Book Description
Readers who fell in love with Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, now have new cause for celebration in the protagonist of these three light-footed comic novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Welcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology. Von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he feels certain he is due–a quest which has the tendency to go hilariously astray.
In
Portuguese Irregular Verbs, Professor Dr von Igelfeld learns to play tennis, and forces a college chum to enter into a duel that results in a nipped nose. He also takes a field trip to Ireland where he becomes acquainted with the rich world of archaic Irishisms, and he develops an aching infatuation with a Dentist fatale. Along the way, he takes two ill-fated Italian sojourns, the first merely uncomfortable, the second definitely dangerous.
Customer Reviews:
intellectual humor.......2007-07-29
A different kind of book, but fun none the less. Some of the humor was laugh out loud and some very subtle and some probably flew over my head. The title alone caused many raised eyebrows!!
very different from his other works .......2007-07-20
I bought this because I loved the botswana series. This is so different in tone that it's as if it's from a different author. Not bad, just radically different.
Philologists are more amusing than "fun...".......2007-06-15
If you are an academic with a sense of humor about yourself, or a non-academic who is connected with scholars and enjoys their foibles to some degree, you will cackle at this book. If you are not, and also dislike the Isabel Dalhousie books, move right on, this series won't do a thing for you.
Prof. Dr. Von Igelfeld's claim to fame (besides having an appropriately-sized nose and a surname meaning "hedgehog field") comes from having authored the definitive work on Portuguese irregular verbs. This book reads more like a series of short stories, loosely connected, moving from our hero's youth (in Heidelberg, naturally, where he instigates a malaprop duel) to his establishment in an academic position in Wiesbaden, to a later-life trip to Venice which recalls in a surreal way Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. His fellow scholars are featured as "tennis" companions in the first chapter, and later as fellow travelers to Italy (where an unforgettable power struggle over food develops with an innkeeper, Signora Cossi) . Von Igelfeld is aptly named, since he is prickly, snobbish, but also vulnerable in competition with those who pursue their desires more energetically. The chapters in which he competes with his colleague Unterholzer (of the "large and inelegant nose") reveal his humanity and move past humor to comment on the subtle frustrations of a life limited to "the life of the mind."
I studied Shakespeare years ago under a maddening philologist who insisted that we ferret out the derivation of every unusual word and write plot summaries of all the plays. My boredom threshold was low and I would exit every class bursting with repressed fury over such a lifeless approach to Shakespeare. Ah, but now I am older...would still be bored, no doubt...but would have more sympathy for the old gentleman, as I have sympathy for Igelfeld...who does laugh at himself by the end of the book! The ending in Venice with flashbacks to Thomas Mann is a wild one and the buildup of deja-vu references is irresistible...but then the actual ending is abrupt and not quite satisfying. 4 ½ stars, really...
Not Smith's best work.......2007-04-22
There are funny spots in the book, but really only his "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series is any good.
A delicious, quiet read.......2007-02-20
Portuguese Irregular Verbs is one of only three books in Alexander McCall Smith's series featuring Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of the philological masterwork that gives this book its title. (See my reviews of the other books in the series, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.) All of the von Igelfeld books were published in 2003, so that there is arguably no starting point to the series, yet readers would be advised to begin with this volume. The eight stories included in Portuguese Irregular Verbs provide a great deal of background information about our hero. We learn of his acquaintance while a student with Florianus Prinzel, now his colleague at the Institute of Romance Philology in Regensburg, and of his early work as an assistant to a professor of Celtic philology:
"'I couldn't have hoped for a better start to my career,' he confided in Prinzel. 'Vogelsang knows more about past anterior verbs in Early Irish than anybody else in the world.'"
We are given accounts, too, of the very moment when the idea of writing about Portuguese irregular verbs came to Igelfeld, and of his ill-fated near courtship of a certain lady dentist. Von Igelfeld travels to Ireland and Zürick, Siena and Venice and India in these stories. He meets a holy man and (maybe) a murderer, gets a tooth pulled, and provokes a sword fight. Throughout von Igelfeld is characteristically self-important and endearingly out of touch:
"Von Igelfeld sat down in the reception room and picked up the first magazine he saw on the table before him. He paged through it, noticing the pictures of food and clothes. How strange, he thought--what sort of Zeitschrift is this? Do people really read about these matters? He turned a page and began to read something called the Timely Help column. Readers wrote in and asked advice over their problems. Von Igelfeld's eyes opened wide. Did people discuss such things in open print?"
Some of the stories included in the book are better than others. In the most poignant of them ("Portuguese Irregular Verbs") Igelfeld attempts to beef up sales of his monograph to save it from being sold off by shelf foot. His quest for readers leads Igelfeld for the first time to the home of his colleague and nemesis, Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. The visit is initially infuriating:
"Von Igelfeld peered at the plate above the bell and drew in his breath sharply. Professor Dr Dr D-A. von Unterholzer. What extraordinary, bare-faced cheek! It was little short of an outrage, on three counts, no less. Firstly, Unterholzer did not have two doctorates; there was no doubt about that. Secondly, what was all this nonsense about the hyphen between Detlev and Amadeus? Amadeus was his second name, as the whole world knew, not part of his first. And finally, and perhaps most seriously of all, there was the von. Von Igelfeld felt the anger surge up within him. If people got away with adding vons to their names whenever the mood took them, then that immeasurably reduced the significance of the real vons."
But after a moving discovery while browsing Unterholzer's bookshelves, von Igelfeld finds himself warming to the man.
Alexander McCall Smith is a charming writer, and von Igelfeld a delightful character--pretentious and jealous and deeply flawed, but ultimately capable of goodness. The Igelfeld stories are delicious, quiet reads. It's unfortunate that there aren't more of them.
Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)
Book Description
“The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.” With these words, Robert Taber began a revolution in conventional military thought that has dramatically impacted the way armed conflicts have been fought since the book’s initial publication in 1965. Whether ideological, nationalistic, or religious, all guerrilla insurgencies use similar tactics to advance their cause. War of the Flea's timeless analysis of the guerrilla fighter’s means and methods provides a fundamental resource for any reader seeking to understand this distinct form of warfare and the challenge it continues to present to today’s armed forces in the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere.
Customer Reviews:
On Sale at Home of US Special Forces.......2007-09-08
First published in 1965 and recently re-issued, this book is written by the only American who was with Castro instead of the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. In retrospect, and given that the anti-Castro Cuban exiles used their CIA training to assassinate John F. Kennedy (see Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History, this American is clearly a just man and a wise man.
There are two bottom lines to this book:
1. No indigenous people have ever lost, in the very long run, to foreign occupiers. See also The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
2. The win-win for both democracy and capitalism is to do away with unilateral militarism, immoral capitalism, and predatory "false" democracy that embraces dictators rather than publics. See Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions; The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project); Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror; and Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025, among others.
The author ends the book with three recommendations for US foreign policy that I for one happily adopt:
1. Abandon all forms of military assistance
2. Declare an Economic "New Deal" for the Third World starting in South America and the Caribbean and Central America.
3. Embrace the Revolution, and live up to our Constitutional ideals of justice and liberty for all.
The author packs numerous pearls of wisdom, firmly rooted in ground truth, into this book.
1. Governments assume they are legitimate when they are not, they assume a monopoly on force while ignoring crime. Legitimacy and morality are strategic assets that most governments have abandoned. Cf. The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century.
2. Terrorism has been the logical asymmetric response of the poor and down-trodden since time immemorial. The author points out the hypocrisy of Israel, which was founded on the basis of terrorism against the people, claiming that terrorism targets non-combatants, while we ignore the fact that the US Air Force bombs entire villages of non-combatants without a second thought.
3. Class war produces the conditions that spawn successful revolutions, which the author is careful to define as those revolutions that have or can acquire popular support. The corruption at the top, and the poverty at the bottom, eventually collide.
4. Guns are the least important tool of the guerrilla (and all of the guns are provided by the occupying power or the illegitimate military). Guerilla operations are a state of mind, a spreading awareness of the possibilities of ultimate invincibility, firmly founded in root legitimacy.
5. The author points out the two fallacies to avoid, both heavily characteristic of current US operations in Iraq:
a. Revolutions and insurgency are NOT a conspiracy, e.g. Iran may be aiding the insurgency in Iraq, but at root the insurgency is home grown and will continue until the US is driven out.
b. Counter-insurgency is NOT about tactical "methods." The long war is about the will and rights of the people everywhere. As General Smedley Butler, USMC concluded, War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
6. The author is a gifted writer. He points out that conventional armies are burdened by a dependence on bases and "things" (vehicles, weapons systems) while the guerilla is "liberated" by their poverty, able to move past roadblocks by simply walking in the jungle 100 meters to the left or right. Conventional forces focus on patrols and real estate. The guerilla focuses on the message and the public.
7. The guerilla is a voice, a message. The fact that the guerilla exists means that the political process has FAILOED. The primary asset the guerilla has is not a weapon, but their relationship with the community of people within which they survive.
8. The author believes that in the era of globalization, the laboring class has been empowered but does not fully realize its power to carry out a legal general strike, to demand labor unions, to not consume products whose "true cost" is onerous.
9. The guerilla is militarily weak but politically strong and economically dangerous. I continue to marvel at the idiocy of Dick Cheney in seeking to capture Iraq's oil and intimidate Iran (Persia) while ignoring the fact that ten oil pumping stations in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, if blown up, can take oil to $200 a barrel overnight.
10. Three conditions are cited as being necessary for a revolution:
a. No other alternative.
b. Cause is compelling.
c. Possibility of success.
11. A general strike by the public can follow an armed insurrection, or stand on its own as a clear signal to the government that it has lost its legitimacy and authority. I cannot help but feel that the United States of America is today badly in need of a legal ethical general strike by the public that continues until Dick Cheney resigns from office and Congress declares an end to our unilateral militarism around the world.
12. The essence of guerilla warfare is to take the profit out of oppression and occupation (colonialism, corruption by corporations) with a clever strategy that is clearly and publicly enunciated, and popular as well.
13. Time, space, and will favor the people over any occupying force. Occupiers lose twice:
a. Their presence provokes anger in the people.
b. They supply the insurgents with all the arms, ammunition, food, and other supplies needed (this is one of two dirty little secrets of the US occupation of Iraq; the other is that we have returned 75,000 of our honorable men and women to America as multiple amputees who are not being well served by the Veteran's Administration).
14. US *talks* about hearts and minds but *spends* only on death and destruction. We are still not serious about global stabilization & reconstruction, humanitarian assistance & disaster relief.
As I put the book down on the flight back from Tampa, I thought to myself that this author is completely correct in pointing out that terrorism is of, by, and for the indigenous people, and it is neither deviant nor apart from the fabric of the society it seeks to save. The author also points out that terrorism is vastly less costly than conventional war in every sense of the word: dead, wounded, collateral damage, destruction of infrastructure, and financial as well as moral cost. The author makes it quite clear that the USA is in *denial* when if fails to understand that an insurgency is a civil war, not a conspiracy or communist or terrorist inspired "conspiracy."
The latter half of the book provides a series of truly absorbing and sensible "lessons learned:"
1. Algeria taught us that urban areas can be occupied and dominated by torture, but at a cost so huge that the occupying government is weakened politically and economically. Cheney remains in denial on this point.
2. The three "failures" of indigenous revolution in the short term:
a. Philippines, government combined social work with amnesty and land grants that took away the basis for revolution among the Huks.
b. Malaysia, the insurgents lacked a rural base with its own food production capability, and could be isolated.
c. Greece, the guerillas lost contact with the public and lost militarily by engaging conventionally.
The author cites Sun Tzu in pointing out that there is nothing "modern" about terrorism or warfare. It is all based on deception and competing claims to legitimacy. He lists six conditions for a successful revolution in his conclusion:
1. Valid popular grievances
2. Sharp social divisions (or ethnic)
3. Unsound or stagnant economy
4. Oppressive or illegitimate government
5. Moral leadership within the guerilla movement
6. A foundation on the truth rather than lies
For the 27 secessionist movements in America, the author notes as have others that anytime an empire is engaged in a far-off debilitating military campaign, internal secessions are easier to accomplish.
In my view, the USA is clearly vulnerable to precision sabotage of the kind that Peter Black, Winn Schwartau, and I discussion in the early 1990's. We were ignored, and today our infrastructure is ten times to a hundred times more likely to collapse from its own decrepitude that from "enemy" action. The two "mainstream" political parties are so corrupt they have run American into the ground (Cf. Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
I may never be Director of National Intelligence, since I am predisposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and that is best gotten with the 96% of the information that the secret world refuses to notice. However, if I were, we would have three objectives and three objectives only:
1. Terminating all dictators through buy out plans they cannot refuse.
2. Ending all corruption by any government, organization, or individual.
3. Providing free connectivity and free on demand education in all languages to all people, with hundreds of millions of volunteer tutors able to education the five billion poor "one cell call at a time."
Guerrilla Warfare lessons never learned........2007-06-13
Oddly enough the US Military refuses to study and learn from Guerrilla wars we've been in. They all want to fight WWII all over again. That's why they loved Desert Storm 1. Now they are in Iraq and can't get out of it. The politicians and generals and people at the Pentagon ought to be made to read these books ever few years.
A good read.
The Best Work on Guerrilla Warfare.......2007-05-30
Seeking to learn more about guerrilla warfare, I read Che's Guerrilla Warfare and Mao's On Guerrilla Warfare, yet I felt somewhat unsatisfied with each of those works and purchased Taber's War of the Flea hoping for better. Taber's work far outshines the works of Che and Mao. Taber has the advantage of not having a legend to defend and draws from both works, as well as The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Taber focuses not only on the Marxist inspired revolutions of recent times, but also on the revolutions of national liberation in Palestine, Cypress, and Ireland. Through all of these, he demonstrates how the application of the philosophy behind Guerrilla warfare presents the organized state or foreign colonist with only the prospect of political and/or military defeat.
The lessons in Taber's work are as true today as they have been throughout time. They are lessons that Americans should learn. One cannot win a war against guerrillas. One can either pull out, reach a negotiated defeat, or expend one's precious time, resources and the lives of the young in a hopeless struggle descending into inevitable defeat.
Reprint of a Classic.......2007-02-21
There have been a lot of books on guerrilla warfare. They typically fall into one of two categories. Those by Americans are written by university or military types who have studed irregular warfare from an academic or counter guerrilla war aspect. (Example, the forward to this book by Bard E. O'Neill of the National War College.) The other class of books are those written by practictionners who are not American such as Che Guevara. This book was written by an American serving with Castro's forces during the revolution in Cuba.
The book was first published in 1965 and became a classic. Long since out of print, the occassional rare copy that became available was quickly purchased at any price. Now Potomac Books has reprinted the original book, with as stated, a new forward.
If you are headed to Iraq buy it, it will give you a better understanding of what's going on. If you're interested in Iraq, buy it before it is gone again. If you're in the media, don't bother, your interest is ratings not reporting.
Outstanding study of guerrilla warfare.......2006-11-10
As a college professor who has taught the history of unconventional warfare for many years, I cannot rate this book any higher. It is outstanding. While Taber uses examples from the past, it still provides a lucidly clear understanding of guerrilla warfare. I only wish it had been "must" reading for the Bush administration. Maybe we would not be in the predicament we are currently facing in Iraq.
Book Description
Who is your "irregular person?" Joyce brings wise and healing words to help you deal with those insensitive family members who have crushed your spirit with their emotional neglect and abuse.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book for people looking for understanding.......2007-05-12
My therapist recommended this to me to learn how to look at and appreciative the difficult people in my life. She also has a book called balcony people.
This book has changed my life!!!.......2004-12-21
If you have trouble with someone in your family and just don't know what to do anymore...THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU! I have such a person in my life and I am now able to help my self with God's help and the help of this book. Get it read it ...I guaranty you love it!
Too bad you can't give negatives--I was FORCED to give it 1.......2004-10-02
This book is nothing more than a platform for yet one more religious fanatic to cram their philosophies down everyone else's throat. The author pretends she has a topic and a subject but her REAL adgenda is to foist her religious opinions off as fact. Oh yes, everything in your life will be just rosy if pray enough. And if someone in your life is screwed up and treats you like crap, it's YOUR fault because YOU didn't PRAY hard enough. Save your money. This book isn't worth it even if they gave it away. I wouldn't have given it any stars at all, but Amazon.com's script doesn't allow for that much honesty.
My first self-help book.......2003-07-26
This book has been part of my life for over 20 years now. I have purchased copies over the years for family and friends. Sad to say, it didn't go well with my irregular people. This book help me defined my irregular people as being emotionally blind, emotionally deaf, and so-forth. Sooner or later, individual or family counseling may be necessary.
Victim Mentality.......2002-12-17
A horrible book, but it starts out wonderfully. However, Joyce doesn't understand the concept of victim mentality and the fact that she suffers from this form of delusion. A victim of abuse should NEVER return to their abuser, even though this often feels like the natural thing to do. Her advice to apologize to your abuser is so disgusting I can't even put it into words. When I think of all the battered women who might be reading her book, and apologizing to their husbands for the beatings, I almost vomit.
God has better plans for us than to keep us in a state of victimhood, which destroys out spirits and keeps us from doing God's work. God may have started the book, but Satan wrote the ending. Joyce should get down on her needs and beg for forgiveness from God.
Book Description
Since the end of the Cold War, conventional militaries and their political leaders have confronted a new, brutal type of warfare in which non-state armed groups use asymmetrical tactics to successfully fight larger, technologically superior forces. In order to prevent future bloodshed and political chaos, it is crucial to understand how these unconventional armed groups think and to adapt to their methods of combat.
In Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias, Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew investigate the history and politics of modern asymmetrical warfare. By focusing on four specific hotbeds of instability-Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq-Shultz and Dew conduct a careful analysis of tribal culture and the value of clan associations. They examine why these "traditional" or "tribal" warriors fight, how they recruit, where they find sanctuary, and what is behind their strategy. Traveling across two centuries and several continents, Shultz and Dew examine the doctrinal, tactical, and strategic advantages and consider the historical, cultural, and anthropological factors behind the motivation and success of the warriors of contemporary combat.
In their provocative argument, Shultz and Dew propose that war in the post-Cold War era cannot be waged through traditional Western methods of combat, especially when friendly states and outside organizations like al-Qaeda serve as powerful allies to the enemy. Thoroughly researched and highly readable, Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias examines how non-state armies fight, identifies the patterns and trends of their combat, and recommends how conventional militaries can defeat these irregular yet highly effective organizations.
Customer Reviews:
Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias.......2007-07-29
I was excited when I saw the title, thinking that it was a timely work on an important subject. I was sorely disappointed. I am surprised at some of the people who are listed on the back cover who recommend the book; faced with the alternative explanation, I will accept that they actually did not read the book through.
The book is tremendously redundant throughout, wasting many pages to reiterate what was said a few pages previously. There was very poor quality control throughout the book as well; many misspellings and sentences which appeared to be pasted together from disparate attempts and not word-smithed.
The authors do not achieve their own stated goal, to provide a set of principles which could be applied to conflicts transcending time and space to enable understanding of potential enemies and operational environments. They fail miserably at this. Their analyses at the end of each chapter serve only to regurgitate what was said in the rest of the chapter, sometimes less concisely. The authors also enjoy throwing around the current most popular misused term in U.S. military circles: Asymmetric Warfare. They use this frequently and in many different contexts, often contradicting their own usage of the term. They never lay out exactly what this means to them or how it is defined by any other institution. It is used by the authors as a catch all phrase to explain strategy, tactics or anything which does not include exact force parity on the battlefield.
The authors have completely ignored the massive amount of work done through the previous century on Guerrilla Warfare. This is perhaps their most egregious mistake. They seem to believe that because their subjects of discussion are from tribal societies that their "asymmetrical warfare" is somehow unique in history. They continuously demonstrate their lack of understanding of even the most basic of tactics and strategies, or even the principles of warfare.
The chapters outlining the four areas which they profess to analyze and illuminate their "principles" do provide some basic understanding of these four areas (Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq). However, even this seeming contribution is fraught with errors and popular misconceptions pulled from the press, many which are just wrong and could have been corrected in this book if a little research had been done from original sources. Their section on Iraq degenerates into a regurgitation of press reports, perpetuating myths and illuminating nothing; they do not seem to be aware of what is going on there. And in Afghanistan they claim that the Pashto were not incorporated into the campaign to eliminate the Taliban or in the government. Do they not realize that President Karzai is Pashto? It was the defection of the Pashto which made the Taliban crumble so rapidly.
Overall, this book contributes nothing to understanding, and actually confuses, the issue of how to fight non-nation state actors. The authors provide no original research and no unique understanding. The book was a miserable failure. And it could have been so good. I gave it one star because the is no zero star rating.
For a really useful tool to understand this subject read "Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse" by Bard E. Oneill. For a very thorough and concise book on Jihadist ideology read "Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror" by Mary Habeck.
Operational Level Analysis of Traditional Cultures.......2007-03-30
Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias by Richard Shultz and Andrea Dew is a solid introductory text that aims to guide current Intelligence Analysts with a framework to assess current and potential adversaries to US Forces worldwide. The operational framework they propose is specifically designed to analyze unconventional and guerrilla forces rather than the traditional military assessments that were designed and created for use in a conventional war (with the Soviet Union). Six questions are used to create their framework:
1) What is their concept of warfare?
2) Organization and Command and Control?
3) What are the Areas of Operations?
4) What are the Types and Targets of Operations?
5) Constraints and Limitations to the use of force?
6) The influence of outside actors?
The authors then explore four historical and contemporary case studies on how this framework would have assisted policy makers. The case studies are Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. Over all the best case study is Iraq, due to the level of detail that the authors give- they describe the different `types' of insurgency and their historical basis, which impressed me. The worst is Afghanistan, where too much history is given too little type, and in the end we are left without much substance on the current operating environment there. I found the Chechnyan and Somali studies interesting and relevant, and the bibliography provides a guide to further and more detailed reading.
Overall, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the tribe, clan and religious structure and history of the societies. This is a relevant and worthy addition that many intelligence professionals can benefit from. Because these features are defining aspects of traditional cultures, they should hold an equivalent status in our analysis of them.
My only disappointment stems from the fact that because of their operational focus, many intelligence professionals in fields `closer to the ground' will find that their ideas, while interesting and worth keeping in mind, are not extremely helpful to the tactical level of intelligence analysis. For instance, although they explain why a Former Regime Element in Iraq has different motives for fighting than an Islamist in Iraq, this is not much use to a smaller, more specific area than say, Baghdad. To the intelligence professional concerned with the Bay'a, Al-Amel or Saydiyah Muhallahs within Baghdad, the most useful questions revolve around types and emplacement techniques of IEDs, and how these may be related to the structure and orientation of a specific insurgent group or cell; how, when, and where, do sectarian groups operate . . . These questions are of the most immediate concern, and will likely have the most substantive effect once the answers are found.
That being said, this book was a very interesting read, and a valuable one.
Tribes and Clans vs Superpowers.......2007-03-24
Using four case studies of conflict, Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq, the authors highlight the differences between conventional warfare with clearly established front lines and unconventional warfare there the is no front and engagements are hit-and-run surprise attacks with battlefields in the streets of a cities.
Until the times of these conflicts, American and Russian troops were trained to fight along the lines established by Alexander the Great and Napoleon, where divisions fought divisions, and one battle could have a decisive result. But in these conflicts the authors point out that the attackers often numbered less than 50 and before the defenders could organize their divisions to repulse the attack, the attackers, wearing the cloths of the locals, would melt into the population. No one was there for the division to fight.
The Red Army's experiences in Chechnya are cited as an example of tribal tactics. The Chechens would allow a column of Russian tanks to penetrate deep into the narrow, winding streets of their ancient cities. They would attack and disable the lead tank with a barrage of hand held rockets and then do the same to the last tank in the column. With the column of tanks unable to move forward or backward, the Chechens would pick off the remaining tanks before the Russian air force arrived.
All together, the book provides an excellent summary of the events encountered by the superpowers when they fought in Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But the main point of the book is, with a little study of the culture and practices of Tribes and Clans in these areas, the U.S. (and the Russians) would have anticipated how the insurgents and militants would respond to invasion - and how and where they would fight.
The authors argue that what transpired in all four cases could have be predicted and countered.
How do you win if you have different definitions for "victory"?.......2007-02-21
Insurgents, Terrorists, And Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat is a very useful contribution to the growing body of literature of modern conflict. While the subtitle of the book suggests a tempo-centric view of the Now, the book's purpose is really to demonstrate the value of anthropological analysis of the irregular warriors we are facing today. Unlike "modern" states who might employ irregular tactics, the authors look at the societal and cultural interactions specific in warrior societies, or "martial races" (a term indifferent to ethnicity), and their resulting organizing principles. This is done to satisfy Sun Tzu's admonition to "Know the enemy" which we do not. The absence of this knowledge, in simple terms, means we not only don't know or understand why or how the enemy fights but we don't even know how defeat or subordination, perhaps a better word, is defined by the enemy or conforms to their belief system. Afterall, both victory and defeat must be acknowledged by all sides.
In 2004, Major General Robert Scales went before the House Armed Services committee and recounted a conversation he had with a commander from the Third Infantry Division (then) recently returned from Iraq. Scales had asked about the improved situational awareness worked during the march to Baghdad. The response foretold the future, as well as described the past: "I knew where every enemy tank was dug in on the outskirts of Tallil. Only problem was my soldiers had to fight fanatics charging on foot or in pickups and firing AK 47s and RPGs. I had perfect situational awareness. What I lacked was cultural awareness. Great technical intelligence....wrong enemy." This book not only helps lay the ground work to identify the enemy, but also makes us look at their motivation from a different angle.
The authors, Richard H. Shultz and Andrea J. Dew, lay out the framework and goals of the book at the very beginning. This book is not out tactics or even strategy, but "operational art", the middle ground between Strategy (big "S") and Tactics (big "T"). Using case studies of Somali, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the authors demonstrate their theories through both recent and historical encounters. Some of their analysis is interesting as elements of previous success were clearly not understood and led to later failures.
The authors submit the following framework, all explicitly or implicitly found in Sun Tzu's 33 paragraphs on Offensive Strategy (which includes the advice to Know the Enemy and Know Yourself), as a means of better understanding the questions how and why that are critical to success.
1. What is the concept of warfare?
2. What is the Organization and Command and Control?
3. What are the Areas of Operations?
4. What are the Types and Targets of Operations?
5. Are there any Constraints and Limitations to the use of force?
6. Do they receive support and assistance from Outside Actors? If so, who are these Actors and in what form does the help come?
These are seemingly basic questions that go unasked, let alone answered.
In addressing American operational art, the combination of time and tempo (popular example: "Shock and Awe"), the authors don't make specific prescriptives but suggest incorporating new (to us) understandings of how the enemy organizes and operates. Shultz and Dew show that OODA loops don't matter when the invaded don't see war as "organized violence" requiring "paper, forms, and documents", don't mirror our hierarchy, and have different priorities. The behavior of the enemy is far different from modern Western principles and thus has different levers and pressures points for manipulation. Our focus on whether or not the engine of insurgency is religious or socio-political may ignore the underlying realities of the why and how in specific instances. Like in the West, religion may be a Gramscian distraction and our focus on it blinds us to the levers and pressure points necessary for successful operations.
The case studies note strong martial traditions and historical features that checked internecine violence. In Somali, for example, the authors show how these mechanisms were purposely broken to intentionally foster internal conflict, leading the path to disintegration of the state. They also show how our tactics empowered our target instead of breaking his support system. The enemy in Afghanistan and elsewhere know how their people organize and exploit it while we doom ourselves by imposing our own organizing and motivating principles on them. With parallels to the motivators of modern suicide terrorism, the authors look at warrior traditions and legacies, as opposed to cultural and social structures to reframe the perception of our Other.
Modern, West-centric theories such as "Fourth Generation Warfare" look at conflict with the "Gap" countries as a new way of warfare when the reality is quite the opposite. Likewise, simplifying insurgencies as monolithic or based in religion potentially blind us from opportunities to co-op and disaggregate and even to know how to define victory.
The authors are critical of both the US intelligence services and its endemic mirroring and of the shortcomings or military analysis. A case in point on the latter is the example of the USMC case study of Chechnya that looks at Russian failures in the 1994-1996 war and the study's absence of any analysis of the Chechens themselves.
Insurgents, Terrorists, And Militias does a good job demonstrating the value of knowing the enemy and showing how we don't. More importantly, it shows that our lack of understanding is counterproductive and fuels the engine of opposition. This should be on any counterinsurgency and irregular warfare reading list, as well as readings on the Gap. Be prepared to scribble in the margins as you read.
Academia Only Goes So Far.......2007-01-21
As a former Marine who has had experience in dealing with unconventional operations and counter-insurgency warfare, I agree with fellow Marine, D.A. Leonard "devintvi", below. The book does make some valid points, specifically that US leaders do need to understand the enemy before jumping into the odd quagmire that may seem feasible at the time. In recent history, both the US and Britain have been involved in unconventional warfare at least since the 1950s - for the US, we can go back to 1920s Haiti, Guatamala, Nicaragua, the Philippines, etc. However, even after all that experience with unconventional warfare, our leaders, planners and policy-makers still don't seem to have learned any lessons on the simple fact that I was taught in Boot Camp: "KNOW YOUR ENEMY."
That said, however, simply reading or "researching" what other writers and academics have said about unconventional warfare, or playing "game theory" about clans, cults, cells, or whatever, can only give an academic so much information. There is considerable difference between theory and practice, so for a valid analysis on current aspects of asymetric warfare, the analyst/academic needs to get out of their ivory tower and view the game up close and personal. At least do the research a basic combat journalist does when he or she is imbedded with a unit conducting such operations.
Simply arguing the same old liberal (read academic) saw that the government is inept in the current war, something with which I agree, just doesn't wash in and of itself. There needs to be more indepth analysis to make the argument, which has been going on for generations, more valid. For example, how many actual terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, clan members, etc., have the authors interviewed? Evern been to Gitmo?
When discussing terrorists, insurgents, etc. in the current context, unlike previous, possibly more logical foe, it might also be feasible to identify the current Islamic combatants, not as mere clan members, but as the religious fanatics they are, who are actually willing to die for their rabid beliefs and, in doing so, hope to help anihilate the West.
Overall, an interesting, but ACADEMIC, view of the issue of the modern warfare we face. Certainly some useful information, but also "game theory" that doesn't really help the Grunt in the field who is dealing with a hopped up fanatic with explosives and an automatic weapon. I guess the book's attraction will depend from what side of the fence the reader is actually looking.
Customer Reviews:
A Profound Work .......2007-07-21
Looking at the other reviews on this book, many complain that it is a simple, out-dated work, with few insights provided. I see this book as being written with the goal of a general educating his soldiers. Short this book creates the structure of how the general want's to see guerrilla units created (this book focusses only on guerrilla warfare). The reason that there is no complex indepth writting in this book is that it would limit the officers' ability to use their imagination to create fully functioning guerrilla units. Leaving the flesh off, forces the leaders to adapt to their specific area of operations putting the flesh on the structure themselves. There is a lot to be drawn out of this book, and to only skim or read it once is doing the reader doing himself/herself a diservice. I bet that Bin Laden has read this book more than once, now if we can only get our politicians to read it once.
The Beginner's Guide to Understanding Guerilla Warfare.......2007-06-04
Mao Zedong's, On Guerilla Warfare, is an excellent beginner's guide to understanding guerilla in all its aspects. It is clearly written and very easy to understand from a layman's point of view. Several important lessons can be easily gleaned from the text (like how support of the people is all important). In addition, it is a short book that can be read in a day or two. Rarely such books on warfare are brief as this one (except for Sun Tzu's Art of War).
This book should be required reading for any military officer now serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. In spite of its implied communist overtones, the lessons gleaned from On Guerilla Warfare are completely applicable to the wars of today.
A How Too Book.......2007-04-04
A manual on how to change the world by a man that did. Gives insight into Mao's thinking.
Mao's Masterpiece on Guerilla Warfare.......2007-03-26
Despite its title, this is two books in one. The editor/translator, Samuel B. Griffith II, writes an extensive and deep review of Mao's work, from the perspective of an American officer. Taking into account the timeline of his various comments, beginning when the US and Mao's communists were allies during World War II and ending when the US was entrenched in Vietnam, Griffith's remarks reveal both admiration for Mao and, later, panicked urgency. Indeed, by the time the US is in Vietnam, Griffith is calling on established nations to develop programs to eradicate guerilla movements, an interesting viewpoint considering the fact that the United States itself was born of such a movement.
Mao's approach to presenting guerilla warfare is far more abstract than that of Che. To his credit, Mao explains the relationship between Guerilla units of various types and traditional established military forces. This, I believe, is a product of his experiences as first a guerilla and later a participant in a united front against Imperial Japan. The complexity of the situation in China, along with the spatial and temporal scale, make Mao's experience and assessment far more general and representative of guerilla warfare as a whole than Che's experience and assessment. Where Che dealt primarily with small insurrections/revolutions against smaller parties in smaller conflicts, Mao's guerilla experience consumed most of his lifetime and ranged from insurrection, through anti-imperialist warfare, and finally in revolution.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an abstract approach to guerilla warfare from what probably was the most experience man in history on the topic.
800 Pound Gorilla, does Guerilla.......2006-04-21
Mao Tse-Tung: revolutionary, visionary, God-Emperor of Dune, damned fine singing voice. In all honesty, I kow-tow before Mao, certainly a genius of military and political strategy and tactics who ranks up there with Napoleon: sure he cracked a few eggs in making his hyper-power omelette, but look what he had to work with! Look what he did! Look how he turned a withered, senescent, chopped-up concession-ridden fiasco into a bristling, somewhat scary little monster that managed to hold off the two duelling superpowers of the Age!
In due deference to the Great Chairman, Mao was a man ahead of his time, and a long way behind it: he was very Zen. He was a Warrior-Philosopher King. He was focused: he once said "Power flows from the barrel of a gun". You think Mao would have put up with Michael Moore blabbering around in the Great Hall of the People, or had any patience for fools at the New York Times op-ed desk babbling on about Gitmo?
More to the point: Mao slaughtered millions of his own people, and yet he still had higher approval ratings than Bush!
With that in mind, let us all do a little bow before Mao. If he's up there, somewhere, beaming down at us from the Great Heavenly Hall of the People: hey, man, take a bow, Mao!
With that in mind, I was actually hanging out in a bookstore this evening, checking out the wares, and I asked the prim, no doubt uber-liberal, schoolmarmish clerk if they had a little Mao. She said they stocked "On Guerilla Warfare", so I sat back and dug a little on the Mao scene.
Guess what? "On Guerilla Warfare" ain't all that. No doubt, it's the kind of book some sextegenerian dinty-eyed Boston hippy with a long greasy grey ponytail would dig on---ironically the very guy, if a Revolution did come, would spend his final seconds twitching on the end of somebody's bayonet.
Anyway: the point is, "On Guerilla Warfare" is hopelessly dated. It's nowhere near as yummy and relevant as the Little Red Book, and I can boil it down for you as follows:
*Your army is small and nimble. Keep it moving, keep it stealthy, use the shadows, don't face off against a field army or you'll die like a dog.
*Win hearts and minds, Comrade! Work in the fields with the peasants: rebuild the villages the Imperialist running dogs and their Capitalist masters have burned and razed!
*Fight the Peasant's War! Cheap, cheap, cheap---Mao invented Top Ramen!
*Use Retreat as an Offensive Tactic. Pull back, draw the Enemy in, and pull back again---until you're on what Sun Tzu called "Deadly Ground", and then smash the b*stard.
All of this stuff has been handled before, by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, and far more elegantly.
Not that "On Guerilla Warfare" is a bad book. On the contrary: this is truth in advertising---Mao wrote a stripped-down instruction manual for fighting a modern army with a chickensh*t ragtag peasant army. His bonafides? He won. He kicked Japanese a**, then he turned around and kicked Chiang Kai-Shek back to Formosa. Good going, Mao!
It's just that---well, Jesus, it's very dated. All kinds of stuff about the 'Japanese fascist Imperialist army', the weapons and 'material issued the Peasant Comrades fighting Imperialist Tyranny', that sort of thing. And as it is an instruction manual, it's prosaic in its specificity, to wit: "the K-Ration, issued by the American imperialists in the hope of using our valiant Comrades as stopgaps against the Japanese Imperialist Fascist invaders, is actually a useful weapon: it is cold, and blunt, and can crack a skull."
You see what I'm sayin', Dawg? Word!
As a work of incipient tyrant psychology, it is a little interesting. Mao is obviously writing to impress: in a way, it's amusing to envision a time when Mao felt he needed to score points.
But in the end, I'm sorry to say, "On Guerilla Warfare" is a bore, a snore, a big zero. Unless you've got a big beef with the invading Japanese Imperialistic Fascist Army---these days relegated to packs of hungry tourists with camcorders---I'd avoid.
Then again, this is a slim little volume, so you can skim it in the bookstore (or library, Comrade) in 30 minutes. Then you'll have the knowledge you need should a Japanese Fascist Aggressor creep out from beneath your bed: you can smash him in the head with a K-ration.
JSG
Book Description
Where else can people find out about celebrity museums, where Hitler's nephew lived in New York, or how to do an authentic rain dance? In Uncle John's Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader, of course! Aimed at the legions of literate bathroom lingerers, this toilet tome is filled with pop culture, forgotten history, strange lawsuits, weird news, and unknown origins of all sorts of things from voodoo to anime. Savvy, edifying, intriguing, and irregular trivia — bathroom brains are now occupied. From reality TV shows that almost were (contestants run a cross-country relay race, only they don't hand off a baton — they hand off a monkey!) to kung fu stories (European explorer Ferdinand Magellan died from a head wound after arrogantly drawing his sword on a Filipino man carrying a stick — who happened to be a Kung Fu master!), Uncle John's corners the market on entertainment that's fun and educational for that downtime that would otherwise be wasted.
Customer Reviews:
Another excellent Bathroon Reader.......2007-01-10
This book is an excellent source for trivia buffs and helpful tips for everyday life. My wife complains that I spend way too much time in the bathroom, which is true because I can't put the book down.
Best Bathroom Reader.......2006-11-04
I have bought my boyfriend a few of these books...the first as house-warming gift. I thought between him and his room mate that they would love it. But by far, this is his favorite. If you love these books, this one is a must.
This is a wonderful book.......2005-10-20
When I opened the package I was surprised that this book was so big. I was expecting something a lot smaller. Then when I started reading I was surprised that it held my attention as long as it did. Some of the items take up a page or two, and some only take up a paragraph or two. They say my mind jumps around a lot and that is what this book does, it jumps around a lot and for me it is interesting reading and it holds my attention when few books are able to do that. At the price these books are selling for used right now you can't go wrong on this one.
Great Book for the Crapper - Buy for Your Crapper Time.......2005-01-09
This is one great book for reading the short thoughtful and sometimes very funny, and perhaps even serious stories while in the bathroom.
I usually read it a story at a time when evacuating myself (if you know what I mean... and NO, you cannot ask for pictures). The stories and text seems to be perfected timed and written to allow for the initial sit down, to push, to rest, to push, to another rest, to the five minute half time, to push, rest, the final push for any remanants, and the final TP cleaning process. Perfect length of the stories timed to your numbers two's. This rates the book five stars all by itself.
Signed,
Erica Phillips
(My septic tank in Decatur is frozen, ask for pictures)
p.s. Some of the topics include:
1. celebrity museums
3. where Hitler's nephew lived in New York
7. how to do an authentic rain dance
19. two time toilet tomeinging
2. pop culture
5. forgotten history
88. really strange butt true lawsuits
20. really weird noises heard where else.. in the bathroom
72. unknown origins of things
I rate this book as FIVE WHOLE COMPLETE STARS and SO WILL YOU.
Goodbye again.
Book Description
Some rebel groups abuse noncombatant populations, while others exhibit restraint. Insurgent leaders in some countries transform local structures of government, while others simply extract resources for their own benefit. In some contexts, groups kill their victims selectively, while in other environments violence appears indiscriminate, even random. This book presents a theory that accounts for the different strategies pursued by rebel groups in civil war, explaining why patterns of insurgent violence vary so much across conflicts. It does so by examining the membership, structure, and behavior of four insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Drawing on interviews with nearly two hundred combatants and civilians who experienced violence firsthand, it shows that rebels’ strategies depend in important ways on how difficult it is to launch a rebellion. The book thus demonstrates how characteristics of the environment in which rebellions emerge constrain rebel organization and shape the patterns of violence that civilians experience.
Average customer rating:
|
Warfare by Other Means
Peter Stiff
Manufacturer: Galago Publishing Pty Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Africa
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1919854010 |
Book Description
This indispensable book includes three of Che Guevara’s most influential essays describing his tactical philosophy of fighting a guerrilla war in Latin America. Guerrilla Warfare, written in 1960, outlines Guevara’s doctrine for guerrilla fighters, especially against Caribbean-style dictatorships. In Guerrilla Warfare: A Method (1963) and Message to the Tricontinental (1967), Guevara modified some of his earlier tenets. These latter two works move away from his earlier dogmatism, suggesting that Marxist revolution was possible even in purportedly democratic regimes. All three essays reflect his deeply held belief that a small, rural-based guerrilla army could trigger a revolution.
Customer Reviews:
How does it end? He dies........2007-09-04
This guy was educated, but not smart enough to follow his own preaching. He separated himself from his popular base, communist/leftist college students, and went out to help aid the people. If he had paid attention in Guerilla Warfare 101 (read: On Guerilla Warfare by Mao Tse Tung) he would done more than fight in the wilderness.
Guerilla tactics involve (as most everyone knows now) convincing as many civilians, proletariat or not, to fight by your standard. Che only became a martyr when photos of his corpse, incidentally posed Christ-like, were released to a largely Catholic public.
narrow.......2007-08-07
narrow-mined, outdated. would have been a great read in the early 50's. Please forward an edition to all of our "un-friendlies".
Don't expect too much.......2007-06-27
The introduction to this book nails it when describing the text as more of a historical document and less of a manual to guerilla warfare.
I understand the iconic stature that Che holds, and that this was brought about through martyrdom, but Guerilla Warfare wholly reinforces the adage of 'actions speak louder than words'; this book is dull and simple. It reads as if it was written by a stoned 10th grader doing a book report on the book I expected this to be, and it seems that 'revolutionary' and 'author/writer' are not interchangeable terms.
Interesting but Flawed.......2007-03-14
"Guerilla Warfare" explains well the method by which guerilla armies obtain their arms, using their enemy as their suppliers through hit and run captures of armaments. An overview of guerilla organization and methodology is provided. However, Che's personal experience seems to be his only source. The book lacks insights from the experiences of others in similar but culturally different and technologically different circumstances. Che makes universal inferences from his narrow experience. When he himself applied this theory, later in his life, to other circumstances, he failed. For example, he seems to believe that the will to fight a guerilla war can, in all cases, be created by the guerillas themselves. While it certainly would be inspirational to hear of a guerilla movement in one's own country fighting the forces of oppression, it is a mistake to believe that this will inevitably lead to a growing movement towards general insurrection. When Che tried this in Bolivia, he failed (fatally so).
I would recommend this book as a summary of Che's insights into guerilla warfare but would caution the reader to avoid accepting Che's conclusions as well founded. Avoid his mistake and read the works of Mao and others before drawing universal conclusions on guerilla warfare.
VIB: Very Important Book.......2006-06-20
WARNING!
Some people are afraid of reality. Please read this book.
Book Description
This book is a long-overdue account of, and a well-deserved tribute to, the Marine Corps sniper program in Vietnam. It documents the circumstances behind training and employment, the equipment chosen for use, the transition from the M700 sniping rifle to the M40A1 and the extreme effectiveness of the Vietnam-era sniping effort overall.
Customer Reviews:
Fact filled, a good read !.......2001-08-07
As one who attended the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School in 1966, I was pleased to find that this book was not just some "feel good" propaganda. There was the actual story, warts and all, about the rocky beginnings of the program and the evolution from PX rifles to the rifles of today.
This book is loaded with readable tecnical information about both the eqipment and the Marines pulling the trigger.
A Top Shelf - Must Have Book for LongArm Enthusiasts!.......1999-02-16
This book is an exceptionally well-done guide to Marine Scout-Snipers in Vietnam. Unlike others who merely repeat a story or two that they've heard, Mr. Senich examines the tactical and technical side of sniping and provides for the reader a look at both the evolution of the sniper's weapon and the revolution in his employment. His research into patents, optics, rifles and sniper employment is unparalled and far superior to the mishmash of gimmicky sniper guides you find written by snakeoil salesmen these days. If you want to know about Sniping, buy this book.
Books:
- Possessed
- Professional Active Server Pages 3.0 (Programmer to Programmer)
- Quilting Possibilities...freehand Filler Patterns (Golden Threads)
- Shades of Gray
- Signal Integrity Issues and Printed Circuit Board Design
- Street Angel
- Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
- The American Practical Navigator: "Bowditch"
- The Apocalypse Reader
- The Birth of Tragedy & The Genealogy of Morals
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