The Pacific War by William B. Hopkins

I have read a lot of books on the individual battles fought in the Pacific Theater during World War II, but I have not read much on the strategy used by American political and military leaders – other than Plan Orange. So, in order to learn more about the strategy, I decided to read The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players That Won the War by William B. Hopkins.

At a little less than 400 pages, this book is an excellent overview of the strategy and major personalities that shaped the American war effort in the Pacific. Hopkins succinctly explains the various strategies in competition with each other on how to defeat the Japanese – some of these strategies were advocated by one armed service over another one. For example, General Douglas MacArthur advocated that the main thrust of the American counterattack should start from Australia and move north with the U.S. Army taking the lead and the U.S. Navy taking a support role. However, Admiral Ernest King (Chief of Naval Operations), with the full support of Admiral Chester Nimitz (Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet), advocated an island hopping strategy across the Central Pacific with the U.S. Navy taking the lead (Hopkins is very partial to this plan).

Hopkins also brings much-needed attention to the unsung heroes of the Pacific Theater – the cryptologists and the submariners. The cracking of the Japanese military code and the information obtained – codenamed Japanese ULTRA – was a major intelligence coup that gave the United States a decided advantage over the Japanese. The Americans used ULTRA to its advantage in many battles. For example, Hopkins adroitly points out that the Americans knew where to send their precious carriers for maximum effect in the Battle of Midway.

(more…)

Movie Lists: 397 Ways to Pick A DVD by Paul Simpson

If you are like most people you watch a lot of movies around the holidays. Whether because you have more time at home; to get away from the relatives; or to enjoy holiday favorites.

But these days the possibilities of what to watch are almost endless so deciding what to watch might be a challenge. Well, have I got a book for you! [imagine that being read in the voice of your favorite TV infomercial star]

Jokes aside, I thought it would be worth mentioning Movie Lists: 397 Ways to Pick a DVD as both a useful guide and a potential gift for movie buffs.

It is probably not a shock to tell you that I am more of a book person than a movie person. But even I can appreciate the need for a resource like this.  So what is it exactly?  Here is the short answer:

These lists, arranged by genre, director, or actor, answer that most difficult of questions: what DVD should you rent for the night?

Fabulously quirky and enjoyable, this book is both a celebration of movies and a handy, entertaining guide to films guaranteed to deliver. Oddly enough, most movie guides are not full of recommendations. But Movie Lists is-and you don’t have to watch them all before you die!

A post by Samiat Pedro at ArtsHub also gives a helpful explanation:

Listing films, all available on DVD, Movie Lists range from the obvious: Comedy, Action and Thriller; to the plain absurd: Weddings, Nervous Breakdowns and… Dogs. So, what is it that led Paul to create such a book?

“Life is just too short to watch bad movies. (The book) is purely about good films, 397 lists of them, that I’m convinced you’ll enjoy,” he explains.

Movie Lists features an opening verdict on a director, actor or genre and then gives recommendations of, on average, 8-10 films that fit the bill perfectly. Constantly throwing in the odd bits of trivia, Movie Lists is actually a good, funny read, full of fun movie info.

So if you want to broaden your movie knowledge and/or branch out beyond the latest release check out Movie Lists.

The End of Secularism by Hunter Baker

It is always a bit nerve racking when friends write books. I mean, what if you don’t like it? Or worse it is very poorly done?

Well, luckily I dodged that particular bullet with The End of Secularism by Hunter Baker. I have never met the good Dr. Baker (not to confuse you with his wife who is an actual doctor) but have become friends with him over the years through our participation at Red State and other conservative venues.

So I was quite happy to find that Hunter’s book was enjoyable and very well done (I expect nothing less from Crossway). It is in fact a book I am likely to recommend to friends and family.

Baker’s slim volume is an intelligent brief against the popular “modern” conception of secularism that seeks to keep the religious out of public life. Readable, and useful, for non-academics but interesting for those with a greater depth on the subject as well.

(more…)

LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay by Warren Kozak

Unlike many of the great ground commanders of World War II, most of the great air force generals other than Jimmy Doolittle are ciphers to even aficionados of World War II history. One of the least studied and arguably most significant of these is General Curtis Lemay.

LeMay’s life is not only one of a great general who intuitively understood the capabilities of strategic air power it was also one that rivaled any Horatio Alger story. The eldest son of a ne’er-do-well, LeMay was a breadwinner for the family at an early age. At an age when most boys were delivering newspapers, LeMay was a newspaper distributor. He worked his way through college in a steel mill, working 9 hour shifts at night, six days a week, and then going to class. This ingrained in young LeMay life long habits of self-reliance, frugality, and loyalty. He continued to be the primary means of support for his family and a surrogate parent to his siblings all through his life.

As an ROTC cadet at Ohio State he decided very early that he wished to be a pilot in the Army Air Corps and demonstrated his ability to master a bureaucratic process. He discovered that the easiest path to flight school was by way of the National Guard and showing a sophistication much beyond his years managed to get himself enrolled as a flight candidate that way. LeMay’s intelligence, work ethic, and luck ensured he passed flight school and his class rank was high enough to see him posted as a fighter pilot.

In the interwar period, LeMay became enamored of heavy bombers and left the higher prestige world of fighters to become an expert in in-flight navigation and bombing tactics. When war broke out in 1941, LeMay found himself promoted at a staggering rate of speed. In 1940 he was a lieutenant, 24 months later he was a lieutenant colonel and commander of a bomb group. (more…)

Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift by Paul Rahe

“Let our motto be, as once it was, ‘Don’t tread on me!’ And let our virtue be individual responsibility.”

I had the pleasure of speaking recently with Paul Rahe, who is the author of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocquville and the Modern Prospect (Yale University Press: 2009).

Professor Rahe’s book is the first of three that I will be recommending for summer reading in preparation for the RedState get-together in Atlanta on August 1st. Judging from the covers, this trio might not seem the lightest of reading but fortunately all three authors prove in their own styles that substantive reading doesn’t have to be a long, hard slog. And all three of them have important lessons for us in this lazy, off-election-cycle summer.

Over the months since the 2008 election, conservatives of all stripes have searched their souls and wrung their hands and gnashed their teeth over the apparent demise of our movement. Various proposals to reinvent, repackage and/or rebrand conservatism have been widely offered. My thought is that we might productively, with the assistance of these three excellent books, strive for another “r” word—renaissance.The word renaissance carries a number of meanings. Literally, it means “rebirth.” It is generally associated with the intense interest in classical antiquity that emerged in Italy at the beginning of the fourteenth century. But as Erwin Panofsky pointed out in his Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, what we think of as the Italian Renaissance is just one in a long series of encounters with the classical past that continue to this day.

(more…)

Right Time, Right Place by Richard Brookhiser

Richard Brookhiser I and have a lot in common.  We both started reading National Review in high school; we both idolized William F. Buckley Jr. (WFB); we both love history (including the now out of fashion “dead white males”); and we both ended up as freelance writers.

Well, to be fair Brookhiser had his first NR cover story at the age of 14; became a senior editor, then managing editor at National Review; was close friends with and, for a time, heir apparent to Buckley; and has written highly successful biographies of the founding fathers.  But take away the talent, ambition, and career success and it’s like we’re the same person!

Joking aside, it would be impossible to calculate how many young writers and politicos idealized and were inspired by Buckley and National Review.  Particularly in the period leading up to Ronald Regan’s election, WFB and NR were at the center of American conservatism.  And Brookhiser’s latest book – Right Time, Right Place – tells the story of what it was like to be at the very inner circle of this fully operational conservative battle station.

As the subtitle – Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement –indicates, RTRP is a blend of history, memoir, and political commentary.  I find this type of “creative non-fiction” can lack focus, often jumping between subjects and styles, but Brookhiser’s unique perspective, style and flair for language make this a remarkably focused and powerful read.

It is a very personal and honest look at the man and magazine at the heart of the conservative movement’s rise to power, and eventual return to earth, while at the same time a meditation on the dangers of hero worship and the nature of mature relationships.

(more…)

Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton

The Global War on Terror, if we’re allowed to call it as much anymore, has produced wide array of books with a cacophony of voices. At one end of the spectrum are those which profess to predict the future through the lens of our Vietnam experience (Tom Ricks’s Fiasco and George Packer’s Assassin’s Gate fit in here) the other, and currently dominant end of the spectrum are the soldier’s narratives in the tradition of Joe Galloway’s We Were Soldiers Once… And Young and Mark Bowden’s Blackhawk Down. These would include Thunder Run by Mark Bowden’s colleague Dave Zucchino and Not a Good Day to Die by Sean Naylor. Doug Stanton’s Horse Soldiers fits squarely within the latter category.

Stanton eschews political posturing and Monday morning quarterbacking in favor of telling a small but important story from the viewpoint of a handful of Special Forces officers and non-commissioned officers who supported the Northern Alliance in October-December 2001. (more…)

The Magician’s Book by Laura Miller

Cover via Amazon

*Cross Posted from Collected Miscellany*

Laura Miller had a problem.  When she was young she was absolutely captivated and enthralled with the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.  Given a copy of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by a school teacher she dove in an entered a new world.  Things would never be the same.

But eventually she grew older and began to find out things about Lewis and Narnia that changed her relationship with the series: the Christian underpinnings of the story, Lewis’s world view and political opinions, etc.  But as she pursued a career as a literary critic she decided to return to these books and she found there was still much about them that she loved.

The road that had once seemed to lead to free and open country had in reality doubled back to church.  Now I was trying to explain why my damning adolescent assessment of Chronicles wasn’t entirely sufficient, either.  As an adult, I’d discovered that I could follow Lewis pretty far without feeling obliged to return to Christianity, and that the old sensations of freedom, of wilderness in Narnia, remained.

She sets out to make sense of this journey.  The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia is her answer in book form.

(more…)

Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley

I was prepared to be angry about Christopher Buckley’s latest book Losing Mum and Pup.  I have been a fan – idealized is probably more accurate – of his father’s since a very young age and worried about any attempt at sullying that reputation.  I was so sure a tell-all book about losing both of his parents within a year would be offensive.  Throw in Christo’s (the name his parents used for him) less than astute political judgment of late and I had all but pronounced him beyond the pale.

But I decided to read the book first.  And, despite the difficult nature of the subject, I am glad I did.

(more…)

On Schama’s “The American Future.”

Now that David Brooks’s review of Simon Schama’s The American Future is up, I am re-posting here my review of the same book, which ran several months ago in the Winter 2008 issue of The City.

To read the review see below.

(more…)