Valor vs. red tape with the soul of democracy at stake.
The author of megaselling novels in the techno/gung-ho genre (The Bear and the Dragon, 2000, etc.) that he practically invented adds an untimely entry to his body of nonfiction dissections (Every Man a Tiger, 1999, etc.) of what makes our military so great: everything you wanted to know about Special Forces except for Afghanistan.
Teamed this time with a retired former chief of US Special Operations Command, Clancy delves into the origins and evolution of the Special Forces concept. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan get special credit for a relevant grasp of realpolitik: the need for a new kind of force capable of Cold War dirty tricks, counterinsurgencies, and holding terrorists to account for their crimes anywhere in the world. Some action vignettes from SF roots in WWII and Vietnam rival Clancy fiction, but things get bogged down with military trivia as the author and General Stiner interweave narratives (liberally laced with the kind of DOD jargon that makes a ship a “naval platform” and an airplane an “aviation asset”) on the Achille Lauro (hijacked cruise liner) incident, “taking down” Noriega's Panama, and other actions. The central theme is a somewhat predictable one of guys in the field taking heat, or worse, because Washington never quite gets it. For example, only after Vietnam, when the Pentagon finally allows that the standard US ground soldier is frighteningly inept at forging good relations with “friendlies,” does that become a top SF training priority. Also well documented is the depth and breadth of opposition to any concept of elite units by mainstream military commanders who tend to see Special Ops planners as “princes of darkness” out to rob the “Big Army” of budget and resources. Obviously caught with the book already in the publishing pipeline when the 2001 War on Terrorism was declared, Clancy awkwardly tacks on a final chapter to cover repercussions of September 11 (but not including any military operations in Afghanistan), which adds nothing original either in his analysis of the Al Qaeda brand of terrorism or proposed countermeasures.
Valor vs. red tape with the soul of democracy at stake.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14783-7
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
An engaging meditation on the possibility of reconciliation between the Germans and American Jews who are the grandchildren of the Holocaust generation. Krondorfer is a German academic living in the US. Since the late 1980s he has been organizing encounter groups of college-age American Jews with their German counterparts. His book—in part a report on these therapeutic adventures in Germany and the US, but also an imaginative exploration of themes relating to understanding of the Holocaust—is informative and original. In order to break through the encrustations of stale rhetoric that have accumulated around the topic ``Holocaust'' in both cultures, Krondorfer establishes a ``ritual'' setting in which the anxiety, guilt, anger, and other emotions experienced by the grandchildren's generation can emerge and be discussed. Toward this end he has organized summer programs for students, as well as the Jewish- German Dance Theater, which has performed both in America and in Germany. Their performances have been the scene of sometimes productive, often brutally frank discussions of what it means to be an inheritor of German shame or of Jewish victimhood. Apart from occasional incidents of outright anti-Semitism in Germany, the dancers found that some Germans resented bitterly what they see as not simply Jews but Americans opening old wounds, subverting the young, encouraging them to break family taboos by asking questions about the extent of family members' involvement in Nazi crimes. Some Jewish survivors in the US resented seeing young Jews together with young Germans and having ``their'' Holocaust taken from them by the dancers. Such setbacks notwithstanding, Krondorfer found many people of good will in both countries. Krondorfer's book is theoretically sophisticated, but its strength comes from its vivid, thoughtful accounts of his own and his students' lived experience in Germany and the US.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-300-05959-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
This exuberant account of life in post-Communist Czechoslovakia by one of its colorful prodigal sons reads much like a grand extension of its breathless title, but it fails to sustain the same punch and humor. Czech-born Novak (The Willys Dream Kit, 1985, etc.) has been in the United States for so long and is so Americanized that he now writes in English rather than Czech. Yet Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution has evoked in him a healthy dose of reflection on contemporary American life and a deep-rooted curiosity about post- Communist Eastern Europe. Novak's return to Prague with wife and two children in tow reveals familiar faces and ways as well as an unstable society in the process of reinvention. With the exception of an incident involving lice (confirming that one only truly fathoms another culture through children), many of the situations and individuals Novak discusses are already familiar to us from the mass media. These ritual encounters include buying a used car from a provincial wheeler-dealer; chasing down a gypsy pickpocket on the Charles Bridge; and battling inebriated crowds at a soccer match. The author is foremost a satirist and humorist. His tactic here is to relate his family's adventures as if he were telling their tales over several rounds of Pilsner beer in a rowdy Prague beer hall. The result is a combination of brief, uninsightful reflections and lengthier, more successful accounts of incidents and personalities, especially of the writer Bohumil Hrabal and the photographer Anton°in Kratochvil. Among the more irritating and telling quirks of Novak's style is his practice of stringing together capitalized words in a form of shorthand, describing Vaclav Havel, for instance, as ``a Coyote-in-the-Henhouse Playful President.'' Some unusual insights, but too often simply more of the familiar stories picked up by journalists, related in an excessively talkative style.
Pub Date: May 12, 1995
ISBN: 1-883642-09-4
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 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.
