From a Newsweek correspondent who's seen them in action on a number of fronts: an absorbing and informative briefing on the American military's elite but covert forces Drawing mainly on personal observations and interviews with over 200 of the roughly 46,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen who comprise the US Special Operations Command, Waller focuses on four outfits—the Army's Delta Force and Green Berets, the Navy's SEALs, and the so-called cowboys who fly the Pave Low helicopters that, among other missions impossible, put commando units where they have to be by day or night. While he went along on the rigorous, realistic field exercises many such cadres employ to separate the men from the boys, the fortysomething author was obliged to tap retired veterans and the precious few manuals that are publicly available for insights on how Delta Force screens and trains its counterterrorist and hostage-rescue squads. Even so, Waller offers vivid accounts of what America's shadow warriors (the disciplined latter-day equivalents of WW II's apocryphal dirty dozens) are prepared to do and what they have done in the post-cold war era. Cases in point range from the 1989 breakout of a US businessman from a Panama City prison through a host of reconnaissance forays, airborne raids, and diversionary feints behind Iraqi lines during Desert Storm. Covered as well are the turf battles unconventional troops must fight with the Pentagon's establishment, which regards them as an alien element in the nation's arsenal. An evenhanded appreciation of special forces and their varied roles in a Global Village that, despite the USSR's collapse, falls well short of being a peaceable kingdom. (First serial to Newsweek; Main Selection of the Military Book Club)
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-78717-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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