Book Description
A great American hero-a 20th-century warrior and military strategist who lived outside the spotlight but whose work has been enormously influential-is brought brilliantly to life in this acclaimed biography. John Boyd was the finest fighter pilot in American history. From the proving ground of the Korean War, he went on to win notoriety as the instructor who defeated-in less than 40 seconds-every pilot who challenged him. But what made Boyd a man for the ages was what happened after he left the cockpit. He transformed the way military aircraft-in particular the F-15 and F-16-were designed with his revolutionary Energy-Maneuverability Theory. Boyd dedicated his later years to a radical theory of conflict that was largely ignored during Boyd's lifetime, but that is now widely considered to be the most influential thinking about conflict since Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
Customer Reviews:
Painful.......2007-10-09
The book is a paean to a guy who misunderstood his role in life. It is uncritical, unblinking, and unabashed fan-gushing.
Boyd was a maverick looking for a cause that he never found. His "transformation" of the Marines after Vietnam could have been done by anyone with a new idea. "Energy maneuverability" translated into ground warfare was an embarrassingly wrong-headed review of military history and an overstatement of the obvious. OODA is a useless concept that only the American military could buy into.
All of these are examined without a scintilla of criticism or analysis here. Any dissent or disagreement with the general theme of "Boyd as visionary" is dismissed.
There's a tremendous need for a real, critical bio of Boyd, but this isn't it. The man did redesign fighter tactics but the rest of his work's value is questionable at this point. Those who say that the US now uses Boy's concepts in conventional land warfare are forgetting the Germans in Poland, who must have used the same concepts if this is the case.
An amazing man !.......2007-08-08
An unbelieveable life story about a man who believed in himself and in his convictions .He died and was buried in Arlington without a single person from the Air Force to pray for him. His work will continue to be used probably without any mention of his life.
Readable personal history, nice background on f15/f16/a10.......2007-07-27
A good biography of John Boyd that is well readable. I would have given it 5 stars if there would not be a reference to Boyd's Even Greater Work Later In His Life every other page.
The book gives a completely different outlook than you'd normally get on the USA military, especially on the pentagon. If you're interested in the USA military as a whole in the post-WW2 era, this is a good book. You'll get the background on the development of planes such as the f15/f16 and a10. With the f16 and a10 being planes that the airforce did not really want...
Boyd and some friends (look on wikipedia for "fighter maffia") take on the pentagon in the second half of the book, maybe interesting for people that see the need for change in other (big) organizations. For instance, the reasonably well-known story about the faulty testing of the Bradley fighting vehicle.
In the last part of the book, some of Boyd's ideas on strategy and tactics are explained by showing Boyd's own thinkwork progress. Chronologically. Which makes it a nice way of exploring his stragegy ideas. Read the book for what Von Clausewitz did wrong :-)
Why we need mavericks.......2007-05-07
This biography is not only about a fascinating person, but it helps give the reader insight into the military mind, both good and bad. The author understands the virtues and flaws of his subject as well, and helps us know the price and benefit of original thinking. The question: "Do you want to be or do?" is something everyone should ask themselves in their careers. Put another way: do you want to have a fancy title and status or do you want to accomplish something worthwhile?
Should be required reading for anyone in the military from sergeant on up, and I would also add the whole Department of Defense.
A brilliant man, a great hagiography. .......2007-04-10
A true innovator and truth-teller. I greatly enjoyed this this book. I think everyone in the military (and Pentagon staffers and anyone in Congress voting on war appropriations [i.e. everyone in Congress]) should be required to read this book.
However: I'm no military theorist, but I thought Coram left out much of the meat in discussing Patterns of Conflict and 4G Warfare. Luckily, we can use the citations he lists as Boyd's influences (Guderian, Lawrence, Moltke, Rommel, etc.) to walk the same path that Boyd did. I'm anxious to read "Mind of War" by Hammond and the rest of the writings by the "disciples".
Further, Coram treats Boyd a bit too much like a super-human being ... but after another reading, his humanity ultimately comes through. I'd suggest a re-read to get a feeling of both the man and his thoughts.
All in all ... excellent and much needed.
Book Description
John Boyd was the greatest fighter pilot in American history. From the proving ground of the Korean War, he went on to win renown as the instructor who defeated-in less than forty seconds-every pilot who took him on. But what made Boyd a man for the ages was what happened after he left the cockpit. Boyd made a career of challenging the intractable Pentagon bureaucracy, making enemies and a few devoted disciples who would become known as "The Acolytes." Boyd transformed the way military aircraft-in particular the F-15 and F-16-were designed with his revolutionary "Energy-Maneuverability Theory," fighting the Air Force's entrenched ideas every step of the way. He then dedicated lonely years to a radical theory of conflict that at the time was mostly ignored, but now is acclaimed as the most influential thinking about conflict since Sun Tzu. A man of daring, ferocious passion, and remarkable stubbornness, John Boyd was that most American of heroes-a rebel who cared not for his reputation or fortune, but for his country. And in BOYD, Robert Coram finally tells his incredible story. Until now, John Boyd has been the great secret hero of the American military. No longer.
Customer Reviews:
Still waiting for decent Boyd bio.......2007-03-02
I'm not sure how Robert Coram's book justified all the gushing praise printed on its cover and front matter. It's a serviceable biography if one wants to learn about John Boyd's relationship with his mother but don't expect to learn a lot about his theories: potentially Boyd's "real" impact on the US military.
The reader will learn that Boyd was a rebel, a potty mouth, he flipped the bird to superior officers, evidently enjoyed prodigious Schadenfreude when a competitor failed, etc. Anecdotes demonstrating these character flaws of Boyd's come at the reader ad nauseam. If I had a dime for every time Coram writes words to the effect that "Boyd's behavior would have ended the career of a lesser officer" I'd be a wealthy man. Boyd basically banged his head against a concrete wall most of his career. However, I wonder how much, if at all, Boyd's legacy survived the ten years since his death (he died in March, 1997, I'm writing this in March, 2007).
Boyd demonstrated that as an old colonel once told me "Those who think also serve." His first theories concerned air-to-air combat as the world's air forces transitioned to jet planes and evidently were successfully implemented by the USAF late in the Vietnam War. Due largely to Boyd's self-destructive tendencies he was not allowed to fly fighters during that conflict. In the 1970s-80s he kept thinking while serving, among other places, at the Pentagon. Here his main mission in life seemed to be the vain attempt to keep the F-15s and F-16s "pure fighters" against the efforts of USAF generals to load them down with avionics and ordnance.
I first became aware of Boyd in the early `80s when a friend turned me on to the Boyd- or OODA Loop. Clearly this concept had universal applicability to just about any military situation plus those in the political, commercial, diplomatic, etc. realms as well. From then on I kept my eyes open for anything about Boyd (hence my initial high-hopes for Coram's book when I saw it reviewed in "Air & Space" magazine) but in the pre-internet age that was difficult. Ten years later I stumbled across "A Discourse on Winning and Losing" at the Ft. Leavenworth library. Its simplicity and elegance were obvious. Unfortunately, the other 99% of the US military was as tradition-bound (and I don't mean that in a good way) and entrenched as those USAF fighter generals, Boyd's thinking didn't fit into American doctrine so found few adherents.
Regrettably, the reader of Coram's book will learn little about these theories. As a journalist he's competent to discuss Boyd the teen-age life guard or USAF workaholic but only knows the very basics about the military (a couple of airplane rides notwithstanding) so Coram has to rely on others to tell him about Boyd's philosophy and here he falls way short. Therefore, after a few paragraphs or a couple of pages superficially describing the OODA Loop, etc. it's back to anecdotes concerning Boyd the curmudgeon telling yet another general to pound sand.
Coram's book is a bibliography only in the most limited sense. I'd wager 99% of his readership are left wondering "OK, so this guy Boyd made full colonel and was a great thinker but his personality and modus operandi were so strident and off-putting that his potentially great message was squandered due to his personal baggage. Therefore where's his greatness in this?"
Then there's the remaining 1% of us who are still waiting for a serious treatment of Boyd's thinking that would fulfill the implied promise of Coram's subtitle and explain how Boyd "changed the art of war." I have little doubt Boyd contributed to the military arts and sciences in exactly this manner but one's not going to learn that from the admiring Coram.
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.......2006-06-26
An excellent read. As a former Naval aviator and now an employe for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics where the F-16 is built, I can attest to Boyd's drive to build the best lightwight fighter in the world. He was certainly correct in his methodolgy to build somethng that the rest of the world did not have. Sales prove that. But the information in the behind the scenes tactics that Boyd employed are exceptional reading. Highly recommended - everyone that I have suggested that they read this book has agreed
BOYD: An overworked 'David vs. Goliath' story that misses the mark........2005-12-13
Overall, this book has more merit as the basis for someone interested in producing a 'Made for T.V. movie', then it does for anyone seriously interested in COL Boyd's career and his contribution to the art or war.
In 'BOYD', Coram attempts to portray COL Boyd's career (1952-1975) as a single faceted, 'fighter pilot's crusade' against the inept and corupt Defense bureaucracy.
This portrayal ignores the significant influence that 'Nuclear Brinkmanship' had on defense policy and military thinking at the time of the Cold War (1947-1991) and results in a substantially biased and diminished work that all too often relies upon innuendo, conjecture and exagerations in order to preserve the author's story line over any form of historical objectivity.
During the Cold War, the major threat and focus of the senior military and civilian leadership of this country was on the 'nuclear triad' (i.e. Strategic Bombers, ICBMs & Nuke Subs), not on tactical fighter combat. Against this backdrop, Coram's antithesis, "Bigger-Higher-Faster-Farther" while making for a very poor fighter, does describe the performance parameters that could lead to an exceptional 'bomber interceptor', that would address one of these three threats to our national security. A part of the story that Coram gives no attention too and a fine example of the lack of objectivity that permeates this book.
Finally, two of COL Boyd's most important contributions to the art of war, 'The OODA Loop' and 'Destruction and Creation' (the former of which had a significant influence on the development of the Land Warfare Doctrine that defeated Iraq twice in the last two decades), only get cursory coverage in this book at best.
As important as Coram makes Boyd's E-M theory (i.e. a technical measurement of aircraft performance) out to be , its influence and impact on aerial warfare and the art of war is mostly technical, of which the benefits it will provide, can only be temporary at best.
Even now, technical improvements in 'air to air' and 'missile engagement' technology (i.e. Radar, AIM-7s, AIM-9s and even pilotless aircraft,...etc.) are such that it is possible to forsee the day when these advances will succeed in eliminating most, if not all of the area of the fighter engagement envelope that E-M was created to address.
When that happens, Robert Coram's book which is mainly aimed at the controversial aspect of COL Boyd's E-M contribution, will have missed the mark of how it could have told the story about "The 'Man' That Did Change the Art of War".
A Must Read For All Military Officers!.......2005-06-26
This is easily one of the most impactful books I have ever read on military theory. Boyd and the work of his acolytes should be on the Chief of Staff's reading list. I am also embarrassed at the behavior of senior officers during Boyd's time. It's revolting. There are still clearly military politicians and military warriors.
This book and the work of others who have followed Boyd will be required reading for all of my officers.
He's Right.......2004-09-26
I have just, a few minutes ago, finished a book called "BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War", by Robert Coram.
It is truly one of the most amazing books I've ever read. And it applies to everything I am working on in my business now. It is about fighting a war by thinking way, way outside the dots. Though I related to this book because I, like Col. Boyd, am an Air Force guy, it was the Marines who best adapted his philosophy of war. It was because Marines are by their nature purely tactical, yet highly disciplined and adaptive.
Having worked in the Pentagon, having seen the way the military worked (or didn't), having been at the top of big business and seen the very beginnings of fantastic small business success - this book is amazing and applies to them all. You feel from reading it that you're now in on some secret.
He was truly a hero, one who made so any generals mad that he and virtually everyone who ever believed in him were punished severely, their careers ruined, their lives changed for the worse, their beliefs labeled heretical. And yet in the end, they turned out to be right not, in the Pentagon or most of big business, that matters. When the soldiers die because of useless equipment it is never the fault of those in power at the time, but of those years before.
Anyway, if Lean Manufacturing is compared to his theories and Tom Peters gives him credit for his original "Thriving on Chaos" radical management theory book, there's something to this guy, something we all could apply right now, this day, this minute to flanking the enemy and to thinking, once and for all, about absolutely nothing else day and night.
This was one of those books where, when I turned the page and realized the end was coming, I simply could not breath.
Average customer rating:
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Boyd : The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
Robert Coram
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0759547386 |
Amazon
When telecommunications companies merge, the news is immediately analyzed by the media and government agencies. Owners of the companies' stock immediately vote on the wisdom of the move by buying or selling. But when criminal organizations merge and make their operations global, it takes years for law enforcement to figure out what happened, who was involved, and what the implications are. Ever since Italian-American mobster Lucky Luciano linked Mafia families in Sicily and the U.S., crime cartels have been finding ways to expand their operations across national borders, making those countries' policemen play an extended game of catch-up. Jeffrey Robinson is an authority on international crime, especially money laundering, and his book The Merger sometimes reads like a crime novel. It seems strange to imagine that Mexican drug traffickers would be working closely with Thai postal workers; that a billion dollars a month in drug money would be laundered from Russian gangs through Greek Cypriots and then moved on to respectable financial centers such as London and New York; that Colombian drug cartels would get kerosene--an important ingredient for making cocaine--from Turkmenistan by way of Argentina; that Eastern European criminals would claim to be Jewish so they could get Israeli passports and launder money in the Holy Land. And that's just for-profit criminality--politically and religiously motivated crime has long been international and is rapidly branching out into cyberterrorism.
Robinson concludes with a note that international drug trafficking is growing so fast it now represents 2 percent of the world's economy. However, while criminal organizations think globally, Robinson writes, most law enforcement is set up to act locally. Nations can't decide how to deal with the problem because none wants to be the first to sacrifice national sovereignty for the greater purpose of slowing crime. If this book doesn't keep you up at night, or at least raise some serious goose flesh, you're made of pretty stern stuff. --Lou Schuler
Book Description
A shocking, true account of a global crime network of unimaginable proportions, in which multinational criminals make alliances much like legitimate businesses, The Merger lays bare the criminal fraternity's new world order. International crime expert and best-selling author Jeffrey Robinson gives details of their subterranean activities-previously known only to international law enforcement insiders-to make this network public, tracing an intricate web of connections between such infamous organized crime rings as the Sicilian Mafiosi, the Camorra from Naples, the Ndrangheta from Calabria, the Chinese Triads, the Russian, Hungarian, and Czech Republic "maffiyas," and organized crime groups from Columbia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Vietnam-to name just a few.
Through his meticulous research, Jeffrey Robinson developed contacts in police organizations all over the world and has pinpointed the factors that have led to the emergence of these worldwide crime cartels. Written with a keen sense of anecdote and an authoritative command of the facts, The Merger is a tautly-paced tale that both educates and entertains.
"Robinson is highly readable and entertaining...[he] will leave readers wondering just what we can do about the situation, which is what he intends all along." (Robert D. Paar, The Boston Globe)
"The Merger crushes all crime novels before because it's written with unflinching truth and conviction." (Vibe Magazine)
Customer Reviews:
Grab-bag of crime stories lacks focus.......2006-09-03
An unstructured sampler of crime anecdotes does not add up to a well-developed book-length thesis.
I bought this book partly due to the reviews here on Amazon, but I was a bit disappointed. By the time I'd got halfway through, it was clear that Robinson has presented the idea of a "merger" of transnational organized crime as a catch-all category for his large supply of stories about gangsters operating in various countries.
Robinson presents many short anecdotes, laced with speculative connections to fill in the many gaps in the record of known fact. Moving from country to country, he gives thumbnail accounts of the careers of various criminals, from their obscure origins to their final capture by the beleaguered law-enforcement agencies around the world. I found the stories too short to get a good feel for each of the players, and so it became a blizzard of names for me.
What this book is not is a systematic account of the rise of transnational crime and how it operates. Rather, it sketches many different criminal operations and careers and leaves the reader to surmise how they add up to a transnational crime "system." Preoccupied with details and specifics, Robinson does not really help the reader by drawing principles and themes from the material.
I also found that Robinson's sarcastic writing style detracted from the authority of the book.
Robinson clearly has a large database of crime knowledge, and many contacts in the law-enforcement world. But he is a "short snippet" kind of writer, and the book, for me, did not feel like a single unified whole.
A complex subject presented with the drama of a novel.......2006-03-15
An outstanding look at modern international crime. Robinson has all the details and facts but puts them together in a compelling fashion that makes this book as much a page-turner as any crime novel. He has a knack for taking a complex subject and making it very clear without dumbing it down. I highly recommend this book, especially if you want to know why the "war on drugs" is failing miserably.
good insights into the mire.......2005-10-01
The Cali cartel, whose profits dwarf those of America's largest companies, have a simple mode of operating. All potential partners fill in a simple form listing the names and addresses of all their living relatives so these urbane men know whom to knock off, if they are double-crossed.
Not that the Colombian cocaine cartels are the world's only baddies. The Mohawk Warriors smuggle $1 bn worth of contraband across the American Canadian frontier every year. And, in today's age of globalized mergers, they work with all comers, from the Cali cartel and Chinese snakeheads to the Russian gangsters, who dominate this book.
Former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin is quoted as saying that "Russia is the biggest Mafia state in the world". It is certainly the most dangerous. Although Moscow, from 1991 to 1999, has witnessed thousands of contract killings, no one has ever been successfully prosecuted for any of them.
And these gangsters are headed our way in big numbers. And these Russians have some interesting friends. Marc Rich, recently pardoned by Bill Clinton, is mentioned in the book, for doing deals with the Russians and trading in conflict diamonds with the Liberians. Robinson claims that Grigory Loutchansky also donated to Clinton's coffers; he is allegedly the world's most important dealer in black-market nuclear materials. He was considered important enough to be the subject of a 1995 eleven-nation, two-day conference hosted by Interpol. Sergei Mikhailov, who has accumulated a staggering array of passports, including a diplomatic passport for Costa Rica, is probably worth another conference.
So too is the damage these people cause at all levels of society. As well as shaking down American based Russian hockey and basketball players, peddling guns, girls and gambling and putting contracts out on over zealous FBI agents, Robinson contends that Russia's gangsters are also undermining sovereign nations like Israel.
Israel's Law of Return has allowed thousands of Russian gangsters, both Jewish and non Jewish, to establish themselves in Israel. Because Israel does not extradite its citizens, it is a perfect hiding hole for these ruthless racketeers, who have a staggering war chest of $4 billion to buy political influence there.
If Robinson is to believed, the Russian mafia more or less control both the Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus. They also seem to be well entrenched in London, New York, Geneva, Vienna and the world's other major financial centers. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, struggle to catch even the small fry.
Other countries, the Caribbean ones in particular, long ago sold their souls to the international criminals, who use them to launder their billions. Still, even Dutch controlled Aruba, the world's first mafia state, never went quite as far as the Seychelles, which offered internationally recognized diplomatic passports, plus guaranteed immunity on the island from any form of extradition requested by any other nation, for a mere $10 million. There were plenty of takers, until the tiny nation was forced to withdraw its generous offer of diplomatic immunity to the world's most ruthless criminals.
Not that the Seychelles matter much. The Russian criminal gangs, the Colombians, the Mohawks and the rest of them are uniting in their drive to maximize their global profits no matter what the social cost. And, in today's globalized age, the West contributes to their excesses by buying their contraband, renting out their sex slaves and gambling in their shady casinos. And all their ill-gotten profits are used to traffic more human cargo and move more tons of heroin across our porous borders.
And then there are the nuclear bomb peddlers, another legacy of the Soviet Union's collapse. There is, as Robinson tells us, enough unaccounted-for fissile material that once belonged to the Soviet armed forces to turn Europe and the United States into a moonscape. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and similar people have shown that there is a demand for this material.
Until we can dampen that demand, we must be prepared to live with the dismal consequences these suppliers of human misery beget. Not, by any stretch, a pleasant thought, but a realistic one nonetheless.
Biased, outdated, inaccurate, and full of grammatical errors.......2004-11-19
This book is a big disappointment. Buy this book and you will regret it. First, the writer is biased. Second, the book is outdated. Third, there are MANY things that are inaccurate (short of fiction). Also the book is full of grammatical errors.
[...] Whatever privileges they enjoy, they EARNED them through decades of suffering.
Comprehensive Review of Organized Crime.......2004-07-10
`The Merger' is the most comprehensive book on international crime.
The theme is how various gangs and mafias from different nations are cooperating versus competing. This game of cooperation enables each criminal organization to focus on a core competency to increase efficiency. These gangs are no longer disorganized but operate in ways similar to corporations, and are often more knowledgeable & advanced than the 'good guys'.
The other main focus of this book is how these same organizations are using the limitations of police jurisdiction to their advantage.
One way they utilize jurisdiction to their advantage is by meeting in one country, such as Vienna, Austria. There the Russians, Sicilians, Italians, and other gangs stage conferences discussing expansion. They intentionally commit no crime in Austria. Since no crime is committed the police cannot arrest them. They go there as businessmen and behave themselves.
Other means of using jurisdictions to their advantage is to facilitate money laundering. They register multiple shell companies in countries with strict banking privacy laws such as Panama & the Cayman Islands.
They also use Indian reservations to move drugs, contraband alcohol & cigarettes amongst other things. These Indian reservations are constantly seeking more territory supposedly to protect their land, when in truth it usually involves a while man pulling strings as to gain more territory to smuggle drugs. They then wash the proceeds through casinos, and finally launder the money in some offshore banks.
Russians extorting other Russians, Nigerians scamming Europeans & North Americans, it's all covered in this book. Learn about how one organization attempted to buy an old military submarine to smuggle drugs into the USA, meanwhile they were doing this while under surveillance.
This is very well researched & is probably the best book on the market in its category.
Book Description
By studying chiefdoms—kin-based societies in which a person’s place in a kinship system determines his or her social status and political position—this book addresses several fundamental questions concerning the nature of political power and the evolution of sociopolitical complexity. In a chiefdom, the highest-status male (first son by the first wife) holds both authority and special access to economic, military, and ideological power, and others derive privilege from their positions in the chiefly hierarchy.
A chiefdom is also a regional polity with institutional governance and some social stratification organizing a population of a few thousand to tens of thousands of people. The author argues that the fundamental dynamics of chiefdoms are essentially the same as those of states, and that the origin of states is to be understood in the emergence and development of chiefdoms. The history of chiefdoms documents the evolutionary trajectories that resulted, in some situations, in the institutionalization of broad-scale, politically centralized societies and, in others, in highly fragmented and unstable regions of competitive polities. Understanding the dynamics of chiefly society, the author asserts, offers an essential view into the historical background of the modern world.
Three cases on which the author has conducted extensive field research are used to develop the book’s arguments—Denmark during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages (2300-1300 b.c.), the high Andes of Peru from the early chiefdoms through the Inka conquest (a.d. 500-1534), and Hawaii from early in its settlement to its incorporation in the world economy (a.d. 800-1824). Rather than deal with each case separately, the author presents an integrated discussion around the different power sources. After summarizing the cultural history of the three societies over a thousand years, he considers the sources of chiefly power and how these sources were linked together. The ultimate aim of the book is to determine how chiefs came to power and the implications that contrasting paths to power had for the evolutionary trajectories of societies. It attributes particular importance to the way different power bases were bound together and grounded in the political economy.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding book.......2000-10-12
This is an excellent treatment of a key step in the evolution of human cultures - the initial institutionalization of political power in chiefdoms. It is both far more sophisticated than most prior studies of cultural evolution, and far more interesting to read. The writing style is elegant and easy to follow. Highly recommended for anyone interested in comparative politics, cultural evolution, archaeology, and social theory.
Book Description
One man obsessed with the Ecuadorian jungle and desperate to save it and its people chronicles the struggle of the Cofan people against Big Oil.
Customer Reviews:
vivid, fascinating, heartbreaking and hopeful.......2002-05-27
This book is at once an adventure story, a profile of a fascinating individual, a heartbreaking account of one of the greatest environmental crimes taking place in the world today (the destruction by oil companies of one of the world's richest ecosystems, Ecuador and Colombia containing the greatest biodiversity of the entire Amazon Basin) and a David-and-Goliath story of a tiny Amazonian tribe, the Cofan, battling for survival against multinational corporations. As all of those things, it bears comparison with Joe Kane's "Savages," but the Cofan have already dealt with much more destruction than have the Waorani, and this book spends more time on first-hand descriptions of both the riches of the Ecuadorian rain forest and the consequences of oil exploration. (I would recommend this book not only to activists who are trying to save the Amazon, but also to those who are working to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil exploitation, to explode to smithereens the notion that oil exploitation would not devastate the ecology there.)
The editorial reviews here cover just about everything else I would say about this book, so I won't repeat their comments, just direct the reader to them.
...One factual error this book makes repeatedly that I would like to correct: although they speak the same language as the Indians of the Andean highlands, and although they expanded northward into Cofan territory relatively recently, the Amazonian Quichua are NOT migrants from the highlands and NOT newcomers to the rainforest. They are true Amazonian people, distinct syncretic cultures created from the remnants of various destroyed Amazonian tribes who blended together and adopted their lingua franca (Quichua) as their first language. Though the Amazonian Quichua have been influenced (=weakened) by missionaries for much longer than the Cofan, their roots in the rainforest are every bit as deep.
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Certain to Win
The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security
American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day
A Swift, Elusive Sword: What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?
Warfighting
