A thoughtful and provocative commentary on the causes, conduct, and consequences of the Gulf War. While characterizing the Desert Storm campaign as a remarkable feat of arms, defense analyst (and Baltimore Sun columnist) Record argues that the mother of all routs failed to yield any significant diplomatic gains. In this cautionary context, he addresses an ad rem assortment of issues, ranging from the possible avoidance of hostilities through the efficacy of sanctions; miscalculations of Iraq's resources as well fighting spirit; the relative contributions of air, ground, and naval power to the outcome; and the lessons to be learned or ignored from the walkover. Given the home-front problems confronting Saddam in the wake of an enervating conflict with Iran, Record believes that a clash was inevitable- -and, in light of political imperatives, he thinks that economic pressures alone would have been insufficient to bring the dictator into line within an acceptable time frame. The author notes that UN/US forces, in addition to operating within a remarkably favorable staging area (Saudi Arabia), were facing an enemy led by a man ``with the prudence of Custer and the strategic grasp of Mussolini.'' Record concludes that the aerial assaults mounted by the UN, though undeniably spectacular and effective, weren't decisive in the conflict, and he's equally dubious as to the post- Vietnam harmony putatively achieved by American military commanders and their civilian masters. At the close, moreover, the author argues that Iraq remains a serious menace in the Middle East, meaning that future historians may regard the 1990-91 belligerency as ``a complete failure.'' Worldly-wise observations, affording valuable perspectives on a famous victory.
Pub Date: April 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-881046-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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