5 comments about Angel's Wing: A Year in the Skies of Vietnam.

1. Do you have any heroes? These days, it seems no one has any heroes any more. We are always so quick to judge, so at ease with tearing apart every action and every moment of another's life that we just refuse to admire anyone any more. I honestly think this is true of most people, but not me. I have plenty of heroes. My 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Donald Duncan, a retired Vietnam veteran by the name of John Power from my hometown and Joe Finch, the author of this book, are just three of them.
   I have said before and I truly do believe that the helicopter pilots of the Vietnam War either had nerves of steel or no nerves at all! How they could fly for hours at a time, when in any peace time situation they would have been grounded, I will never be able to fathom. Sure, they were a bit dare-devilish but I think it was a survival skill. In order to do unordinary things, you have to believe you can! Honestly, I think the reason most of those men climbed right back in that pilot seat time and time again sometimes flying on pure adrenalin was not their own ego at all, but for the countless lives they tried to save. I would imagine many soldiers have referred to these pilots and their ships as angels, hence the name of this book, but considering what these pilots did, I would think the angels were the ones flying next to the helicopter.
   This small book can easily be read in a long afternoon and is worth the read. It is lighthearted at times, speaking to the antics of a young pilot trying to make his way in the world and trying to survive a place and time few of us can even imagine, even with his help. His candor and plain English makes it possible for any reader to understand the tools and techniques he describes. The book is in no way graphic and yet as with other fine authors I have reviewed, it is graphic all the same. Not in its nature, but in the nature of the beast he describes. I would imagine he struggled with words to describe certain passages in the book that would explain but not horrify the reader. I don't really think that is possible. His words are far from graphic, but the time in his life that he describes is......
   This is a fine book and Joe Finch is a fine human being. He says in his book that he served his country and came home undamaged. He married, raised a family and went on to a very productive life. I guess he says this to underscore that not all soldiers develop Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Not every man or woman that came home from war became addicted to drugs or alcohol or became homeless. Many soldiers came home to function as if nothing ever happened to them at all.In his case, it sounds as if that is true. However, I will say this, something did happen to Joe Finch and two million or so other soldiers who served. I know a little something about our Joe Finch and to the contrary of his ascertion, he has been deeply affected by his service in Vietnam. Of course he has. He has a kind heart not a hardened heart of one who does not feel. He is part of a group of men and women who visit wounded soldiers at their bedside, he writes letters and sends care packages to those deployed overseas and I would venture to say that he knows the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial like the back of his heart. Of course he was affected by his service to our country, and so was I, and in no small way it is because of men like him that I am so honored to write reviews of books like this. Read this book and when you have finished, take a moment and write the author. Will you tell him that you admire him as much as I do? Will you tell him that you appreciate his sacrifices? You should.



2. I received a copy of Joes book from my daughter. My tour in Vietnam basicly overlaped Finch's. I was tthe Company Commander of a 25th Infantry Div Infanrty Company and was a frequent passanger and satisfied customers of the "Little Bears" services. Finch accuratly portrays the chopper pilot's role in Vietnam. From my prespective God bless the pilots they not only hauled us into trouble they always came back and got us out of it.



3. It was a pleasure reading Joe Finch's memoir. It was a great anthem by one who spent those years in the trenches. I was one who was fortunate to have avoided Southeast Asia in the 60's, but was a guy probably not much different than this boy who emerged an accomplished soldier and man.
   
   Angel's Wing... is a good read. You will zoom through it feeling as though you shared a substantive experience with Joe Finch.



4. I do not believe that anyone who buys this book will feel cheated. It's an interesting perspective of a helicopter pilot's life and duties in Vietnam. To Finch's credit he didn't write this as a query letter hoping to attract a Hollywood producer. Frankly, I do not know why this book was mached up with my book on my page, this is a really good book.



5. I bought this book because I served in 1967 with a 1st Aviation Brigade unit that flew in basically the same AO, but usually in support of the 1st Infantry Division. I wanted to see what he said about areas I knew.
   
   Unlike many accounts that are chronological in nature, this one covers different aspects of a helicopter pilot and A/Cs responsibilities and experiences, without an attempt to lay them out in strict chronological order. I think you'll find this book highly readable and informative by a writer who is quite self-effacing about a very action-packed tour accompanied by some significant decorations (DFC and Silver Star) mentioned only at the very close of the book. Along the way you'll learn a lot about how a helicopter is flown and why.
   
   This book will sneak up on you due to the author's quiet style.

5 comments about My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy.

1. Although reviewers are correct in stating that this "autobiography" reveals very little about the author, it should be said that a Philby "expert", who spent a week in Moscow interviewing Philby for the Sunday Times, admitted that even he was not sure who the infamous spy really was. Perhaps Philby himself was doubtful. Philby remains, in essence, a chameleon throughout the book, and his "autobiography" fails to satisfy those who want the answers to two questions: why and how Philby managed to betray his country and bring down an entire intelligence service. There are great gaps in this book. It entirely skips over Philby's recruitment by Soviet agents at Cambridge, and although it begins with an exciting episode in Spain, it describes almost nothing about Philby's "other" work. In fact, there is so little mention of Philby's work as a double agent, that I began to forget that this man, while making great inroads in Turkey and Spain for his service, was betraying it at the very same instance. It is difficult to believe that Philby was a double agent when he shows obvious pleasure in the success of his plans, even when they work against the very people he is supposedly loyal to: the Soviets. At least one thing may be garnered from this autobiography: that Philby was not, as Nigel West pointed out, an "ideologue", but rather a theorist, and a manipulator, who was willing to sacrifice nearly everything to play his complex games of espionage.
   
   If, however, you are content to read about the endless political manoeuvring and intriguing inherent in the British intelligence service, along with its restructuring and development during WW2 and post-war years, then this is the book for you. Just don't expect any gripping accounts of Philby's deception. This isn't what Philby's book is about: rather, it's an insider's look into the British intelligence service, with the gloves off.
   
   "My Silent War" is, however, well-written, and is certainly not a piece of Communist propaganda, although the reader would do well to remember that the author's prejudice falls heavily on the side of that particular ideology, and therefore his account of several historical figures and events is rather suspect. Philby's arrogance is not altogether off-putting, and in some passages, he can be quite charming, even funny. Still, it is hardly a satisfying autobiography.
   
   *I would instead recommend John Le Carre's novel, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", for those looking for a true tale of espionage. Though Le Carre's book is fictional, it is based on the Philby case, and shows the true devestation a "mole" can cause. Le Carre himself was a member of the SIS, and was even an acquaintance of Philby's, and therefore his novel is extremely true to life and makes for fascinating reading.



2. Page after page and line after line, this book is amazing in its power to frustrate even the most gawky-eyed initiate in the world of espionage-reading! Philby says pretty much nothing that will add to our knowledge of his ways and mechanics of operation. He is a fine writer, without doubt, but good writing befreft of content? He does not wax expansive on his faith - communism; he does not explain the hows of his first contact with the KGB; he does not even offer a strand of information on his life in Moscow, his marriage, his routine... aww, come on ...
   
   Pick it up and read it one three-hour layover at the airport... then place it in your library so that you have a book (for the record) that was written by THE spy who outdid 'em all!



3. Treason tends to get rather an unflattering press, however successful and elegant-minded the traitor. The basic question of loyalty goes back, I guess, to time immemorial. Moral philosophers have flailed at it incessantly, all to no purpose whatsoever in my own view. The issue comes down to this - each and every one of us recognises different, and often conflicting, loyalties. Socrates let himself be framed in court on a nonsensical charge and accepted the death penalty in the name of upholding the Law. More fool Socrates, I can only reflect, for all my general enthusiasm for the Rule of Law. Under what circumstances would any of us denounce others for what we would agree was wrongdoing? That would vary, I guess, but I never heard of anyone whose answer was `under any and all circumstances'. In particular, where national laws are involved, they are all in the last resort, as Britain's eminent late Lord Chancellor Quintin Hogg Lord Hailsham observed, `a con'. Nations are not some be-all nor yet any end-all unless we decide for ourselves that they shall be so.
   
   The case of Philby is one where I find the opinions of the Great and the Good more enlightening and useful than I usually find them. Graham Greene goes straight to the main point - Philby has a chilling and unshakable certainty in his adopted communist faith. He offers no apologia for Stalin's atrocities, he just presents the faith to himself as more important and lasting; and that, as Greene says, is what Catholics have done for centuries. What did Philby have against his native land? Frankly, little or nothing that I can see. He is the English of the English. He despises Baldwin and Chamberlain, but so did many without giving their main loyalty to the Soviet Union as Philby did. John le Carre is too outraged to talk sense or fact (?Philby had `no women'? Apart from his being married four times, just read Muggeridge on Philby's proclivities as a womaniser. ?Philby had `no faith'? Well done Philby, if I understand that). Le Carre acknowledges some primacy of patriotism, whereas Greene does not. Nigel West has a different slant, and one that I find interesting. Philby, says West, was fundamentally an ego-tripper, embracing communism by way of exercising his superiority complex. That could be right, but I wouldn't bet much on it.
   
   I simply cannot assess the `sincerity' of Philby's communist convictions: indeed I would not claim to know what I mean by that term. What I do say is that I find the personality put across in Philby's way of expressing himself to be enormously attractive and engaging. In another context, this might be the absolute exemplar of the English public-school product - articulate, elegant, witty, showing a sense of proportion and a delightful sense of the ridiculous. About his private life there is absolutely nothing in this book. He was widowed on one occasion, for all you could tell from this narrative - I found this fact out from the brief curriculum vitae at the back - and I can only wonder what it can have been like to live with a man living this kind of double life, indeed how he slept at all, let alone with someone else. The story-line is as good as Greene says it is - completely riveting and better than most spy novels (Mr le Carre please note). He got away with it all for 11 years after his elite Cambridge lefty friends from the 30's Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess fled to Russia on being unmasked as spies, and they never brought him to trial because he had gone to Moscow via Beirut when the rumbling suspicions were finally confirmed, never to leave.
   
   Philby never really made the headlines in the way Burgess and Maclean did, partly because their discovery was at the height of the early cold war and the baleful era of Joseph McCarthy; partly because they were both homosexual, Maclean of the closet variety, Burgess a complete roarer. After their disappearance I still recall the cartoon by Bud Neil in the Glasgow Evening Times. Two workmen in flat caps were emerging from a manhole in the street, and one of Bud Neil's shapeless women says to another `It widnae be them?' Distance lends enchantment to the view, but Philby has brought a lot of the enchantment back. Eleu loro.



4. Whereas, Philby is extremely circumspect in his story, and reveals almost no details of his traitorous actions, this short text, fully describes the chaos of the early British secret service. This book is almost written tongue-in-cheek, as though Philby is poking fun at his former colleagues. The book borders on catty. He describes some of the people he betrayed with strange affection, and others with old-style British disdain.
   
   What is revealed, and quite lucidly, is the utter chaos of the formation of the British Secret Service in the early years of WWII. He makes it clear how easy it was to manipulate the Service on behalf of his Soviet handlers. His rise to head of the Soviet counter-intelligence group was facilitated by the petty rivalries within the various divisions, each seeking its own funding and personnel.
   
   As his old school education, Cambridge education, and clear articulation reveal, he was moved forward mostly because of his ability to write briefs clearly in a world of petty bureaurocrats who relied on men who were either frankly inept or more concerned with politics than solving problems.
   
   As this book is a quick read (as long as you skip quickly over the various explanations of divisional structures), it is worth a look. I had this book sitting on my shelf for years, but decided to read it after watching "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy". Le Carre has taken much of the Philby betrayal and created his superb spy thriller from actual events of the day.
   
   One interesting footnote, is that Grahame Green remained friends with Philby until his death. Green visited Philby after he removed to Moscow before being arrested.



5. I just love his humour, the book is straightforward, without any political bull.... The guy only once and very shortly explains his motivation behind "converting" and then goes on to tell it all (or sort of). In this business it is quite impossible to tell it all of course.
   As a homo sovieticus myself, I was quite impressed about the information in this book. I would have betted for more censorship, after all it was written in Soviet Union!

5 comments about Helmet for My Pillow.

1. Leckie's book is top notch. He weaves into the narrative a profound
   insight into the spiritual side of warfare. It's not a religious
   book in any sense of the word, but you will begin to understand what
   goes on inside a man's soul as he faces the terrible rigors of
   brutal combat. He describes living conditions in the jungles of
   Guadalcanal and on the horrible wasteland that was Peleliu. His
   narrative waxes eloquent as he tells the story of young Marines ripped
   from the innocents of boyhood to the reality of Warriordom. You will
   feel what he must have felt, surrounded by the unspeakable misery of
   Jungle warfare against a bitter enemy. The book is unique in style and
   difficult to put down. Leckie brings to life a period of our history
   we all need to focus more attention on. Without the sacrifice of these
   fine young men human liberty would be vanished from the face of the
   earth. May their memory forever be enshrined in the pages of this
   book.



2. Simply put, this is a forgotten classic that is beautifully written and is hands down the best WWII memoir out of the over 100 I have read. Do yourself a favor and get this book now since it was out of print for a long time and won't be in print for much longer.



3. Leckie's talent as a writer is surpassed only by the visceral drama of his story. His story is riveting as he takes the reader from boot through his participation in the 1st Marine Division's battles in the Pacific through Peleliu. He literally lived out of his ruck, never seeing his sea bag, for over two years. Leckie is a craftsman, and entertains too with his tales of debauchery in Australia, tempered with the vocabulary of an earlier, more decorous America. He also warns, "Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are only fit for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it."

   The thoughtful military reader will be interested in the differences between today's warrior culture and that of half a century ago. Leckie's story is purely from his vantage point, and a great read in it's own right, but don't expect perspective or analysis. Anyone interested in Leckie's story would probably also enjoy With the Old Breed by Sledge. Sledge was also at Peleliu and went on to Okinawa with the 1st Marine Division. I found Sledge's story more gripping, visceral and grim, ranking with The Forgotten Soldier by Sajer as some of the best chronicling of war.




4. Robert Leckie gives a gripping first person narrative in which he seemingly pulls no punches about life in the mud and among the flawed but heroic men of the First Marine Division. He recounts hardship, cameraderie, and combat in an engaging, almost lyrical, fashion. I came away from "Helmet" with a renewed respect for the sacrifice of the Greatest Generation. Uncommon valor was truly a common virtue. Leckie's story will make any 18 year old want to march down to the recruiting station and sign up.

   Leckie's story dovetails quite nicely with another memoir, "With the Old Breed at Peliliu and Okinawa," the account of another First Division rifleman, E.B. Sledge. The First Marine Division's WWII career began in the jungles of Guadalcanal, went through New Britain and on to Peliliu and ended at Okinawa. Leckie was in at the beginning, but his combat career ended when he was wounded in the Hell of Peliliu. Sledge's combat career began at Peliliu and ended on Okinawa. Together the two give you an enlisted man's eye view of all the First Division's campaigns.

   Sledge doesn't turn a phrase as well as Leckie, but his description of combat will make your blood run cold in a way that "Helmet" does not. Any 18 year old reading "Old Breed" will want to tear up his enlistment papers. It seems odd that Leckie, obviously the more accomplished wordsmith, does not paint as horrific a picture of combat as Sledge. Could it be that Leckie has shied away from revealing the full extent of the hardship of combat? Or could it be that Peliliu and Okinawa served up privation and hardship on a much grander scale than Guadalcanal and New Britain? Read both books and decide for yourself. For all its stark description, "Old Breed" will engender the same kind of respect for the men of the First Division that the reader takes away from "Helmet."




5. An interesting account of three WWII battles; Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu.
   
   Some of the descriptive words used in this book are obscure which makes it a little hard to follow. I assume this is partially a factor of when the book was written.
   
   All WWII historians need to read this book as Mr. Leckie breaks down Marine training as well as the 3 battles in which he was involved. His modesty does hold him back from being too graphic or too generous in his accounts.
   
   Make no mistake, he and his comrades are heroes and went through rigors that are unthinkable in today's warfare.

No comments about The Rough Riders (Dover Books on Americana).

5 comments about Genghis Khan's Greatest General: Subotai the Valiant.

1. When I purchased the book, I had hoped it would be more about the man behind many of the great Khan's successful campaigns. Gabriel provides plenty of insights in an easy-to-read novel about a master military tactician.
   
   I had hoped that the book would contain more information with regards to Subotai's character. What makes him tick? The introduction was good, which provided a history of young Subotai, and I certainly would like to have read more about his development.



2. As a book about Mongol tactics and campaigns it was quite good, as a book about Subotai Bagatur it fell a bit short of my expectations. I have read a few books about Genghis Khan and this one doesn't deviate to far from what I have learned and I give the author some points for the graphs and such detailing mongol tactics, but Gabriel leaves quite a few factual points unattended. At some points he explains events very thoroughly and at other points he gives you educated guesses, which for me was a bit of a downer.
   
   He does deserve credit for trying to undertake a project such as a biography of Subotai, but I am forced to wonder if he just used the title to grab attention, because the main points are not even about Subotai. This book would be much smaller if it were just left to Subotai because there is so much filler that is unrelated, yet still interesting, to the title of the book.
   
   You might be better off picking a different book unless you really want to know what little there is to know about Subotai.



3. Unfortunately little information is available from that era as to Subotai the man. As a subordinate, the scribes of the Royal Court would have naturally spent most of their historical writings (accurate or exaggerated) about the Khans themselves more than their subordinate generals. I believe that the author was fortunate to have scraped together what information that he could for this book by referencing what little material there is out there that cover Subotai the man (and his boyhood, etc., etc.). Of course maybe some more historical novels would be the right answer in that way some novelist's opinion could be used as an accurate measure of "who was Subotai"!
   
   I believe that the author did an exceptional job in outlining the tremendously advanced tactical, operational, and strategical methods that Subotai (along with methods also developed by Genghis as he united the various Mongol tribes into one entity and then organized them). At a minimum, Subotai ranks up there with the greatest military commanders of all times: Alexander, Rommel, Jackson, etc. - but in reality, was so advanced for his time in history and developed to such a degree advancements that would not be seen again for centuries and possessed such an overall record of achievement (conquering 32 nations and winning 65 battles) that one must consider him most probably THE greatest military commander of all time to this point.
   
   With the information prsented in this book - that is so lacking just about anywhere else - I can forgive the fact that the author didn't report on personal historical facts that he had no references to draw from!



4. An interesting, readable and fairly unique book. There are a number of books discuss the Mongol military history, but Gabriel makes point that although Mongol military history is covered in books on that particular subject, it is neglected in general military history, and one of his purposes in writing this book is the urge a rectification of the omission. I don't know of any other books on the Mongols that focus on one of the generals -- generally biographies are strictly about Chinghis Khan and Kublai Khan. This is a great pity: even a book of short biographies of other personalities could add enormously to one's understanding of the period. Gabriel here sticks pretty closely to Subotai military career, except in discussing the beginning and end of his life. Personally, if there is more information, I wish it was included, because the biographies of characters who are poorly documented or less important can be the vehicle for a general exploration of a typical life of that class and era. That of course is a personal opinion, and I don't fault the book on that account. Recommended to people interested in Asian and military history.



5. Purchased for father. He said he read it front to back and for a man that doesn't read a whole lot of books, that probably says something!

5 comments about The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945.

1. I could not put down this book, and read it in two sittings. Wladyslaw Szpilman, the famed pianist and composer, describes his harrowing account of life under Nazi terror. As a Polish Jew, Szpilman was considered by the Nazis to be entirely subhuman, and it is a miracle he survived the persistent and random acts of violence that surrounded him. He was nearly sent to a death camp along with his five family members, and somehow was pulled off the Birkenau-bound train to a grim prospect of survival. The images in this book are harrowing, such as the depiction of the shattered skulls of little girls, victims of the Nazis' "preferred" method of killing children by picking them up by their legs and swinging them into a brick wall. Imagine the horror....Szpilman's account is so matter-of-fact at times that you wonder how he survived. The fact that he did is a testament of human endurance, but also the ways of fate. There were occasions when he survived simply by the luck of the draw in a Godless universe.



2. Szpilman reveals the tragedy of Jewish life in Warsaw under the German occupation from 1939-1946. Szpilman's autobiographical work was first published in postwar Poland in 1946 but then quickly removed from circulation by Polish authorities. An accomplished pianist before the war, Szpilman played for Polish Radio during the siege of Warsaw and later within the Jewish ghetto to provide food for his parents and siblings. With the systematic liquidation of Jewish life in Warsaw and separation from his family, Szpilman's life took a series of surprising twists. As the reader views life in the ghetto through the eyes of a survivor, his escape from the ghetto before the Jewish up-rising and his ultimate survival consistently depended upon a timely combination of luck and sympathetic acquaintances B including a German army officer.
   
   Included with Szpilman's memoirs are excerpts from Captain Wilm Hosenfeld's diaries and Wolf Biermann's own brief commentary. Hosenfeld's equating of National Socialism with Stalinist Communist and Biermann's emphasis on Szpilman's willingness to break with his past detracts from the overall quality of this work. Nevertheless, this work is well written and will retain the reader's attention to the end.



3. One of those amazing stories that makes you realize just how much the human spirit can take, and still survive. And just how inhumane we humans can be towards each other. Once you start reading, you won't be able to put this down.



4. This book is an incredible story of survival. I have seen the movie also. I would recommend both!



5. Polish filmaker Roman Polanski who was born and raised in Poland by Catholic parents, was there to see what it was really like, unlike many others who were never there, but make ignorent anti-Polish judgements. It's funny how those who were actually there, like Wladislaw, tell a completely different story that the Hollywood/Media tells. Wladyslaw told the truth. Read the book, and see the movie. Get this book and movie to your schools and libraries - Please. This story has healing qualities that brings people together, and not apart.

3 comments about Down South: One Tour in Vietnam.

1. This is the single best book I have read yet of the Marine experience in Viet Nam. Hardwick does an outstanding job of communicating the episodes of sheer terror that punctuated the more routine aspects of his tour. Uncommon valor is described as unremarkable, a refreshing change from the current political diatribe.



2. This is a must read for all individuals. For those of us who did not serve in Viet Nam, this book puts you on the front line. Very well written, I couldn't put the book down.



3. I have read a lot of Vietnam war paperbacks. Hardwick did a good job for his first book, and I generally enjoyed the read. However, there are many of these books in the book stores. This is the first one that I have read which takes the point of view of a forward observer for arty. I learned some new perspectives from his point of view. Generally in all these books, America puts its young men (and women) at risk. We need to be careful if these policies are just.
   
   Hardwick came to hate the war. He did some pretty stupid things in the war. One was targeting the farmer with bombs. The farmer and his water buffalo may have been in restricted territory, but that didn't give him the right to drop a bomb on him. Hardwick came to realize the hopelessness of this war. An OK read of the Vietnam War.

2 comments about Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives).

1. I was pleased to see that the redoubtable Ross King (of Brunelleschi's Dome fame) was recruited for this book. For readers unfamiliar with the "Eminent Lives" series, the idea is to pair distinguished authors with interesting subjects, the result being "short biographies perfect for an age short on time."
   
   How very 21st century.
   
   King does an excellent job of putting Niccolo Machiavelli's life and times into perspective. Machiavelli was much more of a man of action than I had realized; he interspersed his peripatetic diplomacy for Florence with an obsession with raising and training a citizen militia. And Machiavelli was hardly the black-hearted villain so often characterized. His greatest character fault may have been obsequiousness, as epitomized by his dedicating The Prince to Lorenzo Medici (a syphilitic lout who apparently never read the book at all.)
   
   If I had any cavil about Ross King's book, it is that The Prince is not analyzed in the kind of detail that I hoped it would be. (One supposes a short biography designed for an age short on time has its limitations.) I intend to now follow the example of rapper Tupac Shakur, who read The Prince while imprisoned in 1995, and subsequently gave himself the moniker "Makaveli." (How much cooler than "Puffy" is that?)
   
   Also recommended: Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives)



2. 
   This is one of several volumes in the HarperCollins Eminent Lives series. Each offers a concise rather than comprehensive, much less definitive biography. However, just as Al Hirschfeld's illustrations of various celebrities capture their defining physical characteristics, the authors of books in this series focus on the defining influences and developments during the lives and careers of their respective subjects. In this instance, Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-1527).
   
   Obviously, this is not a definitive biography nor did Ross King intend it to be. However, for most readers, it provides about all of the information they need to understand the meaning and significance of this excerpt from the final chapter in King's biography: "The key to some of the ambiguities may lie in the nature of the man himself. Machiavelli's numerous undertakings - diplomat, playwright, poet, historian, political theorist, farmer, military engineer, militia captain - make him, like his friend Leonardo, a true Renaissance man. Yet, like Leonardo, who denounced the 'beastly madness' of war while devising ingenious and deadly weapons, Machiavelli is awash in paradoxes and inconsistencies...Probably his greatest contradiction was that he understood better than anyone else in the sixteenth century how to seize and maintain political power - and yet, deprived of power himself in 1512, he spent many long years in the political wilderness, making a series of bungling and fruitless attempts to regain his position."
   
   With remarkable precision, concision, and eloquence, King examines not only Machiavelli's life and career but also the cultural, political, and religious environment in which he was so actively involved more than 500 years ago. The Prince (or The Ruler) is Machiavelli's most famous work but was not published until four years after his death, in 1531, when Pope Clement VII granted that permission to Antonio Blado. It was published together with Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence. The Art of War (1520) was the only one of Machiavelli's works to be published in his lifetime. King notes that The Prince circulated in manuscript and earned for Machiavelli a certain notoriety. "'Everyone hated him because of The Prince,' one commentator observed around the time of Machiavelli's death. 'The good thought him sinful, the wicked thought him even more wicked or more capable than themselves, so that all hated him.' This was no doubt an exaggeration: Machiavelli was far better known as a popular dramatist and controversial state functionary than as the author of a tract on statecraft. Still, in the decades that followed, the hatred did indeed begin to curdle."
   
   King points out that a well-worn edition accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to the Battle of Waterloo and Adolph Hitler kept a copy on his bedside table. Today, many people who have never read The Prince and know little (if anything) about its author do not hesitate to invoke his name -- or at least apply it as an adjective -- to describe or repudiate any political maneuvering they perceive to be devious. However, King asserts, rather than having been uniformly demonized or unfairly misunderstood "as a preacher of the straightforward message of evil," Machiavelli has been "conscripted into service" by adherents of all manner of political causes because his thought is strangely malleable to any number of diametrically opposing ideologies and approaches."
   
   As I hope these brief remarks indicate, I learned a great deal about Machiavelli, a man of "numerous antimonies," that I did not know before. I am grateful to Ross King for that but also for all that I learned about the extraordinarily interesting age in which Machiavelli lived, more than 500 years ago. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that King "brings it to life." No one could. But he does present material with the skills and eloquence of a storyteller...and in seamless combination with the skills of a cultural anthropologist.
   
   Bravo!

5 comments about Sgt. York: His Life, Legend & Legacy : The Remarkable Untold Story of Sergeant Alvin C. York.

1. I'm going to do what the author couldn't seem to do "get to the point" This book was very dry and I hope that Sgt York had a more
   exciting life (other than his war experience) than this book makes it sound. I had a hard time getting through it.



2. After reading his life of Mary Custis Lee, which was quite impressive and turned up many unique insights into a tragically misjudged lady, I sought out other books by Tennessee's own and only John Perry. I found a copy of UNSHAKABLE FAITH, but it had mildewed badly and was nearly unreadable. But faith must have led me to a path of light because on a dark shelf in an East Bay bookstore my hand crept down past a row of Elizabeth Peters books, and landed almost by a miracle on this earlier book by Perry.
   
   I knew very little about Alvin York, except that my grandfather, whose name was Alvin, always blamed the remarkable fame of Sgt York on the popularity of this previous unknown name. He said when he went to school there were thirty-four boys in his graduating class called Alvin. John Perry addresses this amazing renown. His exploits in the Argonne Forest became the stuff of legend, and the Gary Cooper biopic in 1941 muffed the facts a bit to give York more of a country background than actually he had. Many members of his extended family were quite erudite, and my grandfather always used to say that one of York's aunts had written the very first home economics textbook in English, predating Boston's Fannie Farmer by some years.
   
   Perry has a sincere way of writing, and the excitement doesn't let down when York comes back home a hero. You see him doing good works in the name of the Lord and, although many politicians and lawmakers were ever ready and anxious to buy up a piece of his ass, hoping to enlist him into one or another misbegotten crackpot scheme. To his credit York paid them no mind and just continued on his humble way. As with his life of Mary Lee, Perry shows how a good writer concentrates on the facts and lets the legend go its own way, like a small boy cutting the string to a kite and waving it goodbye. The truth is, what becomes a myth is something we have no control over, and Perry acknowledges this with good grace and a wry smile.
   
   Highly recommended not only to Tennesseans and to Christians, but to everyone out there interested in a good life story.



3. The Sgt York Biography by John Perry is an exhaustive effort to give a representation of the Life of Alvin York in the highest degree of accuracy, and tedious attention to detail in painting the most True to Life version that anyone is likely to come across. If one is interested in what made Alvin C. York Tick, then John Perry's account is your book. If only a general understanding is what is sought, then these pages will be far more than what you may have bargained for. But For Fineness of intricacies which permeated Sgt. York's Life, Read John Perry's version.



4. Alvin York spent 19 months of his 76 years in the United States Army during World War I (WWI) and 20 minutes to an hour in the action which made him America's greatest hero of that war. In writing a book about Alvin York, then, the author had to make a decision. Should he write about those 19 months, about that hour, or about the man's entire life? For any other man, the answer would be fairly simple: write about that hour. For Alvin York, however, the answer is quite different, and this author rightly chose to write the complete story of his life both before, during, and after his heroic military service.
   
   When I began reading the book, however, I didn't realize this, and, as a result, I was somewhat disappointed. It seemed to me that all the action, the interesting stuff, was up front and then the book slowly transitioned into the more mundane story of York's later life. But I persisted and gradually came to realize that that was the way York, himself, would have wanted it. After all, as he said many time throughout his life, "Uncle Sam's Army is not for sale."
   
   I must agree with some of the previous critics that this book is almost too detailed, particularly in the middle chapters, as York, with his third grade education, struggles against entrenched politicians to fulfill his dream of building a Christian school in the Tennessee mountains so the backwoods children could have the education he never had. But if you persist, you will likely come to realize, as I did, that his actions after the war and the manner in which he lived his life are much more heroic than anything he or anyone else did in the Great War or in any other war.
   
   The bottom line is this: Alvin York is much more of a hero than I had ever imagined, and, although this book may at times be a difficult read, I highly recommend it. After all, although he never caught a touchdown pass or hit a ninth inning home run, Sergeant York is one hero whose like will never be seen again (guaranteed).



5. If you've seen the 1941 film "Sergeant York" with Gary Cooper, then this book is a must read for you. Perry delves into the man, Alvin York, and tells us the rest of the story. Yes, the defining moment of York's life happened in the Argonne Forest in WW1, but he went on to do more. He battled Lindberg, the IRS and more. This book doesn't paint York as faultless by any stretch, but it also is by no means an exposé. Just a keen insight into the complex life of a simple man.
   If you enjoyed Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit", you will also be moved by this book as well.

2 comments about Winning My Wings: A Woman Airforce Service Pilot in World War II.

1. Marion has written an excellent insight into the experience of flying. As a fellow pilot, I greatly enjoyed reading about the experiences of Marion and the other women pilots during WWII. The story is filled with joy and tragedy splashed across her story of becoming a military pilot. Just as important as the flying, she relates how she came to marry her husband of over 50 years, Ned Hodgson. This is a wonderful book that anyone interested in flying and the romance of the air should read.



2. This was a wonderful book. I belong to a book club and I like to choose books about women. I was visiting the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington several months ago and came across this book. It looked so interesting that I decided to choose it for my book club to read. Everyone LOVED the book and we plan to read more books about the WASPs. You will thoroughly enjoy this book --- I love how a lot of the book is written through letters that Marion Stegeman Hodgson actually wrote to her mother and a man friend, whom she eventually married. The only thing I wish is that the book was LONGER!!! It was one of those books that you can't wait to pick up again!! ENJOY!!