Good reading for military buffs who enjoyed the authors’ previous book.
Six long accounts of wars in which great captains fought on either side.
Excepting the occasional masterpiece like John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, military buffs often look down their noses at the “great battles” genre. However, historians and professors Lacey (Marine Corps War College) and Murray (Naval War College) follow their previous book, Moment of Battle: The Twenty Clashes That Changed the World (2013), with another expert mixture of lively nuts-and-bolts descriptions of combat and opinions on why some legendary generals won their wars and others did not. Hannibal kept defeating Roman armies, but Romans never gave up; eventually, their best general, Scipio, defeated Hannibal. Caesar is better known, but Pompey, equally triumphant during his lifetime, chose the wrong allies when the two had a falling out. During the Crusades, Richard the Lionhearted won many victories, but Saladin possessed more resources and patience, so Richard’s goal, Jerusalem, remained out of reach. Napoleon’s early victories saved revolutionary France and then megalomania took over. Against stubborn enemies, megalomaniacal leaders, no matter how brilliant, sooner or later make stupid decisions, and Napoleon did not break the mold. Robert E. Lee knew how to win battles, but Ulysses S. Grant knew how to win the war. Erwin Rommel, Bernard Montgomery, and George Patton were successful despite vastly disparate personalities. “Entirely different cultures, both national and military, formed their approaches to leadership,” write the authors in the “Conclusion” section of that chapter. In this genre, it’s obligatory to tie matters together with an insightful historical analysis, and the authors do their best without breaking new ground. They emphasize that wars are won by generals with a strategic overview of what they must accomplish (Scipio, Saladin, Grant) and lost by those who concentrate on winning battles (Hannibal, Napoleon, Lee). While collections of descriptions of famous campaigns remain the lowest common denominator of military history, this is a solid addition to the genre.
Good reading for military buffs who enjoyed the authors’ previous book.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54755-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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