Mr. Mackintosh's book on the history of the Soviet armed forces follows by several years a study that he did on the history of Soviet foreign- policy making. Although his earlier work gave evidence of the trend, his book under review realizes earlier tendencies of being too larded with the names of generals and armies and too bereft of analysis and judgments. Compared to the recently published study of the Chinese People's Liberation Army by General S. B. Griffith, II, the Mackintosh book falls short as a work of original scholarship (almost all of his sources are secondary), or as an effort that well serves the intrinsic interest of the subject. We learn almost nothing of the early years of the Soviet military establishment and as for the more recent period, the book never even mentions the Soviet's first nuclear explosion or the effect that it had on the political apparatus and the strategic planners in the military. What the author has done here is to write a work that is basically on the World War II period and even in this he has conceived of his mission in the narrowest of terms.