Peter

it's not "Ignition!" but it's worth a read

Reviewed: 08-04-23

This A fairly technical book that you can definitely feel is a bunch of seperate subworks all merged together.

This is basically the summation of all the data currently legally available about one of the US's primary nuclear deterrents. I do mean all. it includes details on how the silos were constructed and what the water table issues were.

To an extent, the effect of classification looms over the book. While more information on Reentry vehicles would be good, that information is fundamentally classified, even half a century later.

Probably one issue that readers need to be aware of is that the opening chapters are an extremely dull historical summary of the entire minuteman operation. not it's development, which is more at the back half of the book. I had hoped for more about the development of solid state rocket motors, But there was relatively little.

Worth a read if you find the topic interesting, but it's no "Ignition!" if you want that book, read that book, nothing compares.

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Excellent Biography, if a little fawning

Reviewed: 07-14-23

A quite Excellent Biography. I think it can be forgiven for the fact it is extremely enthusiastic about Monash. While the introduction was a bit over the top, Through the book went into more depth that being simply obsessively positive about the man. it still does get somewhat tiresome talking as if every descision is such a clear indicator of genius.

The early years were gone into with quite a significant amount of depth and didn't shy away from the simple fact that Monash was a man who couldn't keep it in his pants. though this seems to have been a common aspect of men of the era.

The battle details themselves were interesting and didn't get too bogged down in the geographical details, which is often a risk. The infamous stoush with the slimiest family in Australian media history, the Murdoch's was interesting, though I feel like the Author did the minimum in detailing Keith's reasons for being so thoroughly unpleasant. The former PMs quote on the cover made this extra amusing.

The section towards the end where Monash refused to go along with people pushing him into Fascism was something I was completely unaware of and was highly enlightening.

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Good book, odd in places though

Reviewed: 01-24-23

It's a good book about the military and political aspects of his life. However, it comes down very hard against the gay thing. Which is in contrary to just about every other thing I've ever read about him. it's hard to know if the author is simply correct, or if they have a bias. Reading between the lines, the random strange things that happen do seem to make much more sense if it was about a man and his partners/ex's than a bunch of guys looking after their odd old general.

It is a bit of a rush through the second half of the war, but that's probably more a side effect of his role in it. The effect on Valley forge though is front and centre. including the idea "if any random from Europe could have taught this stuff. why wasn't it already done."

The politics and his issues with Jefferson and Laffiette were things I wasn't aware of and was good to hear. including how everyone so overly romanticised militia at the time. It does tend Into hero worship of Washington, but it's hard to find books that don't.

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Good book, similar to the Martian, but not quite

Reviewed: 05-11-21

Definately Weir returning to his origins. A single engineer/scientist against all odds solving problems and making things work.

It's a good book. Though the lack of interest in using the astrophage problem to solve it did become a bit annoying. They have a 5000,000 ISP rocket engine and that's never used to deploy anti astrophage methods? makes no sense.

This does suffer from the Portal 2 dillema. Is it as good as the Martian? No. Is it good? Yes. Below the Martian and Artemis, but still very readable.

I recommend reading. It's a bit too long though.

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3 people found this helpful

Nowhere near the quality I expect from Tuchman

Reviewed: 08-08-19

Put simply, a lesser Tuchman book. While I normally love her work and her mildly cutting voice is present, it's simply not a great historical book. The earlier chapters is more a book of mythology than history, the actual history in some early segments taking up approximately 1/20th compared to myth listing of britain.

The later books sections does increase in quality, but it's quite a slog to get there. The criticality of non integrated eastern Jews was somewhat interesting, given I tend to hear and read so much about the Dreyfus affair as the catalysis as opposed to situational pogroms.

The book does provide some interesting context to indicate just how little power western zionism had, the Rothchilds being the exception(amusingly, while I was reading the book, I had the misfortune to sit next to a man who assured me that the Rothschilds rule the world). It is slightly chuckle inducing when she mentions her own ancestors casually in the integrationist camps.

While she would managed to keep mental seperation from her topics in later years, this early work contains more than a few overreaches and indicates her preferences.

Perhaps she has too much cultural-emotional skin in the game, or perhaps because the book was written in the 1950s, when sympathy was high for Israel and the plight of other peoples was not apparent. I suspect that now that when we have seen distinct arab nations with vastly different ideologies invading each other, he claims of geographical ratios rings more hollow.

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1 person found this helpful

Good, but surprisingly light.

Reviewed: 06-29-18

A good book, but not as in depth as I expected.

While it does go through the various disfunctions at the company, it spends relatively little time on each thing. It clearly spent almost a year in editing and fact checking, since it's story ends so early. Maybe a second edition can examine the unraveling in more detail, but for now it lacks something, though the Authors post book interviews do give a lot of detail.

I suspect it's mearly my shadenfrouder that I'm gasping for. Either that or a wish for a deeper examination of the psychi of both Elizabeth and those who unwittingly aided her.

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Not super detailed, but a good start

Reviewed: 01-20-17

It's what it says on the box, it's a basic summary of the way bonds work. The structure and common pitfalls. The endlessly confusing inverse link between price and interest was explained.

It's US centric, but I'll hardly fault him that, just be aware that it's not as useful for people outside the US.

I like that the author didn't veer off into peculiar political ranting, as some books about finance tend to do these days. This is almost a beginners introductory textbool and delivered. Worth its low price.

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1 person found this helpful

Interesting book, pity about the reading

Reviewed: 01-13-11

The book itself is quite good. It follows an interesting group of people, focussing on one in particular, (Martin Eeks). One especially interesting point the book brings up is that alot of the dodgy practicies that caused this whole mess really were a case of people doing things thats weren't totally wrong (ie sub-prime lending). But were clear cases of businesses in dire need of regulation for their own sake.

The reading of the actual audio is the biggest problem that the book has. For some reason, the producer decided to include accents all the way through. I can totally understand reading accented words and using their words. But entereing into wild accent swings is very hard, jarring and not at all helpful apart from being an obvious attempt to add color. I almost turned the book off when the accents began about 20 minutes in, but managed to percievier. This was a good thing to do, given it ended up being worth the time.

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Detailed, but strong biased.

Reviewed: 03-12-09

Interesting and detailed, but has a very very strong bias against any non ultra-free market findings.

One warning is that the author is somewhat homophobic and pro-theism(most obvious in talking about the early 1900's period and for Keynes). This seeps into some of his analysis and colors his opinions on the character of economists he talks about. Going outside of detailing the figures, he goes into simple vitriol and disdain for the figures he obviously has issues with.

As long as you know that this is a specifically pro-free market analysis, the book is very interesting. But don't let the authors irrational points effect you, and keep an eye on all his analysis. This is only one side of the argument, but he does do a somewhat complete job of explaining that side. Buy this and a book that matches it but from a less supply/free market approach and you'll get a nicely balanced view.

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24 people found this helpful