after his death, in 1531, when Pope Clement VII granted that permission to Antonio Blado. It was published together with Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence. The Art of War (1520) was the only one of Machiavelli's works to be published in his lifetime. King notes that The Prince circulated in manuscript and earned for Machiavelli a certain notoriety. "'Everyone hated him because of The Prince,' one commentator observed around the time of Machiavelli's death. 'The good thought him sinful, the wicked thought him even more wicked or more capable than themselves, so that all hated him.' This was no doubt an exaggeration: Machiavelli was far better known as a popular dramatist and controversial state functionary than as the author of a tract on statecraft. Still, in the decades that followed, the hatred did indeed begin to curdle."
   
   King points out that a well-worn edition accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to the Battle of Waterloo and Adolph Hitler kept a copy on his bedside table. Today, many people who have never read The Prince and know little (if anything) about its author do not hesitate to invoke his name -- or at least apply it as an adjective -- to describe or repudiate any political maneuvering they perceive to be devious. However, King asserts, rather than having been uniformly demonized or unfairly misunderstood "as a preacher of the straightforward message of evil," Machiavelli has been "conscripted into service" by adherents of all manner of political causes because his thought is strangely malleable to any number of diametrically opposing ideologies and approaches."
   
   As I hope these brief remarks indicate, I learned a great deal about Machiavelli, a man of "numerous antimonies," that I did not know before. I am grateful to Ross King for that but also for all that I learned about the extraordinarily interesting age in which Machiavelli lived, more than 500 years ago. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that King "brings it to life." No one could. But he does present material with the skills and eloquence of a storyteller...and in seamless combination with the skills of a cultural anthropologist.
   
   Bravo!



2. I was pleased to see that the redoubtable Ross King (of Brunelleschi's Dome fame) was recruited for this book. For readers unfamiliar with the "Eminent Lives" series, the idea is to pair distinguished authors with interesting subjects, the result being "short biographies perfect for an age short on time."
   
   How very 21st century.
   
   King does an excellent job of putting Niccolo Machiavelli's life and times into perspective. Machiavelli was much more of a man of action than I had realized; he interspersed his peripatetic diplomacy for Florence with an obsession with raising and training a citizen militia. And Machiavelli was hardly the black-hearted villain so often characterized. His greatest character fault may have been obsequiousness, as epitomized by his dedicating The Prince to Lorenzo Medici (a syphilitic lout who apparently never read the book at all.)
   
   If I had any cavil about Ross King's book, it is that The Prince is not analyzed in the kind of detail that I hoped it would be. (One supposes a short biography designed for an age short on time has its limitations.) I intend to now follow the example of rapper Tupac Shakur, who read The Prince while imprisoned in 1995, and subsequently gave himself the moniker "Makaveli." (How much cooler than "Puffy" is that?)
   
   Also recommended: Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives)

1 comments about Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings.

1. This book, which is an abridgmment of Basler's larger 8-volume "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln," is ideal for all students of Lincoln as a quick source for finding Lincoln's most well-known speeches, letters, and other documents. While other collections of Lincoln's writings do exist, Basler's is considered the most definitive. This one-volume edition of that collection makes the most popular and important Lincoln documents accessible to a larger group of people.

5 comments about In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story.

1. I just finished Ghada Karmi's captivating autobiography. She is honest, poignant, funny and reflective. She takes you back to pivotal moments in history, while at the same time drawing you into her and her family's personal struggles. Many readers who have also grown up with traditional parents, whether they be Catholic, Muslim or Jewish, will be able to relate!
   
   But more importantly, she offers an insightful view of a much misunderstood dilemma. For anyone who has wondered, "Why don't the Palestinians just stop fighting?", you owe it to yourself to read this book!
   
   I admit to fact checking Karmi because I assumed since she was Palestinian, that some of the information she gave could have been exaggerated. She mentions the massacre at Deir Yassin, the bombing of the King David Hotel, and the booby trapping of the dead body of a British soldier. I was shocked to learn that armed Jewish groups did indeed carry out these and other acts of violence before 1948. What we are usually taught is that Israel always respects human rights, but the Arabs do not. Karmi gives another point of view.
   
   Yet she does not paint all Jewish people with the same brush. She differentiates between her Jewish friends she holds dear, the Jewish faith she respects, and the state of Israel which has robbed her of her homeland.
   
   This book is well worth your time!



2. In Search of Fatima is a beautifully written story, a true story, written by a woman with a real gift for writing. The whole experience of the Palestinian Catastrophe, know as the Nakba, comes alive in this book on a very personal level. The fear of the Palestinians as the events unfold during the years leading up to 1948 are so vividly expressed that you feel that you are there too, sharing the feelings of foreboding and horror.
   The second section of the book describes the difficulties in settling in a new country, with totally different customs, language, weather, everything. Her mother, incapable of adapting to a new life, makes a truly pitiable figure.
   
   Although this is the story of one person,the experience of the 1948 Nakba was shared by three quarters of a million others, yet we rarely hear about the terrible suffering inflicted on so many. This book fills a huge void.



3. This is truly an outstanding work. The search and confusion of identity is made even more difficult when one is a Palestinian refugee. Add to this the issue of gender and Ghada Karmi assertion of herself and her rights and you get a fascinating indeed thrilling mix. The first third of the book deals with the exodus from Jerusalem ..it is very moving and sad to see the events rushing to make little Ghada and her family refugees. In the next part we see Ghada the British emerging and finally with all the contradiction between home, school (with mostly Jewish friends) and the society at large especially with backdrop of the 1956 Suez war. The third and final part is the return and the contradictions of identities and the battle to assert herself as a single woman working for the cause. Ghada's move from the completely apolitical to the activist as part of her search of identity is very well nuanced and gives us a great insight into the meaning of being a Palestinian refugee.
   
   Ghada Karmi is a gifted writer. This work is fascinating enough even if it was given as bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation, but this is hardly the case. Karmi has a facility with prose and is able to get into great detail to transform the readers into her life; this was very much the case in the fist part of the book, the exodus from Jerusalem. You can almost picture Ghada abandoned dog as their car sped away from the house never to return.
   
   This is a thrilling work on par with Leila Ahmad Border Passage. Leila Ahmad an Egyptian American was not a refugee but here Tri-cultural experience in Egypt, England and America and her search of identity and issues of gender are very interesting and highly developed. Another highly recommended work of a Palestinian American is Nadia Captive of Hope, deals with exodus and gender issues and less so of identity.



4. This book is like a narrative of two different lives: the end of one and the beginning of another. Two lives that are not independent of each other though, as remnants of the one may not be overpowering to the point of eliminating the other, but are certainly powerful enough to haunt it, shape it, give it its final form.
   
   Although in essence totally overwhelmed by emotions, Karmi manages to almost detach and distance herself from her own being, leave her body and float above everything and everyone. That way she describes people, situations and feelings in a detailed and factual fashion, devoid of the empathy that would crush the reader, immerse him in a whirlwind of unfulfilled expectations and unrelieved tension, and ultimately leave him feeling nothing short of miserable and exhausted.
   
   Throughout the entire book, there's a marked emphasis on Karmi's relationships with other Jews, the friendships she formed and her refusal to see them in any other way than as individuals with traits that were or were not compatible, likable or acceptable to her. She almost goes out of her way to make clear that Jewishness never hindered her from befriending someone and not only that, but in an unfamiliar environment such as London was in the aftermath of the second World War, Palestinians and Jews that found themselves stranded there were entities that shared the misfortune of exile, and as such could indeed relate to one another. Moreover, the fact that Judaism was as much a respected as a familiar religion for Muslims, much more so than Christianity, played a role. As did the writer's initial stance, adopted by her parents and passed onto her from an early age, that it wasn't so much the Jews that were responsible for the Palestinians' fate and the violent takeover of their country, as ultimately the British, who as custodians of Palestine had the obligation to protect and safeguard the interests of the indigenous population. Instead, they forsook and betrayed them, and disposed of the Palestinian land -that was never theirs to dispose of in the first place- as served their purposes at the time.
   
   Karmi experiences an internal conflict, wavering between her British identity and her Arab origins, desperately longing to be accepted by and fit in either society. She often describes the war that rages inside of her, the opposite forces pushing and pulling, on the one hand the need to put everything behind her and lead as normal a life as possible, and on the other the need to seek out her roots and fight with all her might the injustice that was meted out to her.
   
   This book is so much more that a simple memoir, as it goes deep inside the mind of people who experience exile and dislocation, and gives a picture of the psychological turmoil they find themselves in and the void they will probably never be able to fill.



5. This is a wonderful book that shows the humnan tragedy of becoming a refugee. In this case, the book talks about a refugee of the 1948 war for Palestine. While the book explains how the creation of the state of Israel have shattered the lives of three quarter million palestnians, it tells the story of one of them. The story of personal conflicts that face any palestnian refugee now, then and in the future:
   - Can I return to Palestine and where is it now?
   - How can I stay palestnian and at the same time contribute to my current non-palestnian community?
   - Do I have the capacity to forgive israelies for what they did to my family and country?
   
   While Ghada's responses to these questions were positive, and she insisted to find an answer to these questions, it is the role of each palestnian to find his/her own answers. Also, it is the role of non-palestnians to understand the palestnian refugee before addressing their plight. Therefore I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.

1. If you want to change the world for the better or just keep your little corner of it from getting worse, then you'll want to read this book. It's not just about "the art of war," as the subtitle claims. It's what Boyd discovered about how conflicts are fought and won. Sadly, although he flew in two wars, most of Boyd's clashes were fought within our own military rather than with some foreign foe. As a result, one of the best USAF fighter pilots who ever lived is better remembered by the Marine Corps, where he is a hero, than by his own branch.
   
   I'm not going spend time praising Boyd. The fact that I finished this book with a list of books and articles to read is praise enough. Instead, I'm going to offer a useful corrective to Boyd the man, by introducing someone else you should read.
   
   That someone is G. K. Chesterton, an Englishman with a maverick, warrior personality every bit as fierce and unyielding as Boyd's. On June 1, 1941, on one of the darkest days in World War II, when the island of Crete had fallen to the Germans, leaving 17,000 British soldiers as prisoners of war, the Times of London, defiantly put these lines from Chesterton's "The Ballad of the White Horse" on its front page:
   
   I tell you naught for your comfort,
   Yea naught for your desire,
   Save that the sky grows darker yet
   And the sea rises higher.
   
   Like Boyd, Chesterton understood that how we fight determines if we win or lose. He shared Boyd's contempt for those who believe that bigger is better. In a 1909 at the height of England's fears about new German battleships, Chesterton wrote precisely what Boyd would later say about fighter aircraft.
   
   "Common-sense tells a man that indefinite development in one direction must in practice over-reach itself... If you perceive your enemy plunging on blindly in a particular direction, the real thing to do, if you have any spirit and invention, is to calculate the weakness in his course and advance yourself in some other direction. You ought to take advantage of his infatuation, not to imitate it; you ought to surprise his plan of campaign, not copy it laboriously. If he is building very big ships, the best thing you could do would probably be to build small ones; ships lighter, quicker, and more capable of navigating rivers."
   
   But Chesterton understood something that Boyd never learned, an aspect of warfare that's so often forgotten today that the very word for it seems quaint--chivalry. Perhaps his best explanation of chivalry came in a 1906 article explaining why the Europe of his day dominated the world. Again Chesterton described a concept dear to Boyd, the power that comes from an ability to think new thoughts and imagine new ways of acting.
   
   "The elements that make Europe upon the whole the most humanitarian civilisation are precisely the elements that make it upon the whole the strongest. For the power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination."
   
   Boyd thought like a fighter pilot. He would have us understand a man in order to destroy him, knowing that a foe who's blown out of the air will never trouble you again. As a writer, Chesterton had a different perspective. He believed that understanding leads to restraint, writing in that same article: "For if you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not."
   
   Chesterton saw conflict in broad terms. When he clashed with H. G. Wells over the latter's infatuation with a World State or with Bernard Shaw over pacifism, he took the time to understand what each was saying. His criticisms of the dangers and weakness of international institutions are among the best ever written. His description of the pacifist personality is so accurate that it applies with near perfection to today's pacifists. But having gotten into the mind of his opponent, he recognized in him a fellow human being. With few exceptions, he retained the respect and even friendship of his foes. Only when one crossed a critical line, demonstrating that without great pain he was beyond redemption, would Chesterton seek to crush him to prevent the evil he intended. What was for Boyd the rule, destroying anyone who disagree with him, was for Chesterton the rare exception. Boyd needs to be tempered with Chesterton
   
   In short, I'd suggest that, as you read what Boyd said about war and conflict, you also read what Chesterton wrote. You'll accomplish a lot more and suffer far less grief if you do. And as you might suspect, I wrote a book on that topic, a collection of Chesterton's best articles on war and peace paying particular attention to his warnings about Germany. And when the necessity arose, Chesterton could be as tough-minded as Boyd. Chesterton used all his powers as a writer to crush those ideas in the German mind that Nazism would later exploit.
   
   --Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II



2. Fascinating insight into the mind of a genius. I read it in one day and did not want it to end.



3. In 2008, John Arquill (Netwars) will publish a book on American military reform. In it he makes three recommendations, the elimination of the Pentagon, the end of strategic bombing strategy, and force reductions to 100,000 in each of the main services.
   
   This book, published in 2002, tells the story of a man who fought to realize these same notions in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
   
   The book reads like a novel. As told, John Boyd is a flawed genius on a lonely mission, assisted by a few friends. There isn't much work done to place Boyd in context. Instead, Boyd is the context. He is Newton, Sun Tzu and George Washington blended into one great, tragic master. I think the story would stand on its own merits without the hype.
   
   Within the excited rhetoric, one can get a sense of the dark bureaucratic games played in Washington. This alone is worth the time spend reading.
   
   One of the most interesting themes involves bureaucratic wars between Army, Navy, Air Force and any politician in power. As told here, true Air Force vitriol was not expended on foreign enemies, it was saved for the Navy, Marines and Army. After all, there is always a much higher chance that your career will be cripled by a competing service, than by a foreign power. As Orwell wrote in "1984", "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power; pure power."
   
   These tales occupy half the book and are told almost exclusively from the recollections of Boyd's friends. In fact, the second half of the book is really about the activities of Boyd's friends, not Boyd. Frankly, I don't know what to make of this. You can read it with blind faith in Boyd, or take any one of many over-generalizations and dismiss the whole thing. There are plenty of gratuitous insults against anyone not a fighter pilot to turn off any but the most friendly reader. Perhaps, it is best to see it as an attempt to see it like Boyd saw the Pentagon bureaucracy battles. As such, you get to ride copilot and enjoy the ride. At a minimum, it will make your next reading of Sun-Tzu more interesting.



4. I'm not sure how Robert Coram's book justified all the gushing praise printed on its cover and front matter. It's a serviceable biography if one wants to learn about John Boyd's relationship with his mother but don't expect to learn a lot about his theories: potentially Boyd's "real" impact on the US military.
   
   The reader will learn that Boyd was a rebel, a potty mouth, he flipped the bird to superior officers, evidently enjoyed prodigious Schadenfreude when a competitor failed, etc. Anecdotes demonstrating these character flaws of Boyd's come at the reader ad nauseam. If I had a dime for every time Coram writes words to the effect that "Boyd's behavior would have ended the career of a lesser officer" I'd be a wealthy man. Boyd basically banged his head against a concrete wall most of his career. However, I wonder how much, if at all, Boyd's legacy survived the ten years since his death (he died in March, 1997, I'm writing this in March, 2007).
   
   Boyd demonstrated that as an old colonel once told me "Those who think also serve." His first theories concerned air-to-air combat as the world's air forces transitioned to jet planes and evidently were successfully implemented by the USAF late in the Vietnam War. Due largely to Boyd's self-destructive tendencies he was not allowed to fly fighters during that conflict. In the 1970s-80s he kept thinking while serving, among other places, at the Pentagon. Here his main mission in life seemed to be the vain attempt to keep the F-15s and F-16s "pure fighters" against the efforts of USAF generals to load them down with avionics and ordnance.
   
   I first became aware of Boyd in the early `80s when a friend turned me on to the Boyd- or OODA Loop. Clearly this concept had universal applicability to just about any military situation plus those in the political, commercial, diplomatic, etc. realms as well. From then on I kept my eyes open for anything about Boyd (hence my initial high-hopes for Coram's book when I saw it reviewed in "Air & Space" magazine) but in the pre-internet age that was difficult. Ten years later I stumbled across "A Discourse on Winning and Losing" at the Ft. Leavenworth library. Its simplicity and elegance were obvious. Unfortunately, the other 99% of the US military was as tradition-bound (and I don't mean that in a good way) and entrenched as those USAF fighter generals, Boyd's thinking didn't fit into American doctrine so found few adherents.
   
   Regrettably, the reader of Coram's book will learn little about these theories. As a journalist he's competent to discuss Boyd the teen-age life guard or USAF workaholic but only knows the very basics about the military (a couple of airplane rides notwithstanding) so Coram has to rely on others to tell him about Boyd's philosophy and here he falls way short. Therefore, after a few paragraphs or a couple of pages superficially describing the OODA Loop, etc. it's back to anecdotes concerning Boyd the curmudgeon telling yet another general to pound sand.
   
   Coram's book is a bibliography only in the most limited sense. I'd wager 99% of his readership are left wondering "OK, so this guy Boyd made full colonel and was a great thinker but his personality and modus operandi were so strident and off-putting that his potentially great message was squandered due to his personal baggage. Therefore where's his greatness in this?"
   
   Then there's the remaining 1% of us who are still waiting for a serious treatment of Boyd's thinking that would fulfill the implied promise of Coram's subtitle and explain how Boyd "changed the art of war." I have little doubt Boyd contributed to the military arts and sciences in exactly this manner but one's not going to learn that from the admiring Coram.



5. An excellent read. As a former Naval aviator and now an employe for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics where the F-16 is built, I can attest to Boyd's drive to build the best lightwight fighter in the world. He was certainly correct in his methodolgy to build somethng that the rest of the world did not have. Sales prove that. But the information in the behind the scenes tactics that Boyd employed are exceptional reading. Highly recommended - everyone that I have suggested that they read this book has agreed

5 comments about Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat.

1. In 1991, I had the privilege of being a student at the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth under the direction of then Col James McDonough. A man of deep reflection, he was also passionate about soldiers and ensured that everything we did as students in teh study of warfare and campaign design kept them in mind.
   
   Now I am a university professor offering courses in US military history. Part of what I do is to expose my students to leadership and battle at the small unit level. There is no better book for that purpose concerning Vietnam than McDonough.
   
   Every student takes something different away from this book because, unlike many assigned books, they read it. The book captures you right from the beginning. You really can't put it down. And, it contains more lessons about life and leadership than I can express here.
   
   Knowing the author personally in 1991-1992 is special, for I saw in him then the character that had developed from his time in Vietnam. He tells it like it is, he means what he says, and he stands by his word. His book is more than just a memoir, it is therapy for a man who must live with the past, both for better and for worse.



2. Platoon Leader was an excellent read, and one I would recommend for all those enjoy military reading. I would especially suggest it to all junior military leaders. Entertaining and well written, the author discusses at length his role as a leader, and what he views as good and bad leaders. The aspect of the book I enjoyed the most was it allowed the reader to see leadership, on a small-unit level, working in real-world combat conditions. Unlike many books leaders read for professional development, it shows how leadership works when employed and doesn't just philosophize about leadership principles.



3. As a junior officer I have an entire list of professional reading that I am trudging my way through, but so far McDonough has been by far the most enjoyable and has made the biggest impact on my own leadership style. Both Platoon Leader and Defense of Hill 781 are great books, but Platoon Leader is so far the best military memoir I have read. It has been over a year since I read this book, but the three things that have stuck with me are:
   1. Do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason.
   2. Death in a combat zone is more about just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sooner or later your luck runs out, but you have the duty to your fellow soldiers to do everything in your power to protect them.
   3. The stealing of a bottle of soda from a grandmother leads slowly but inevitable to the rape of her granddaughter. If you let your soldiers steal at all you are setting the stage for what atrocities they will commit later. You must always be vigilant in your discipline.
   
   While I do not have combat experience, I am currently serving in Iraq and know second handedly that these concepts still hold true.
   
   Other than the leadership aspect of the book, Mcdonough is just a great story teller and is able to make the book engaging and addicting.



4. James McDonough provides an in-depth look at infantry platoon operations in Vietnam. This is a must read for anyone who intends to pursue a military career. The book is very graphic, but also very succint and to the point. McDonough doesn't waste time with superfluous details, every word is well chosen and critical to the telling of the story. Once you begin reading, you will not want to stop. It is a quick read, and well worth the time it takes.



5. "Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat," by James R. McDonough, chronicles the author's experiences as an officer in the Vietnam War from 1970-71. His platoon is charged with manning an outpost next to the village of Truong Lam.
   
   This is a fascinating, well-written account. McDonough fills his narrative with vivid details that really made his story come alive in my mind. He doesn't flinch at describing the goriest and most horrific images of war. There are also moments of irony and bitter humor. Also noteworthy is the informative material about tactics used in Vietnam. And the author humanizes the story by touching on such "down-and-dirty" issues as the latrine his platoon used.
   
   McDonough's story is populated with a compelling cast of characters. Particularly intriguing is his exploration of relationships among the various groups he encountered in the war zone--U.S. enlisted men, his fellow Army officers, Vietnamese military allies, enemy forces, and the many civilians caught up in the conflict.
   
   While rich in scenes of combat, "Platoon Leader" goes beyond being just an action-packed war yarn. The book explores the ethics and morals of war. McDonough deals directly with the danger a soldier faces in becoming dehumanized by the brutality of war. He vividly portrays the struggle of a leader to remain wise and humane, yet also tough and resolute, under the most trying of circumstances. This book is both a profound meditation on wartime leadership and a powerful work of American literature.

5 comments about The Devil Knows How To Ride: The True Story Of William Clarke Quantril And His Confederate Raiders.

1. Mild-mannered teacher. Mama's boy. Impressionable Army teamster. Professional gambler. Lady's man. Expert horseman. Cold-blooded killer.
   
   William Clarke Quantrill, the leader of the most feared group of guerrillas in American history, possessed all of these personas at one time or another in his short life. Tackling a subject of this complexity requires an author who is up to the task, and Edward Leslie proves that he is the man for the job in The Devil Knows How to Ride.
   
   Leslie does an admirable job transporting the reader back to a time when people's survival was day-to-day and the difference between life and death often depended on one's political sympathies. Leslie probably comes closer than any other author to understanding Quantrill the man and his motivations. This is all the more impressive when one considers that Quantrill, the most important figure in the story, died a month shy of his 28th birthday, leaving behind few correspondences and no memoirs.
   
   The book is thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed. Well-known events such as the Lawrence Massacre are covered. But so are little-known historical nuggets, such as the story of Quantrill escaping from the headquarters of a Confederate general who had placed him under arrest near Bonham, Texas. It seems that every raid ever undertaken by Quantrill's gang gets a mention, whether it be for one sentence or an entire chapter. Despite the book's great detail, its pulse-pounding pace is rarely compromised.
   
   Besides good research and an easy writing style, another of Leslie's hallmarks is that he brings objectivity to the subject of which he writes. He projects a balanced view that never resorts to "purple prose." Many of the more incendiary allegations against Quantrill are presented very carefully. For example, Leslie takes issue with stories of Quantrill gleefully abusing animals as a youth and attributes them to a single source who had reasons for disparaging his character. Perhaps because of Quantrill's fierce reputation, many such stories about him were taken at face value when they were first published.
   
   This book is ideal for readers with a basic knowledge of the Civil War who don't want to sift through long narratives of troop movements, flanking maneuvers, and the like. The irregular nature of guerrilla operations makes for interesting reading. The story is also interesting because guerrilla groups were small units compared with the regular Army. As a result, the participants in the story have related their experiences in very personal terms.
   
   Leslie's attention to detail and fresh perspective on Quantrill ensures that Civil War aficionados will appreciate the book as well.
   
   If you are looking for one book on Quantrill, or even one book on the Civil War in the West, you can't go wrong with The Devil Knows How to Ride.



2. I am a history fanatic and I loved this book. It is about a time of which I did not have a lot of knowledge and this was so well done.
   I am sorry Mr. Leslie doesn't have more books as he is an excellant story teller.



3. As little as I heard about William Qunatrell and as much as I wanted to know about him, I found this book sadly lacking in any depth or insight. Even though the author writes an introduction about knowing a sociopath who massacred a dozen people in a McDonald's and how this led him to be interested in serial killers and the like, he falls back on narrative devices of the Gone with the Wind cliche.
   
   Whilst there is a fascinating story buried in this narrative about a man who took up guerrilla warfare and how he scared the hell out of Kansas and Missouri, the retelling sucks the life out of it. The author relies too heavily on the original histories and reports some of the hokiness bits of dialogue and fictions without comment. Sure, the guerrila bands MIGHT have been avenging their sisters and the good southern women, or that might have just been the melodramatic recreation. Sure, a man might have said "D-mn them. They are desecrating the flag" upon seeing a Lawrence raider dragging an American flag on horseback. Or he might have just been running for his life and thought up the story later on.
   
   Sadly, this is considered the classic of the historical accounts. So it will be many more years before a better book comes along - one that actually attempts psychological insight and historical accuracy and actually discusses the original texts instead of swallowing every bit of romanticized twaddle without question.



4. ....and Colonel William Clarke Quantrill called in the debt. He sure as hell did. Hart was an assumed name that Quantrill used as a young man when he went west from Ohio seeking fame and fortune, or at least a living. Problem was, he landed right in the middle of the "Bleeding Kansas" mess that was especially hot along the Missouri-Kansas border. Quantrill worked as a teacher, and is said to have been a good one, but trouble was brewing...Charles Jennison and his Jayhawkers, John Brown and his murders of innocent whites....more than enough motivation for a young man to follow the South when war came.
   
   Missouri was even more deeply divided than the rest of the country; it really was brother against brother. The Confederate commander in Missouri was Major General Sterling Price, a fine and decent man, but not our best General. Initially, Quantrill served in the regular Confederate Army, but gradually broke away, with a band of followers, to form The Missouri Partisan Rangers, forerunner of the modern Special Forces, complete with proper Confederate commissions. At first, they played by regular rules...taking prisoners, giving paroles, etc. But when Jim Lane wantonly burned Osceola, and murdered civilians, the black flag came out...
   
   Quantrill's followers are the stuff of Legend...Captain Bloody Bill Anderson...Captain George Todd, who eventually supplanted Quantrill [I am married to a direct descendent of Captain Todd; our son will gladly tell you about it]...Archie Clement...Bill Gregg...Cole Younger...Frank James...Jesse James. Some died in the cause; others went on to fame after the war.
   
   Quantrill's Raiders lived off the countryside, and made things hot for the Yankees wherever they went. They even fought, and won, regular battles, like Baxter Springs. Finally, the Yankees imprisoned female relatives of the Raiders in a structurally unsafe jail in Kansas City...when it collapsed, five innocent girls, including Bill Anderson's sister and Cole Younger's cousin died...enough was enough, the bill was due, and Lawrence paid. When Ewing issued his infamous Order #11, clearing northwest Missouri of Southern civilians, resolve hardened.
   
   Eventually, Todd and Anderson were killed, and the war ended. Quantrill was mortally wounded in Kentucky in 1865. Or was he? He was seen alive as late as 1915...the ultimate legendary status...seen alive after death, joining such company as Jesse James [seen as late as 1951], Houdini, Elvis, and JFK. His skull was used as a prop in a college fraternity initiation for years; he finally received a military funeral, and Christian burial, in 1992. Surviving Raiders held reunions from 1898 till 1929; interestingly, there were two black Raiders at the reunions, though no one knows much about them.
   
   This is a well researched account of a little known aspect of our Civil War. "Quantrill's War" by Duane Schultz is more academic, but this is more readable...both get five stars.



5. I went to KU in Lawrence so I was well aware of Quantrill's raid but that was about all that I was aware of. (Pioneer Cemetery with headstone inscriptions bearing witness to that raid is just across I70 from KU on Mount Oread.) When studying the American Civil War in school one learns about Gettysburg, Antietam, Petersburg and the fighting in the Shenandoah of Virginia. Some passing mention might be made of the war in the west, usually a reference to Grant and Vicksburg. There is hardly if ever any mention of the 'border war' in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. The border war is still alive in that part of the nation; the massacre at Baxter Springs and General Order Number 11 that emptied a number of counties of citizens in western Missouri to combat bands of guerillas is still in the memory of many. Not all of the fighting was in the east and Edward Leslie does a fine job of bringing to life a bit of the war in the west. It was as nasty if not nastier than anything in the east.

5 comments about Jim Bridger: Mountain Man.

1. it was a rather hard read and need more details, but a OK read on Jim Bridger. Would like to have detais on Morman fights ect.



2. I just finish reading this book. I thought it was very excellent and intriguing about Jim Bridger. A man, who took no pleasure in killing, following the number one rule, "Survival of the Fittest and Kill or be Killed. I would've like to have gotten more information on his wife and children. It's sad about what happened to his daughter and that he was widowed twice. But it's good to know that his last years were spent with his children and grandchildren. I was brought almost to tears upon reading the final chapter of this book. I'm very fascinated with the Mountain Men and the Indian women they married.



3. So far so good. The book tells the life story of Bridger, which is what I wanted to see.



4. I'd like to give the book another star, but just don't think I can. I found it an interesting and well researched description of Bridger's life. It has both an excellent index and references. The author gave a fair and balanced assessment of Bridger. It appears that some previous books on him might have been unfair or too praiseworthy about his life. Somehow the descriptions lacked a little spark, although there are a number of vivid passages. Perhaps this has to do with the fact the book was written 100 years after Bridger's death. In fact, this book is now 30 years old, and I believe the author wrote his first book on similar topics back in the 30s. Nevertheless, it's a good and complete description of Bridger's life.
   
   One of the sadder aspects of the story is near the ending when the author reveals that during the last 10-15 years of Bridger's life no writer took the opportunity to interview Bridger. He was in his sixties and seventies, I believe, but was a rather ignored individual, except by his family. He had an exceptionally good memory. Someone missed the opportunity to get more of his rather amazing life straight from the source. The 2-3 page description of his last years, and his desire to keep moving summarize his deep need for adventure and discovery.
   
   He was apparently quite a wit and teller of tall tales. Only four of five of his short tales are found in the book. Interestingly, he told many of his stories in sign languages to the indians.
   
   The book contains on chapter of the famous Hugh Glass incident. It's worth reading if you have not heard it. The story was incorporated into a movie, A Man Called Horse , starring Richard Harris, in a slightly different form. I also found the long passage on "medicine wolves" quite intriguing.
   
   I think this book might disspell a notion that the indian's scalping and body mutiliations of their enemies was derived from copying Europeans might be false. I read such an explanation in another book written at about the same time as this one. However, here we find repeated references to such carnage. In fact, it seems this savagery also been deeply engrained into the mountain men and other early frontiersmen. I suspect such carnages placed on one's enemies has deep roots in all of human history.



5. Bridger is a larger than life character. The author portrays Bridger as a character who was unimpressed with developed society. His treasure was the mountains and the mystery of an undeveoped land and people. His humility and lack of concern for unbelievers of the wonder of the mountains aligns him with someone who has a tremendous fishing hole but doesnt want anyone to fish it dry.

5 comments about Blood Trails: The Combat Diary of a Foot Soldier in Vietnam.

1. A brillant and riveting account that offers a unique insight to life in the jungle of a combat infantryman. It's all true, I know because I was in Charlie company "Black Lions" from January 1967 to April 1967 when Chris was shot.
   It was my platoon, 3rd platoon, that was hit that day. The first two men were hit by pullets from a large Chinese mine that exploded before them. The screams still remain fresh in my mind. The concussion from the explosion was so great that it knocked the 3rd man in the formation, Battles, off his feet and he rolled into me. Then all hell broke loose and the fire fight went on for what seemed like minutes, but was actually over two hours. Chris's 1st platoon came to our rescue. Sometime during the end of the fighting, I was out in an open field and saw this soldier coming towards me in huge distress. He couldn't talk, a bullet had shattered his jaw, and he keeped running his hand around his head. It was Chris and I was able to help him. Didn't see him again till 1994.
   
   
   Fred Kirkpatrick
   webmaster, www.28thinfantry.org



2. Nothing really new to someone who has read many personal memoirs from vietnam. I found anticlimactic. There are much better memoirs out there.



3. I'm a 3-tour Vietnam vet. Salvage diver with the 20th. Engineers out of Long Binh. 69-71. I've read a multitude of books about the Vietnam War & am so very glad I volunteered as a Diver instead of a paratrooper that I came within an eyelash of doing. You line doggies out there have ALL of my considerable respect!
   
   Blood Trails is without a doubt THE best book I've yet to read on the war. The guy tells it like it was (for the infantry people) but includes a lot of sarcastic & self-deprecating humor that makes the book a joy to read. His vivid descriptions of real life combat puts you in the driver's seat & makes this reader realize how lucky he was NOT to have been a paratrooper! Great job!



4. I went with five stars against my better judgmemt. Oh, the book was most interesting and the humor alone was worth the price and effort, but we Vietnam veterans have had so many roses thrown in our paths and so much glory that I'm afraid of overdoing it.
   
   Anyway, Ronnau gets my vote and five stars simply because he was able to stop taking drugs and killing babies long enough to write a book. I was able to get my newest title, "Kill Me If You Can", out between these things, but haven't been able to completely give them up. It pleases me to no end when an 11 Bravo guy makes good. Thanks and congratulations, Doc.



5. "Blood Trails", written by Long Beach, California native Chris Ronnau, tells of his experiences as a foot soldier in Vietnam. His unit, the Big Red One, was involved in many important infantry operations in the III Corps area of South Vietnam, north and west of Saigon along the Cambodian border. In this book, he conveys the day to day emotions of a youthful soldier called off to duty in a foreign land where he ended up becoming a hero during a fierce firefight in April 1967, during which he sustained mass trauma to his face. This is his story of personal courage, along with a moving account of the battlefield comraderie among 19 year old soldiers who depended only on each other for survival in America's longest, most frustrating war.

5 comments about The Naked Soldier: A True Story of the French Foreign Legion.

1. I was never bored and it never moved slowly, I was always very interested and entertained. He is also very reflective which makes the book ten times better



2. I have always been fascinated by the FFL and this book lived up to the hype. The author gives good insight into the world of the FFL. I couldn't put the book down.



3. Bought this book seeking to read about the experiences of a modern Legionary. Mr. Sloane does recount his story, but it is very matter of fact. I hoped to understand something more of his personality and what was going on inside his head! The characters he met in the Legion need to be filled out more. Simply stating he hated this guy or that is not enough. Reading this style of text leaves one with the feeling that Mr. Sloane is a cold person with anger issues. I know Mr. Sloane is tough, and a real soldier. He knows how to suffer pain and keep on going. One would think that to suffer intense amounts of BS, takes a person with character. Mr. Sloane's character is not glimpsed by the reader, however. I guess my problem is I didn't get to hear, smell, see, and feel something of what he was experiencing through his writing. Mr. Sloane goes through Hell and back again and simpy states it blandly. He is almost invisible. Those who he interacted with on a daily basis have no personalities. They are names that come and go. As I read the book, I don't know Mr. Sloane, or any of the people mentioned. They come and go. They do and endure stuff...I don't feel anything for them. Read To Hell and Back Again,of Audie Murphy fame or Band of Brothers (101 AB). You get to know something about the people and begin to like and hate the guys you meet there! In short, if a Legionary's experiences can't be communicated to the reader...well, why even bother to tell the story in the first place?



4. This isn't a General sitting in his study writing his memoirs. This is a great, no none sense memoir of a grunts life from a grunts point of view in one of the most physically and psychologically demanding military units in the world. The story is sometimes rambling and disjointed but always fascinating and real. A lot of the books written about the Legion are by quitters who stayed a year or two and then deserted, Tony Sloane finished his commitment despite the hardship and because of that you are able to see the transformation of a restless and wandering teen to that of a hardened Soldier. For fans of the Legion or anyone looking for a good story I can highly recommend this book.



5. Tony Sloane's book The Naked Soldier is an honest and no nonsense view of the Foreign Legion.As a hoemless 18 year old in the UK, Sloane joins the Legion and not only excels at the training but he joins the elite 2nd REP.He spends time in Djbouti (Africa),completes three commando courses, and by the end of his five year enlistment he is promoted to Corporal.
   He goes into great detail about the training,the brutality, and his desire to do something positive and to make the best of his time in the Legion.
   I like Sloane's book because unlike some books such as Salazar's Legion of the Lost or Jenning's A Mouthful of Rocks he served his five year term with honor and did not give up.This is the type of guy that I would liked to have served with because he reminds me of so many of my comrades in the Marines and Army.So if you are a FFL fan I think that you will enjoy this book.I would equate this book with Simon Murrays "Legionaire".

4 comments about Omaha Beach and Beyond: The Long March of Sergeant Bob Slaughter.

1. I have already added this book to my collection, and damn proud of it too.



2. I just finished reading Sgt. Slaughter's book and I highly recommend it. Much has been written about what it was like to land on Omaha Beach, but very little has been written about the training that the GI's went through prior to the invasion. I particularly liked the anecdotal accounts of Sgt. Slaughter's drill sergeant and the accounts of some unauthorized departures from base (particularly to get a steak dinner!). The descriptions of Sgt. Slaughter's training as a 29th Ranger was very interesting as very little is available about this unit.
   
   This book is an easy book to read (it kept me turning the pages) and tells a very good and compelling story. Through the eyes of the author, the reader experiences a different aspect of war - the compassion of soldiers and the camaraderie forged by war.



3. Bob Slaughter has captured a piece of history in a unique and fascinating manner. His recounting of personal and historical events surroundnig one of the defining events of modern time is not only a good documentary but entertaining. Knowing him as a fellow "Stonewall Brigade" member adds even more interest from my perspective. He tells the story from a real life perspective ... how it really was then and what it took to succeed in the mission. Reading this book will certainly give you a great view of what the men and women went through to win the war. He pulls no punches in revealing some mistakes made in planning and execution at every level. Anyone who thinks "freedom is free" should read this to learn the real "cost of freedom."



4. Sgt. Bob Slaughter, a D-Day veteran, was the moving force behind the implementation of the National D-Day Memorial and, now at the ripe old age of 82, is the Chairman of the Foundation for the memorial. His book, some 60 years in the making, movingly tells the story of what it was like on Omaha beach, Normandy, 6 June 1944 and thereafter.
   
   The author's story really begins at the tender age of 15 when he convinces his parents to allow him to sign up for the Virginia National Guard. He joined in early 1941 and was in basic training at 16, after his unit was called up for federal service with other local Virginia outfits.
   
   Shortly thereafter, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. America, and the Virginia National Guard, was now caught up in World War II.
   
   After initially guarding the East coast his unit was sent to England. On the way his transport, a converted oceanliner, inadvertently ran into a British warship, cutting it in two and killing several hundred British sailors.
   
   While in England, the author volunteers for a ranger battalion and trained intensively in Scotland but this unit never saw combat, was disbanded, and the men were sent back to their original units.
   
   The author's training then continues in England for the invasion of Normandy. The invasion comes, of course, on 6 June 1944. The author is in on the third wave of landings that day, but the carnage experienced by his unit, D Company of 116th Infantry, 29th Division, on the beaches was no less than many on the first wave. That first day his Company suffered over 40% casualties, about one-third of whom were from his hometown, Roanoke, Virgina. (The D-Day Memorial is in Bedford, Virginia. Bedford suffered even heavier losses during the invasion, 23 alone on D-Day, than Roanoke.) The author's description of that day, as men were crushed by their own landing craft or shot and drowned under the weight of their 60-pound packs, is quite intense and not soon forgotten. Particularly memorable is the author's recognition that, at 6 feet 5 inches, he displayed an especially large and inviting target to the German defenders.
   
   The author's story continues as he survives D-Day, is twice wounded (once in the head and once in the kidneys) but rejoins his unit in the fight across France and into Germany.
   
   After being released and coming home in July 1945, the author describes the personal turmoil and feelings he and other veterans felt after the war. After being trained so long as killing machines, it was not so easy to disengage those instincts. Along with many veterans, the author kept fighting after the war ended, only this time with his fists.
   
   He eventually settles down and becomes a newspaper reporter but, as the years go by, becomes more and more peeved that not only was there no national memorial to those Americans who fought and died on D-Day but the younger generation(s) seemed to know, or care, little about it. After his retirement, he began to spend more and more time on obtaining a memorial. His efforts were finally rewarded after public attention on D-Day was increased as its 50th anniversary approached.
   
   His book is an important asset not just to the history of World War II but also as to the post-war stresses of veterans and a nation's recognition of its heroes.