Book Description
Gifford Pinchot is known primarily for his work as first chief of the U. S. Forest Service and for his argument that resources should be used to provide the "greatest good for the greatest number of people." But Pinchot was a more complicated figure than has generally been recognized, and more than half a century after his death, he continues to provoke controversy.
This new biography, the first in more than three decades, offers a fresh interpretation of the life and work of the famed conservationist and Progressive politician. In addition to considering Pinchot's role in the environmental movement, historian Char Miller sets forth an engaging description and analysis of the man - his character, passions, and personality - and the larger world through which he moved.
Miller begins by describing Pinchot's early years and the often overlooked influence of his family and their aspirations for him. He examines Pinchot's post-graduate education in France and his ensuing efforts in promoting the profession of forestry in the United States and in establishing and running the Forest Service. While Pinchot's twelve years as chief forester (1898 - 1910) are the ones most historians and biographers focus on, Miller also offers an extensive examination of Pinchot's post-federal career as head of The National Conservation Association and as two-term governor of Pennsylvania. In addition, he looks at Pinchot's marriage to feminist Cornelia Bryce and discusses her role in Pinchot's political radicalization throughout the 1920s and 1930s. An epilogue explores Pinchot's final years and writings.
Miller offers a provocative reconsideration of key events in Pinchot's life, including his relationship with friend and mentor John Muir and their famous disagreement over damming Hetch Hetchy Valley. The author brings together insights from cultural and social history and recently discovered primary sources to support a new interpretation of Pinchot - whose activism not only helped define environmental politics in early twentieth century America but remains strikingly relevant today.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting biography but poorly organized.......2007-07-31
This book provides a biography of the founder of American forestry, Gifford Pinchot. There are other biographies, and Miller justifies this one in a strange way - - he argues that people too frequently see Pinchot as a transition between the West's nineteenth-century exploiters and twentieth-century environmentalists. However, Miller's account doesn't really challenge this portrayal, other than showing that Pinchot's perspective on sustainable development remains alive and well today.
A better justification would have emphasized that Miller gives serious attention to Pinchot's two terms as the governor of Pennsylvania. This part of the story allows Miller to pick up non-forestry themes such as economic justice, and to show how they shaped Pinchot's earlier career as Chief Forester. The coverage of Pinchot's later career is a real strength of the book, as are the comparisons between progressive Republican governor Pinchot (PA) and progressive Democratic governor FDR (NY) during the Great Depression. Both argued for a "New Deal," and the Republican rejection of Pinchot reflects fundamental changes in that party just as much as FDR's recasting of the Democrats changed American politics for 50 years.
Interesting as many of these stories are, the book has its frustrations for the reader. Miller often tells a part of Pinchot's story and then reaches back to grab narrative bits that belong earlier in the book, both chronologically and analytically. For example, Miller's story of Pinchot's campaign for governor gets him elected, and then reaches back to discuss his key support coalition. That coalition included prohibitionists, mineworkers, and women (suffragettes). Each of those groups reflects an important feature of Pinchot's character - - he was practically a teetotaler, he was socially progressive, and he had evolved toward gender equality. Each could have been part of the story much earlier, but all three come more or less as a surprise (the mineworkers are a partial exception). That surprise highlights an important flaw in Miller's strategy, in that he does not lay a sufficient foundation for the events he discusses.
The discussion of Pinchot's family life is similarly incoherent. It is the subject of some chapters but also appears as passages in other chapters, but does not appear in chronological order. The death of a near-fiancée, for example, appears mid-book despite its implications for both his professional and personal life.
Those are but two illustrations of a pattern throughout this book. It may be that the book consists of independently-written essays that Miller didn't edit sufficiently before including them in the book. Or it may be that Miller was trying to avoid a purely chronological biography but did not write a fully thematic one. Whatever the explanation, the organizational weakness detracts from what is otherwise an interesting story about an important figure in American political and environmental history.
Average customer rating:
- Entertaining and thoughtful
- Interesting and educational
- Excellent history.
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Arrogant Armies: Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them
James M. Perry
Manufacturer: Wiley
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ASIN: 0471119768 |
Book Description
"Nothing goes wrong quite so dramatically as a disastrous military expedition."—from the Introduction
ARROGANT ARMIES
Spanning more than two hundred years of martial adventurism, aggression, and outright blundering, Arrogant Armies chronicles the profoundly misguided and utterly calamitous military expeditions of the great empire builders and overconfident expeditionary forces. From colonial America to South Africa, from Mesopotamia to Khartoum, an extraordinary number of presumably superior armies grievously underestimated native forces.
Using contemporary newspaper accounts, military memoirs, diaries of soldiers who fought in the battles, and other firsthand letters and papers, noted journalist James Perry brings a sense of urgency and immediacy to these historic defeats. At times devastating, at times hilarious, his vast panorama of human folly is peopled by frightened soldiers, zealous native resistance, and, of course, a colorful gallery of arrogant, often inept officers. Many of them received their ultimate comeuppance in these battles: Generals Edward Braddock, Charles MacCarthy, William R. Shafter, Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend, Charles "Chinese" Gordon, William George Keith Elphinstone, Manuel Fernandez Silvestre, and others.
What is most remarkable about Arrogant Armies is the cumulative power of these ironic encounters. Black humor, brutality, staggering incompetence, and genuine drama come together with devastating force. In Arrogant Armies Perry casts a sharply critical eye on what he describes as the "small wars, what Kipling called the 'savage wars of peace.'" It is fascinating history and a compelling commentary on politics and "the dark side of the human race . . . its deadly preoccupation with war."
"As one of our nation's top political reporters, Jim Perry has covered his share of political disasters. Now he has turned his skills to this sad but brilliant chronicle of military disasters. In the process, he has produced a classic."—Sander Vanocur The History Channel
"Jim Perry has long been one of America's great political reporters. This has been perfect training to write this marvelous book, Arrogant Armies. Having covered more than a few contemporary political disasters, Perry is able to brilliantly, often hilariously, capture the worst military blunders of the past several hundred years. These fiascoes span the globe from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to Haiti, and chronologically from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. There are common characteristics: commanders afflicted with drunkenness, debauchery, arrogance, and often just plain stupidity. With vitality, a sense of irony and history, Jim Perry gives you a battle-side seat at these debacles."—Albert R. Hunt Executive Washington Editor Wall Street Journal
"Jim Perry has done, in Arrogant Armies, what he has always done. He has told us stories we haven't heard before. He has explored an unmined vein of history with enthusiasm, skill, and style. History buffs will delight in Arrogant Armies. I'm not so sure, however, about the generals."=Roger Mudd The History Channel
Customer Reviews:
Entertaining and thoughtful.......1999-09-29
I enjoyed this book tremendously. Entertaining and thoughtful -- I found it reminiscent of John Keegan's work. I look forward to Mr. Perry's next.
Interesting and educational.......1999-01-29
This is a wonderful book. The author has a great sense of irony. He skillfully blends contemporary records and journals written by soldiers at all levels of the hierarchy to show the incompetence of the "arrogant armies" he's describing. This book goes very well with "March of Folly" by Barbara Tuchman. It's unfortunate that amazon.com does not list this book as a suggestion on this page. I just wish he would include more examples from 1914-1989 years. I don't really understand why there's a gap between the old European imperial period all the way up to Somalia. There were plenty of wars that would qualify for this book in between.
Excellent history........1997-10-29
Military history is replete with brilliant campaigns by celebrated commanders. Less well known are the debacles of ignorance, carelessness, and plain racism which have besmirched the names of once-proud generals and wasted the lives of thousands of soldiers.
Perry, a seasoned Wall Street Journal political writer, recounts twelve such disasters, from the French and Indian Wars to Mogadishu; such prime example of arrogance, poor planning, and stupidity that they should be required reading for student-officers everywhere. A highly readable trek off the beaten path for military history buffs.
(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)
Book Description
With unprecedented access and previously unreported detail, here is a first hand account of the 22-day march to Baghdad that takes you behind the scenes and to the front line...
No one reporting on the war in Iraq had the unique battlefield clearance afforded the authors of this dramatic eyewitness account. Unlike embedded journalists confined to a single unit, West and Smith acquired a captured yellow SUV and joined with whatever unit was leading the assault every day of the fight. The result is a report of what really happened from the heart of the action unlike anything you’ll read anywhere else.
“While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam’s oppression.”—Major General J.N. Mattis, 1st Marine Division, Commanding
Here is the story that can be told only by those who actually witnessed the action of the famed 1st Marine Division’s march on Baghdad, from the shaky beginning of U.S. operations in southern Iraq to the capture of U.S. prisoners, the misreported “fierce Iraqi resistance,” and the aggressive assaults that led to a quick and decisive victory.
With over a half century of military and combat experience between them, bestselling author F. J. “Bing” West and Major General Ray L. Smith, USMC (Ret.), combine expert military analysis with dramatic battlefield reporting. They bring the reader on a march that ended in victory—but was shadowed by second-guessing, unexpected reversals, and the threat of catastrophe.
With access to three-star generals in the command centers and to privates in the field, the authors reveal how the strategic plan played out in battle, showing what went well and what failed, and detailing power struggles for military and political control never reported. The result is destined to become the definitive account of ground warfare in Iraq.
Customer Reviews:
Bearably Lopsided.......2007-01-25
Certainly interesting, if a bit hard to follow at times between the military jargon, trying to visualize the streets and the compass directions, and trying to visualize just how many soldiers and vehicles make up "RCT-1" or "battalion 3/1." Still, most descriptions paint a vivid scene, and you can't deny that the story moves right along as inexorably as the Marines. This book has a bit of a pro-American bent; easy enough to adjust for as you're reading, but at times it seems like an action movie (was the battle really that lopsided? was the Iraqis' aim really that poor?). I spent a good deal of the book trying to figure out why West & Smith were there -- they seemed a bit of a cross between embedded press, not-quite-civilians, military consultants, and two ex-marines who just had to see what the fuss was about in Baghdad. It was odd -- they seemed to have free rein to drive where they wanted (unlike embedded journalists), yet didn't appear to be exactly active military either. It was hard to tell whether they, themselves, were armed or not. Ultimately, that distracted me from the real story. So read it. It's lopsided, but bearably so, and it's engaging.
A little "truth".......2006-08-03
I served with Suicide Charley, 1/7, and knew many of the people in this book. I just want to say that "Answitz", as he's referred to in this book, was full of B/S. He was never in Spetz Natz. We think his Russian accent was a lie too. He was a compulsive liar, and we realized this has he gradually topped each lie he told with an even more out rageous lie. But this is no discredit to the writers of the book. We believed him at first too.
........2006-07-01
I have been spending the past few years intently ignoring news stories covering the events in the Middle East, not that I was not interested, but because I grew tired of body counts non-stop stories of suicide bombers and monday morning quarterbacks criticizing every action of our troops. Not saying that I believe our troops are infallible, but wishing that there was some good reported too. This book makes up for weeks of missed news stories, shows the good and the bad from the stand point of two people who understand how the military works from prior first hand experience. The result was an eye-opening book, that while a bit of a technical read, held my attention through the whole book.
Well, I'm just not sure .......2006-06-02
My brother served with the 1st Marine Div, so I couldn't wait to read their story. But I was surprised at how uncritical this still fascinating book actually was. It reads like propaganda, like a USMC recruiting magazine. ... USMC great and perfect, Iraqis bad and useless! ... Welllll?????
The March Up.......2006-05-16
I've studied military history now for nearly 40 years. Hundreds of books and publications. Among the very, very good books I've read in the last several years are Bing West's The March Up and No True Glory. I happen to strongly oppose the war in Iraq - unlike what we are doing in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq was unnecessary, unjust and unprovoked. The US is too good a nation to act this way. We've wasted blood and treasure in Iraq that should have been spent elsewhere. All of which does not detract at all in my mind from what our soldiers and marines have done there - all out of patriotism and a sense of duty. Right or wrong, our military in Iraq has performed very well in an extrememly difficult situation. And West's books illustrate this wonderfully. This book should be a "must read" for all those who think that the current generation lacks "the right stuff." West describes modern marines - aware of the world in ways my generation never was - fighting brilliantly. Well trained, well led and, yes, even well equipped, what the First Marine Division has acompilshed in Iraq is every bit as proud as what it did at other battles from the South Pacific to Korea and Vietnam. Wrong war, wrong enemy (my opinion, not necessarily West's), but as excellent a set of soldiers as this country has ever produced. Excellent reads.
Average customer rating:
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Operation Iraqi freedom.(Book Review) : An article from: Joint Force Quarterly
James R. Blaker
Manufacturer: National Defense University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B000ALOBJA
Release Date: 2005-07-25 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Joint Force Quarterly, published by National Defense University on December 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1520 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Operation Iraqi freedom.(Book Review)
Author: James R. Blaker
Publication:
Joint Force Quarterly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2004
Publisher: National Defense University
Issue: 36
Page: 110(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
The Blackburn Skua was the first monoplane to be designed and built for the Royal Navy in the 1930s. As a result of continued debate, it became a compromise between the Navy's desire for a carrier-based dive-bomber and RAF's preference for a fighter. Despite being the first to shoot down a Luftwaffe aircraft in World War II, early operations in Norway found the type woefully inadequate as a fighter.
As a dive-bomber, the Royal Navy put the design to good use from the outset of WWII. It was involved with the hunt for the Graff Spee, sunk the major warship Koln, suffered with great loss in an attack on the Scharnhorst, helped to keep the German advance at bay during the Dunkirk evacuation and attacked the French rogue battleship Richelieu in the Mediterranean.
This book relates how the final design was created, how the dive-bombing technique was developed and perfected by naval pilots and traces the wartime operational career of the type with many first-hand accounts.
Book Description
Skuas are a wide-ranging group of seabirds; some are found as far south as the Antarctic and others in the Arctic regions of the world. They are one of the most challenging groups of birds to identify because of variation in plumage according to the age of a given bird and conditions for identifying them. This book-the first complete guide to the skuas of the world-was designed to enable species identification and correct aging of these birds.
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The Arctic Skua: A study of the ecology and evolution of a seabird
Peter O'Donald
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0521235812 |
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Shetland Bird Report 1986
Manufacturer: Shetland Bird Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000F8M0R8 |
Product Description
This book is 62 pages. Book consists of Recording of Birds in Shetland, Bird Ringing in Shetland, Shetland Skua Survery from 1985-1986. The Status Distrubution and Breeding of Shelducks in Shetland.
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Skua and Penguin: Predator and Prey (Studies in Polar Research)
Euan Young
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0521322510 |
Book Description
Areas of barren rock and scree around the edge of Antarctica provide a breeding ground for two of the continent's most well-known species of bird: the south polar skua and the Adelie penguin. This book considers the relationship between these two species, taking as its study site Ross Island. The author challenges the traditional view, through detailed observations of the foraging ecology of the skua, that they are totally dependant on penguin eggs and chicks for food. In addition, studies of the impact of skuas on penguin breeding and the extent to which the skua breeding cycle is functionally related to that of the penguin provide further evidence to suggest that the two species occur together independently as a consequence of limited breeding space, rather than as a result of a distinct predator-prey relationship.
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The Skuas
Robert W. Furness
Manufacturer: T. & A. D. Poyser Ltd
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0856610461 |
Books:
- Girl, Interrupted
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- Grant and Sherman: The Friendship That Won the Civil War
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- Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad
- His Excellency: George Washington
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Hudson Taylors Spiritual Secret
- I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away
- Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia
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