Maneuver Warfare Handbook - William Lind

This book introduces several interesting concepts involving tactics and strategy, and reading it has helped to coalesce some ideas that I had hazily had but not defined in a rigorous way. The concepts introduced involve OODA cycling (i.e. 'I win because I act and react faster'), mission-oriented orders ('go and destroy the enemy which is in a certain area using means which are left to your best judgement), surfaces and gaps (basically an extension of the argument that it is foolish to meet strength with strength), and the focus unit- the most important unit in a given battalion, which is carrying a mission corresponding to the overall regiment's goals.

Emphasis is made on avoiding mechanically following orders, acting on initiative, and considering the overall mission of the group. While this sort of thinking was formulated for fighting battles, I can see applications to general management of projects and tasks, as well as for various games (paintball comes to mind, or online video games perhaps).

The wargaming exercises in the back were equally fascinating, due to their focus on putting the theories contained in the book into practice. Additionally of use were the concepts of recon-pull movement and the proper use of the reserve, which was almost the equivalent of the right-cross in boxing.

Before the Dawn - Nicholas Wade

This book somewhat defies me to describe it. Part history, part science, and part conjecture, the book takes a look at some of the factors that led humankind to split from the path of our chimpanzee-like ancestor, leave the trees, and begin to undergo the changes that would someday allow the author to write a book about the whole experience and for me to read that book.

So what can I say? The book takes the relatively novel approach of looking at gene sequences to show the changes that have occurred to humanity in the last 50,000 years. During the past, a time of relative scarcity of fruit led certain proto-humans to less arboreal lives in order to obtain greater amounts of food, these proto-humans eventually evolved into societally modern humans, whereas other proto-humans of the time remained in the trees and are now chimpanzees and bonobos.

The material is somewhat dense to reproduce here in just a few paragraphs, but I would like to point out at least a few salient points and then also stamp a caveat on this book. The book is fascinating when it details the expansion of homo sapiens from Africa, as well as in its descriptions of the advantage gained through the foundation of sophisticated language and the beginnings of sedentarism in the middle east. The detailing of the methods used to track Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA in order to determine human lineages around the world provides a useful lens to better understand scientists' unearthing of the roots of civilization. Additionally , the descriptions of other primates, including gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, homo erectus and neanderthals also give a useful historical backdrop to the subject matter on this book. The use of climactic data and cross-referencing with archaeological evidence also gave an almost cinematic account of the cyclical waves of human expansion into Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Without reservation, the first eight chapters, roughly two hundred pages, are compelling reading.

And now we get to what my boss used to call 'the on the other hand' paragraph---

On the other hand, the book sometimes feels like a bit of a grab bag. There are lots of interesting things thrown into the mix, but from chapter to chapter the narrative does not always run extremely strongly. Moreover, the writer has a tendency to conjecture about likely possibilities when no evidence is available to confirm or deny various suppositions. This is a very nice thing in that it provides food for thought; however, at times I felt that the author did not particularly go out of his way to highlight the fact that his conjectures were mainly supposition, thusly running the risk of inadvertently having a reader take his suppositions as fact.Additionally, I felt that at times the author also relied on somewhat shaky sources when they suited the narrative of the book. An example of this was that the author introduced Joseph Greenberg's multilateral comparison theories on language groupings as near-fact while at the same time acknowledging that there is a great amount of contention on the topic and that Greenberg was not finished with his work at his death in 2001.

All of this is not so much to say that the reader needs to take this book with an intravenous feed of salt (the author does always demarcate conjecture from more solidly proven fact), as that this is not an authoritative work on the subject of early history. Oddly enough, although the evidence under investigation has a history of thousands or tens of thousands of years, the field of early history is still rapidly evolving due to the introduction of new testing and analysis methods. In a sense, this book serves as an excellent summary of recent developments in the field and presages future discoveries which will further illuminate the roots of the modern world.

Gomorra - Roberto Saviano

This book gives an inside account of the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, which owes its success to its decentralization and its ability to infect all areas of business, including both criminal and non-criminal areas.

The chapters are organized thematically, for example, there is a chapter dealing with the Chinese-staffed Neapolitan sweatshops which make designer-branded clothes, shoes and bags, another dealing with arms trafficking that also tells an anecdote of the meeting between an admiring criminal and the creator of the AK-47. Other chapters deal with the gang wars between various factions of the Sistema, as organized crime is called in the local parlance, toxic waste dumping in quarries surrounding Naples, as well as detailing investments by the Neapolitan syndicates in real estate in locations such as Spain and Scotland, as well as business arrangements in Eastern Europe, Germany, and Holland.

I have yet to see all of the eponymous film directed by Matteo Garrone, but the book has enough detail in it, not only about crime, but also about the relationships between respectable business and crime, to make it an excellent read.

The author of the book, Roberto Saviano, currently remains in hiding, as the Camorra has put a contract out on him.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Somehow this book manages to make the post-WWII Soviet Gulag seem like a fairly happy place.
Ivan Denisovich Shukov was sent to the gulag for having been captured by the German army during the war, hence making him a sympathizer and fit to be sent to the Siberian taiga.　Ivan is a man with a plan though, he is going to keep himself fit and get out of the gulag when his time comes.

In the morning, he thinks about getting out of duty by going to the doctor, but decides to go out to work.

In the afternoon, the main concerns are lunch and work.

In the evening, he gets his dinner.

The important things in his life are getting food, whether it be oatmeal laced with fat or bits of meat sent by the families of those in the camp, and not freezing. Other concerns are less, being late for roll call, and freezing while putting together a building in the winter. The temperature is always less than 0 degrees farenheit.

Ten years he passed in this life, with three extra days added on for leap years.

The Prize - Daniel Yergin

Simply put, this book is the story of our modern times, told through the lens of the discovery of oil. From the first discoveries of 'rock oil' in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania in the 1850s up until the present, the book follows the growth of the fossil-fuel-based energy usage paradigm and the ways in which fossil fuels revolutionized transportation, warfare, and everyday life.

Thinking back to pre-oil times from the contemporary vantage point, it is amazing to imagine the entire world riding horses, hunting whales for lamp oil, and burning coal in stoves to heat their homes. In the middle of the 19th century, trains and ships still served as the principal means of mechanical long-range transportation. Without jet fuel, the planes of the world would cease to fly. The author discusses 'Hydrocarbon Man' and equates him with the people of modern times- and it's true, right now the world depends heavily on fossil fuels and the nations which produce them.

The book takes a very comprehensive look at the history of oil, particularly in regions such as the United States, the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia but also in the North Sea, Russia, and Central Asia. Saudi Arabia and Iran figure as main players, as do the United States, and, at various times in history, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

However, some of the most compelling segments of the book center heavily on World War II, in which the energy-starged Axis powers sought to gain hegemony over oil-rich regions in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In particular, the accounts of the German drive for Stalingrad and development of coal-to-oil technology as well as the frantic efforts of the oil-starved Japanese empire to develop alternative energy sources by digging up the forests of Japan and boiling the roots of trees still stick out in my mind. The detailing of the complex politics of international oil consortia and OPEC also establish a framework for understanding the foundations of the oil industry as it exists today.