A sharp, efficient discussion likely to interest military historians as well as general readers.
The former commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia examines two wars more than 200 years apart to demonstrate how a small group of determined insurgents can defeat a superpower.
Recently, political commentators have likened the Iraq War to America’s previous misadventure in Vietnam or even to the ancient Athenian campaign in Sicily. Rose (Fighting for Peace: Bosnia, 1994, 1998), however, says that it’s more akin to Great Britain’s misbegotten attempt to forcibly quash the rebellion of her 13 North American colonies in 1776. His admittedly imperfect analogy—he concedes that “enlightened political views” distinguished the American rebels from the extremists of today—yields a number of striking similarities, especially when the author focuses on military tactics and strategy. Rose explains how George Washington, confronting the 18th century’s most powerful army, learned never to fight on too many fronts simultaneously, to send ill-equipped troops against superior forces or to accept a set-piece battle. Today’s Iraqi insurgents, he argues, have learned these lessons well, as each day’s headlines about suicide bombers or improvised explosive devices demonstrate. Rose further explains how Britain, from the outset failing to understand the nature of its enemy, never deployed sufficient troops to subdue the vast American continent. Moreover, a succession of generals (Howe, Burgoyne, Clinton, Cornwallis) failed to efficiently employ the troops available. Unable to provide the security necessary to pacify the populace, the British army found itself isolated from the people, cut off from crucial intelligence and vulnerable to the guerrilla tactics of the patriots. Though Rose admits that events may overtake his analysis—the word “surge” doesn’t appear till the book’s three-quarter mark, and the name “Petraeus” only once—he predicts that America will be forced to withdraw from Iraq as Britain did from America, recognizing that its objectives can no longer be achieved and that the war’s ghastly cost threatens its global power position.
A sharp, efficient discussion likely to interest military historians as well as general readers.Pub Date: April 24, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-933648-77-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.
A master storyteller’s character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution.
Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he “could march from one end of the American continent to the other.” Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women’s work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans’ military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers “who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins” at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general—not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world’s highest standard of living in 1776.
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-2671-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
