A must-read for military historians and strategists.
The progress of modern warfare from 1945 to the present and into the future.
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to rage, with ongoing reporting drawn to the increasingly sophisticated warfare maneuvers executed from the military on both sides, this conflict serves as a touchstone for authors, and this book is particularly timely. Petraeus, a global affairs specialist and retired Army general, and noted historian Roberts, author of Leadership in War and Master and Commanders, judiciously trace how modern warfare has progressed since 1945 through the present moment, and they set forth the possible implications of the Russian-Ukrainian war for global conflicts in the future. They closely examine key battles that contributed to this evolution—“such as in tactical concepts, or a crucial new weapon, or when defense became superior to offence (or vice versa)”—and consider a future that will likely entail cyber warfare and AI. The authors explore the Korean War, Vietnam, the two Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as where the U.S. had less or no direct involvement: Indo-China, the Arab-Israeli wars, the Balkan wars in former Yugoslavia, and brutal guerrilla wars in South African countries such as Rwanda. Petraeus and Roberts analyze the failures, achievements, and the lessons learned, emphasizing why the need for effective leadership at the strategic level “is absolutely critical—and can, in many cases, determine the outcome of a conflict.” As examples, they cite Moshe Dayan’s command of the Six-Day War in 1967 and Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership in Ukraine. On the flip side, the authors show when a leader’s ego can lead to disastrous outcomes—e.g., Putin’s hubris in expecting a swift invasion of Ukraine. The authors’ conclusions may spark debate among some military strategists, but their arguments are consistently well grounded and based on vast experience.
A must-read for military historians and strategists.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063293137
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
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