A must-read for students of military history.
Why wars are won not in a single decisive battle but over the long haul.
At the outset of this sweeping history of Western warfare, Nolan (History/Boston Univ.; Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715, 2008, etc.) notes that the outcomes of great battles by no means guarantee victory in the war as a whole. Hannibal’s win over the Roman legion at Cannae—a battle that became a model for generations of subsequent commanders—did little to avert Rome’s final conquest and destruction of Carthage. Significantly, Rome won the war by a policy of attrition, a strategy that Nolan finds has been far more effective over the millennia than the more glamorous set piece battles that historians so admire. The idea of a quick knockout has a special appeal to states looking to take on a stronger adversary, and there are enough historical examples of the strategy succeeding to raise the hopes of those tempted to try it. Beginning with the Thirty Years’ War, readers get full-scale analyses of the great commanders’ careers, with due attention to the geopolitical context of their wars. Particularly after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, war began to involve significant parts of the populations of the nations involved. Napoleon, who became the model to whom generals looked for inspiration for at least a century, also illustrates Nolan’s central theme: whatever his genius for battle, Napoleon was finally ground down by a coalition of major powers that refused to fold after a defeat. The theme takes on new meaning with the two great 20th-century wars, in which initial successes were not enough to ensure victory to the aggressors. Nolan also looks to more recent asymmetric wars, where small nations wear out great power aggressors by a strategy of attrition. His focus on Europe may disappoint readers who would like more on American wars, and there is some repetition. Nonetheless, this is one of the most valuable military histories in years.
A must-read for students of military history.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-538378-2
Page Count: 664
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
HISTORY | MODERN | MILITARY | GENERAL HISTORY
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (1900–45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle’s “dense, descriptive style” and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience—a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler’s reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context—Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage—is valuable. Kirkus, at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: “the book doesn’t let the reader down.” Pyle, of course, captures “the human qualities” of men in combat, but he also provides “an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers.” Despite Piehler’s current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), Kirkus in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, “here’s a book that needs no selling.” Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
Pub Date: April 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8032-8768-2
Page Count: 513
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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