Currently Reading:
The Art of War in the Western World, by Jones
The Coldest Winter, by Halberstam
In the hopper:
Airpower in Small Wars, by Corum & Johnson
About Face, by Hackworth
The Road to Serfdom, by Hayek
(I will write a review, Dan)
Smitten Eagle
SPQA. Semper Fidelis.
Facebook Presence
-
Recent Comments
July 13, 2008 at 9:41 am |
Wow, to be in the same list as Hayek… wowza!
July 14, 2008 at 2:32 am |
Dan-
You’re in some pretty heavy company.
I read Hayek back in college but wanted to review it at my own pleasure, not the pleasure of a Political Theory prof.
July 14, 2008 at 9:21 am |
I really enjoyed Hackworth’s memoir. A tremendous talent driven out of the military by ex-WWII staff officer military bureaucrat brass, much like John Paul Vann – these were the grandfathers of U.S. COIN.
Everyone should read Hayek.
Will be reviewing furture Dr. tdaxp very soon
July 14, 2008 at 5:25 pm |
Years ago I thought that Hackworth was something of a hack-so to speak. He seemed like a very bitter person. However, when he passed away in the last couple years I really was astonished how much respect he had garnered over they years.
About Face has been in my anti-library for at least a year and it’s about time I read it.
As for dan tdaxp, I still think he’s high because he was mentioned in the same post a Hayek. PhD candidates should have washed words like “wowza” out of their vocabulary years ago…we might need a straightjacket.
July 14, 2008 at 8:16 pm |
Hayek is of course a classic. His collection of essays Individualism and Economic Order has his classic The Uses of Knowledge in Society, as well as several other good ones, which are less polemical than RTS.
I thought the Hackworth memoir was excellent. One problem facing any military is how to use and channel the talent and drive of individualists like Hackworth, who are always hard to deal with and who go up to and sometimes over the line of being discipline problems. He is a good writer with a strong voice. He seems to have had his heart in the right place, even if every judgment call was not always right. At least he made them.
I look forward to reading Dan’s book, which I read in bits and pieces as it appeared on his blog.
The others I have not read. Corum and Jones are on my list of books that are well-regarded. I read a convincing, bad review of the Halberstam, so I am giving it a pass.
July 14, 2008 at 9:36 pm |
Lex-I am about 100 pages into The Coldest Winter, and have read generally positive reviews of it. So far the book is above average. Halberstam savages GEN MacArthur several times, while pointing out his successes, so it’s not polemic, but very reasoned and balenced (thus far.)
Do you have a link to the negative review of Halberstam’s book?