What are you reading?

[Flying Pig]

That's probably because it's rather cryptic and can be taken to mean lots of things. (Sun Tzu's The Art of War is similarly vague; I wouldn't recommend it for a military hand/textbook.)

I did read that a while back; my main impression was that it focused too much on the 'chessboard' school of warfare, and the mechanics of moving large numbers of men against other large numbers of men, while being general enough that, while insightful, it won't tell the professional officer anything he doesn't know: the points I remember most clearly are 'know thine enemy and know thyself, and in a thousand battles you will never be in trouble', 'use the ordinary force to hold the enemy (or words to that effect) and the extraordinary to destroy him' and 'avoid attacking élite troops'. These are all good sense, but they convey basic principles that you learn on a section commander's battle course: they might be useful in making generals out of amateurs, but they don't have much benefit in improving the quality of already-trained officers. What the junior officer needs is advice on leadership - how to work with his men, motivate them and get the best out of them - which I found sorely lacking.

 

[downtown]

I just finished two great books.

"Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect" by Robert J Sampson (on the hyper-local impact of many sociological variables)

Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want To Fight For--From Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities" by Andrew Laties. My wife and I have been considering moving away from the Big City and opening a bookstore, and this book has been invaluable in that research.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I did read that a while back; my main impression was that it focused too much on the 'chessboard' school of warfare, and the mechanics of moving large numbers of men against other large numbers of men, while being general enough that, while insightful, it won't tell the professional officer anything he doesn't know:

To be fair, it's supposed to be a textbook, which means it did a fairly bangup job for an ancient text if professional officers still know this.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished Alain de Botton's A Week at the Airport, which consists of 100 or so pages of poetically beautiful reflections inspired by...airports. Travel, loss, longing, that sort of thing. I read it more for the author than anything else. I'm now starting The Universe Within Us by Neil Shubin.

 

[Cutlass]

Tad Williams "The Dirty Streets of Heaven". Urban fantasy novel.

Jim C Hines "Libriomancer" . Urban fantasy novel, again.

I like a lot of urban fantasy. But too many of them are told in the first person. That style is overused these days. Other than that they were a couple of pretty good books. Libriomancer also does some fun things going meta on the whole genre with in jokes.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Read a pair of articles in Mercenaries and Paid Men: the Mercenary Identity in the Middle Ages, which was the proceedings of a conference at the University of Wales, Swansea from July, 2005.

The two articles were:

"Les Mercenaires dans les Campagnes Napolitaines de Louis le Grand, Roi de Hongrie, 1347-1350", delivered by Guido Guerri dall'Oro

and

"'Warriors Fit for a Prince': Welsh Troops in Angevin Service, 1154-1216", delivered by I.W. Rowlands

 

[ParkCungHee]

Read a pair of articles in Mercenaries and Paid Men: the Mercenary Identity in the Middle Ages, which was the proceedings of a conference at the University of Wales, Swansea from July, 2005.

The two articles were:

"Les Mercenaires dans les Campagnes Napolitaines de Louis le Grand, Roi de Hongrie, 1347-1350", delivered by Guido Guerri dall'Oro

and

"'Warriors Fit for a Prince': Welsh Troops in Angevin Service, 1154-1216", delivered by I.W. Rowlands

Aw, no fair, that's super expensive and I want to read it

 

[Dachs]

To be fair, it's supposed to be a textbook, which means it did a fairly bangup job for an ancient text if professional officers still know this.

That assumes a great deal more continuity between the ostensible Sunzi and modern military training systems than can reasonably be demonstrated.

I think that the ancient Chinese military classics in general are effectively useless and relay nothing insightful or useful, and some things that are actively harmful to an understanding of warfare, let alone how to make warfare or how to command troops in warfare. I believe that these works, especially Sunzi's, have achieved fame largely because of fetishism for the "Oriental wisdom" stereotype, as though writing "Master Kong say" or "Master Sun say" before a sentence of drivel turns it into wisdom.

If one must read the works of ancient authors on warfare seeking some sort of universally applicable truths not immediately obvious to the average observer, one would be better served by reading the works of Polyainos or Maurikios or Xenophon or Nikephoros Ouranos whomever. None of those men was a Clausewitz - let alone a Luttwak, or an Ogarkov, men who have written texts on military thought and theory actually applicable in the modern day - and much of what they wrote, like FP said, has to do more with the peculiarities of the way war was made back in their day than with some sort of truth generalizable across eras and periods.

But anyway. Pet peeve of mine. Moving on.

I am finishing up with the Scott book, and am now turning to some lighter reading: Heliodoros Emesaios' Aithiopika, one of the best of the classical romance-adventure novels. It's still pretty formulaic in many respects, but, you know, it's like watching a James Bond movie: it's more about the journey than the destination. Journey's been pretty fun so far.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Aw, no fair, that's super expensive and I want to read it

You've seen it here folks: the first time in 4 years I'm actually rather appreciative of the inventory of the UCSC library

 

[ParkCungHee]

That assumes a great deal more continuity between the ostensible Sunzi and modern military training systems than can reasonably be demonstrated.

Not really, only that Flying Pig's criticism would suggest parallels, which don't require continuity.

I pretty much agree with all your criticisms of the place Sun Tzu has in our culture, but if it was actually true that the book tells a modern officer things he already knows, that seems to suggest applicability. It's not a criticism at all.

A much better criticism is that it's full of suggestions that are very novel today, because they're of no use to the modern officer, like practicing astronomy to know when to start fires.

 

[ParkCungHee]

You've seen it here folks: the first time in 4 years I'm actually rather appreciative of the inventory of the UCSC library

Hopefully by the fall I should be enrolled at CUNY again, so I'll have access to a decent library again.

 

[Flying Pig]

Not really, only that Flying Pig's criticism would suggest parallels, which don't require continuity.

I pretty much agree with all your criticisms of the place Sun Tzu has in our culture, but if it was actually true that the book tells a modern officer things he already knows, that seems to suggest applicability. It's not a criticism at all.

A much better criticism is that it's full of suggestions that are very novel today, because they're of no use to the modern officer, like practicing astronomy to know when to start fires.

I suppose the basics are universal - anyone who is put in charge of a large group of people and fights a few battles with them will work out that attacking the enemy where he wants to be attacked is a bad idea, that holding with one part of your troops and flanking with another is a good idea, that good intelligence makes life easier, and so on. If you were such a person, it probably would save you a lot of trouble learning those basics; if you're undergoing the sort of training that teaches you warfare through all sorts of modern principles and lessons, you'll find that you've probably covered all of the useful parts of it within your first few tactics lessons*.

*As a point of interest, British officer training is divided into three terms; the first term features very little training not given to private soldiers: the only difference is that officers are expected to do everything better. Real training in tactics beyond the platoon level only occurs in term three.

EDIT: So, I suppose, it's not really a criticism; it's more a note that the perception of it as an insightful guide to warfare is flawed, and it's at best 'set-peice battles for dummies'. My point is that the bits that a junior officer or inexperienced leader of any flavour really wants to learn aren't in there, because Sun neglects the subaltern's work in favour of the general's: perhaps because in Ancient China, the general was not a former subaltern.

 

[Cutlass]

I wonder also how many of the subalterns could read. Sun's audience was almost certainly an elite one in the day.

 

[Traitorfish]

Whit by Iain Banks, which is about a member of a Stirlingshire agrarian commune running around the country trying to find a misplaced relative, and Workers and Revolution in Iran by Assef Bayat, which is about the role played by workers' councils in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Juxtapositions are fun.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galleano about 500 yeas of the pillage of S. America.

Just read Stephen Brouwers' Revolutionary Doctors about Cuba, Venezuela and the revolution in Latin American health care.

Last month, I read Jonathan Kozol's Children of the Revolutipn, about the Cuban literacy and education program -- awesome.

You've seen it here folks: the first time in 4 years I'm actually rather appreciative of the inventory of the UCSC library

Go Banana Slugs! (UCSC Alum)

 

[Kozmos]

Given up on Neal Stephenson Baroque Cycle. It is interesting and well written but far too in-depth. Now plowing through the final parts of Wheel of Time series.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Picked up a few books yesterday with some Christmas gift cards:

Slavoj Zizek - Revolution at the Gates: Selected Writings of Lenin from 1917

Slajov Zizek - First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

Callari, Cullenberg, and Biewener - Marxism in the Postmodern Age

The last one looks particularly intimidating, as philosophical stuff about Marxism and specifically Post-Marxism is always very thick, and uses language that I have to keep Google and Wikipedia open for constant referencing. But I'm looking for more recent treatments of the topic, and much of what has been written in the last 30 years is either thick pomo stuff, or Chomsky, and one can only tolerate so much Chomsky. Plus, he doesn't really give proper deference to Marx that allows him to say very much useful stuff using a Marxian analysis.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I finished reading 4 different articles by William Caferro on 14th century condottieri/mercenary companies for a paper I finished yesterday.

 

[JohannaK]

At last I got A Dance With Dragons. At f*cking last. Because I wanted it in Spanish and soft cover edition. It's simply that when I read something in a format and a language, I hate to change either (unless there is no edition of the next book planned in said language or format). Oh My God, I realised it's been nearly five years since I read A Game of Thrones (and A Clash of Kings, which I bought in August 2008 so I could have an interesting read in the trip to the States).

 

[ReindeerThistle]

At last I got A Dance With Dragons. At f*cking last. Because I wanted it in Spanish and soft cover edition. It's simply that when I read something in a format and a language, I hate to change either (unless there is no edition of the next book planned in said language or format). Oh My God, I realised it's been nearly five years since I read A Game of Thrones (and A Clash of Kings, which I bought in August 2008 so I could have an interesting read in the flight to the States).

I have not gotten past Storm of Swords, so, no spoilers! Have a safe flight.