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Collected reviews from decades of reading — organized by subject and written for clarity, context, and long-term reference.
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“As long as human foresight remains imperfect, and our passions continue to induce us to fight one another, managing armed force wisely will remain both difficult and important.” So concludes historian William H. McNeil in this nifty essay of 48 pages, which is based largely on his lengthy treatise, “The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed…
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“Men, Machines, and Modern Times” by Elting Morison is a difficult book to review, primarily because it really isn’t a book at all, but rather a collection of lectures that the author delivered at various academic institutions in the 1950s. Taken together, the lectures address two distinct topics in the nature of innovation, although that’s…
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Roger Crowley has carved out a rather respectable niche for himself as a popular historian of the Mediterranean in the late Middle Ages. His scholarship is first-rate, his prose is crisp and colorful, his narratives are clear and accessible. His latest effort, “City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas,” is no exception. Crowley charts…
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The proverbial “Almighty Dollar” hasn’t always been so almighty. In fact, if you believe William Silber, it only just recently celebrated its 100th birthday. “When Washington Shut Down Wall Street: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 and the Origins of America’s Monetary Supremacy” argues that because of a series of bold, controversial, but above all…
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In 1965, French Minister of Finance Valéry Giscard d’Estaing complained that the dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency gave the United States an “exorbitant privilege.” I had heard that expression used many times before and picked up this book hoping to more fully understand the nature and extent of that privilege. Unfortunately, despite the…
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“Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” was a commercial and critical smash hit from the moment it was released in 2007, and rightfully so. Author James Swanson weaves a detailed and enthralling narrative from first-hand accounts and documentary evidence. It’s trite to say that a popular work of historical non-fiction reads like a novel,…
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The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was one of the most remarkable events of the Cold War. Seemingly out of nowhere, and quite improbably, an entire people bravely rose up against the ruling communist party and the occupying Red Army. And for a brief moment, and even more improbably, they were victorious. Victor Sebestyen, a British citizen…
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Few armed conflicts in history have be shorter, more decisive, or more consequential than the Six Day War of June 1967. Over the course of just 132 hours the tiny upstart state of Israel conquered 42,000 square miles, including the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria,…
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I picked up David Eltis’ “The Military Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Europe” out of a clearance bin at Barnes & Noble many years ago. It remained buried and forgotten in a corner of my home library until I stumbled upon it after reading about naval innovation around the same period. It was a fortuitous find and…
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