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This is very tangential, but I just happened to finish the "Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman last night. If any HN military history buffs have not read it yet

by markkat 16y ago

This is very tangential, but I just happened to finish the "Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman last night. If any HN military history buffs have not read it yet, do pick it up. Although about the opening of WWI, it provides some great insight into both World Wars.

logjam 16y ago
Amazing book, highly detailed. Watching the madness of supposedly rational men bowing to militarism and nationalism, whipped along by supposedly inviolate plans and timetables, creating the conditions for not one but two world wars...it's all the stuff of nightmares.
- markkat 16y ago
  Agreed. And yet, you walk away better understanding how those nightmares can become reality. By chance, I picked up Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" from a sidewalk seller, and was struck by her ability to address so many parts of a whole. After finding that she won the Pulitzer for "The Guns of August", I had to read it. I've heard that JFK was a big fan of "The Guns of August", and made it required reading in his cabinet. As an aside, Tuchman is now recognized for the following reflection, which is often paraphrased as Tuchman's Law: "Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena." Oh, BTW: On the topic of encryption, I can't believe the Russians were sending unencrypted orders in WWI over wireless!
Mithrandir 16y ago
Another excellent book is "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer (ex Minister of Armaments.) Definitely worth the time. http://www.archive.org/details/Inside_the_Third_Reich_Albert_Speer http://www.archive.org/details/Inside_the_Third_Reich_Albert... http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/0684829495 http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/068...

by markkat 16y ago

logjam 16y ago

Amazing book, highly detailed. Watching the madness of supposedly rational men bowing to militarism and nationalism, whipped along by supposedly inviolate plans and timetables, creating the conditions for not one but two world wars...it's all the stuff of nightmares.

markkat 16y ago
Agreed. And yet, you walk away better understanding how those nightmares can become reality. By chance, I picked up Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" from a sidewalk seller, and was struck by her ability to address so many parts of a whole. After finding that she won the Pulitzer for "The Guns of August", I had to read it. I've heard that JFK was a big fan of "The Guns of August", and made it required reading in his cabinet. As an aside, Tuchman is now recognized for the following reflection, which is often paraphrased as Tuchman's Law: "Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena." Oh, BTW: On the topic of encryption, I can't believe the Russians were sending unencrypted orders in WWI over wireless!

Mithrandir 16y ago

Another excellent book is "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer (ex Minister of Armaments.) Definitely worth the time. http://www.archive.org/details/Inside_the_Third_Reich_Albert_Speer http://www.archive.org/details/Inside_the_Third_Reich_Albert... http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/0684829495 http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/068...