Greg

Surprising History

Revisado: 08-11-24

A long book but I learned many surprising details of history. I've never been a MacArthur fan and am less so now.

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Unlistenable

Revisado: 07-27-24

Each sentence starts at the volume of a loud shout and by the end, the narrator's volume is an out of breath whisper. Audible doesn't give refunds.

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History of the War by Topic

Revisado: 05-29-24

In each chapter, the author addresses a single topic of the war, including financing the war, the armaments industry in each country, morale of frontline soldiers, what drove men to volunteer in 1914, the draft, literature produced by the men at the front, how the armistice led to the collapse of the German army. A well-sourced, detailed look at different aspects of the war.

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Focuses on Periphery

Revisado: 03-30-24

In 1940, Churchill gave the order to 'set Europe ablaze' but the action in this book takes place in 1944. For the first five years of the war the SAS did nothing so don't be surprised that there is so little action in this book. For example, in the description of a night mission in the French forest, we hear paragraphs of light conversation that the author has constructed and then the book gives description of what the men were wearing and how they smoked a cigarette and finally the action is described in two short sentences. The first story in the book starts with a mission commander who had a nervous breakdown just as the mission was about to embark. Similar lack of competence is shown in the final mission in which the SAS and the French resistance planned to combine and launch attacks behind German lines in support Patton's invasion from the south but, when the moment to take action arose, the top French commanders were unable to fulfill their duty and to the end of the book, all the SAS did is run from the Germans until captured. Another example of the poor writing: the book's telling of a mission in which a squad parachutes from a plane when the author breaks from the action for thirty minutes to tell of everything a man might carry from beret to tommy gun then gives an aside covering London hotels and the country houses of the rich. When the author returns to the mission to parachute into France, he immediately diverts to a story about how the wireless operator's jeep once broke down during training. I would have preferred that the book skip the hour about a mission where absolutely nothing happens other than guys jump from a plane.

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Focused on Mundane

Revisado: 12-09-23

So many of the most interesting parts of the story were mentioned in passing in the final chapter. The level of excitement didn't rise off the floor.

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Not A Pandemic Story

Revisado: 10-06-23

The subtitle is A Pandemic Story and this is mind-blowing false advertising. The first third of the book is about forest fires and mudslides in southern California plus one case of mononucleosis. The middle third of the book is about office politics in the California state health department. The last third of the book is about how the Center for Disease Control is run by bureaucrats whose only concern is protecting their jobs. Horrible book, it seems to consist of notes from research for rejected magazine articles.

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Boring

Revisado: 09-18-23

This book is a combination of the early work history of some people who worked on the project and corporate inter-office memos and other documents that don't have much to do with the planes or stealth technology. There are no AH-HA moments. No personality stands out. The best part of this book was a cursory description of the computer programs used to evaluate the geometry of the stealth designs.

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A Complete Waste of Time

Revisado: 02-02-23

This book excludes information about Darwin's scientific efforts. Mostly it is about Darwin's dinner companions, family and distant relatives. As someone interested in science, I was very disappointed.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Unprecedented Levels of Boredom

Revisado: 01-19-23

This is no story about submarines. The book is a thousand stories that are all identical. Joe joined the Navy at 17, went to blah-blah A school, reported to his sub, they dove to X hundred feet, Joey was selected for advanced training then reported to his next boat in San Diego and they dove to Y hundred feet. You would think that no two sailors ever met each other. This book is terrible.

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Some Really Good Chapters

Revisado: 01-08-23

After a year I listened to this a second time and a good deal of this book is very interesting but I had forgotten about the slow chapters.

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