The Art of War in the Western World, by Jones

The Coldest Winter, by Halberstam

In the hopper:

Airpower in Small Wars, by Corum & Johnson

About Face, by Hackworth

The Road to Serfdom, by Hayek

Monument to the capture of John McCain, Hanoi © Matt Steinglass 2008

According to conservative poster The Cunning Realist (via digby), John McCain wrote the foreword to an edition of David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest". In his foreword, McCain wrote this:

It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.

I think this pretty much speaks for itself. As usual with McCain, it's a pleasure to hear that he's capable of taking in different and unexpected ideas. And then it's infuriating to realize that he ultimately rejects those ideas in favor of boundless militarism, or is simply incapable of sticking to any one idea for more than ten minutes. One thing in the above quote at least is consistent with the worldview to which he has held throughout his life: it is, for him, the country's duty to support whatever it is the men in the field are doing, not the soldier's duty to do something useful for the rest of his country, and to quit whatever it is he is doing when it ceases to be useful. There's no consideration of the possibility here that "the nation and the government lack(ed) that resolve" in Vietnam because the war was a stupid idea from the get-go.

Thich Quang Duc - Malcolm W. Browne, USA, The AP.

Burning Monk (1963) - Malcolm W. Browne, USA, The Associated Press.

Thich Quang Duc era un monje budista. Su monasterio estaba a las afueras de Huế, la antigua capital de Vietnam. Una bella ciudad de Vietnam del Sur a orillas del legendario río del perfume. Era un hombre de carácter afable y muy tranquilo, amante abnegado de la tradición...
Y sin embargo, no os habrá resultado muy complicado deducir que es el protagonista de esta escalofriante foto. La estrella que se apagó en la oscuridad de un país sin libertad. Murió para protestar por la represión que la administración del Primer Ministro Ngô Ðình Diêm estaba llevando a cabo en contra de la religión budista. Y se quejó ardientemente. Aunque no movió ni un músculo, ni gritó. No dejó escapar ni un solo sonido mientras se quemaba…
Pero nadie podrá decir que no se le oyó…

Thich Quang Duc, nació en 1897, fue un monje budista vietnamita (también llamados bonzos, de ahí la famosa frase…) que se inmoló en una calle muy transitada de Saigon el 11 de junio de 1963. Su acto de inmolación, que fue repetido por otros monjes, fue el más recordado, entre otras cosas, porque uno de los presentes fue David Halberstam, un reportero del New York Times que escribió lo siguiente:

“Estaba viendo de nuevo la señal, pero una vez fue suficiente. Las llamas estaban surgiendo de un ser humano; su cuerpo fue marchitándose lentamente, su cabeza se ennegrecía. En el aire había un olor a carne humana quemada; el hombre se quemó sorpresivamente rápido. Detrás de mí pude escuchar el sollozo de los Vietnamitas que estaban ahora en la entrada. Estaba demasiado sorprendido para llorar, demasiado confundido para tomar notas o hacer preguntas, además desconcertado para inclusive pensar... Mientras se quemaba él nunca movió un músculo, nunca pronunció un sonido, su calma exterior en agudo contraste con la gente que se lamentaba alrededor de él.”

Thich Quang Duc, como ya he dicho, estaba protestando contra la manera en la que la administración del Primer Ministro Ngô Đình Diệm oprimía la religión budista en su país. Los budistas exigían unos derechos mínimos, ninguna locura. Aunque no todos pensaban lo mismo que yo en aquel país, obviamente…
Querían levantar la prohibición sobre las banderas budistas, pedían la asignación de los mismos derechos que el catolicismo, parar la detención ilegal sobre los budistas, compensar a los familiares de las victimas y enjuiciar a los responsables. En resumen…
Ninguna locura, aunque Thich tuviera que parecer un rebelde o un loco para obedecer a su conciencia, a sus ideales. O simplemente para reclamar un poco de justicia...

El suceso ocurrió en la intersección de las calles 'Phan Đình Phùng' y 'Lê Văn Duyệt'. Cambiaron el nombre de estas calles en 1975. Cuando Saigon pasó a llamarse Ho Chi Minh. Ahora son 'Nguyễn Đình Chiểu' y 'Cách Mạng Tháng Tám'. Parecía un día cualquiera, uno más. El sol iluminaba los puestos callejeros, los tenderetes ambulantes y resplandecían las viejas bicicletas de los vietnamitas. Y ahí estaba casualmente, Malcolm W. Browne. A la caza de la mejor fotografía. De pronto, un automóvil frenó en medio de la calle. Un Austin azul. Bajaron tres monjes. Uno de ellos era Thich, quien tomó la tradicional posición del loto en medio del cruce. En la mano llevaba una caja de fósforos. Los otros dos, mientras tanto, lo rociaban con gasolina. Y entonces ocurrió. Los dedos del monje causaron una chispa que no tardó en transformarse en una llama asombrosa. Los testigos y la cámara de Malcolm asistían atónitos. Apocados. Nadie trató de apagar el fuego, quedaron paralizados ante el pacífico monje que parecía una estatua, no movió ningún músculo de su cuerpo. Sabía que las tradiciones no se heredan, se conquistan…

El automóvil Austin azul claro en el que llegó a Saigon para cometer su acto de inmolación se conserva en la pagoda 'Thien Mu'.

Después de su muerte, su cuerpo fue cremado conforme a la tradición budista. Durante la cremación su corazón se mantuvo intacto, sorprendentemente, por lo que fue considerado santo y su corazón fue trasladado al cuidado del Banco de Reserva de Vietnam como reliquia.

Madame Nhu, primera dama de Vietnam en ese tiempo, comentó con respecto a este acontecimiento que ella "aplaudiría por ver otro espectáculo en el cual un monje se convirtiera en barbacoa". Desde ese momento se la conoció con el pseudónimo de la "Dama Dragón". Algunas personas vienen con defectos de fábrica incorregibles...

El primer álbum musical de la banda de rock de los 90's Rage Against the Machine utilizó la imagen de la inmolación de Thich Quang Duc en la portada.

Thich Quang Duc en ningún momento pensó en la gran repercusión mediática que podría tener su actuación, pero la tuvo. Y como ocurre con todo lo que se hace célebre, aunque parezca mentira, salieron imitadores…
El 11 de noviembre de 1983 Sebastián Acevedo, un minero chileno, se quemó a lo bonzo en los escalones de la catedral de Concepción, Chile para protestar por la desaparición de sus hijos a manos de la policía.
El 27 de agosto de 2007 un hombre que se cree que tenía problemas mentales se quemó a lo bonzo en la Plaza Roja de Moscú, cerca del Kremlin.
El 4 de septiembre de 2007 un ciudadano de origen rumano se roció con gasolina y se prendió fuego ante la Subdelegación del Gobierno Español en Castellón de la Plana. El hombre que sufrió quemaduras en el 70% de su cuerpo, murió el 19 de septiembre en el Hospital La Fe de Valencia.
El 7 de diciembre de 2007 una mujer senegalesa se quemó a lo bonzo ante la Alcaldía de Roma en presencia del presidente de su país, Abdoulaye Wade, en lo que fue interpretado como un gesto de protesta contra él...

Más adelante Thich Nhat Hanh, un maestro zen, explicó a su manera la acción de Thich Quang Duc. No era un suicidio sino una inmolación. Un suicidio es una victoria para el enemigo mientras que la inmolación es una protesta activa. A lo que añadió muy serio. El enemigo no era el hombre, era el fanatismo, el odio, la discriminación…
La foto de Thick Quang Duc inmolándose corrió más rápido que la pólvora, ese mismo día estaba en el escritorio del presidente de los Estados Unidos. JFK. Kennedy, el niño bonito de América, había ayudado al represor católico Diem a llegar al poder. Una mala idea. Horrorosa. Pero habitual en la historia de la política. Pensó que era el mejor modo de impedir que el país cayera bajo el control comunista.
Finalmente, Thich Quang Duc consiguió derrotar el régimen del primer ministro Diem, que acabó cuatro meses después. En Noviembre de 1963. Pero no sólo eso, también cambió la percepción de la opinión pública mundial acerca del Budismo, lo que contribuyó decisivamente a su propagación.
A comienzos de 1964, Malcolm W. Browne ganó el premio Pulitzer a la mejor fotografía periodística del año. Un trofeo que sumó al prestigioso World Press Photo.
Pese al éxito, este fotógrafo no pudo ocultar su arrepentimiento por no haber hecho nada por el monje.
¿Os recuerda a alguien?
Un proverbio italiano dice que del escuchar procede la sabiduría, y del hablar el arrepentimiento…
Que cada uno saque sus propias conclusiones. Y que tome sus propias decisiones. Pero que sean acertadas, o nos uniremos al club de los arrepentidos…

Acomplejada

This book is Halberstam’s last book (a fact he presumably did not know during the ten years he worked on it), and it stands as a very eloquent monument to his skills as a storyteller and historian. Korea is famous for being the forgotten war. In an age when social studies have blotted out the foundational issues of any course of history – politics, diplomacy, and war – Korea presents too many ambiguities for many people to approach it. Did the U.S. win or lose? Who were we fighting? Were the Chinese put up to it by the Soviets? How could the victorious U.S. Army of 1945 have become the ragtag force facing its own Korean Dunkirk just five years later? How can an American military icon like Douglas MacArthur stumbled into disaster on such an epic scale when so many warnings were available to him? And on and on. America likes its wars clean and quick, and Korea was slow and dirty. No wonder it took so long for the Mall in Washington to gain a Korean Memorial.

What appeals to me most about this book is Halberstam's careful efforts to place the war in multiple contexts – militarily of course, but also within the framework of Truman’s foreign policies and the nation’s domestic politics. The compromises that would mark the end of the war grow out of some domestic issues – notably the ‘loss’ of China – that remained a part of our politics long enough to influence our entry into Vietnam, linking this tale to Halberstam’s notable volume The Best and the Brightest. A good storyteller can take historical events and cover them across one dimension, such as economics, or art, or science. However, the mark of a careful hsitorian is the careful integration of multiple contexts to firmly fix his topic within its time and place. This triangulation across disciplines may not seem that hard, but it is so rarely done well that I think of it as a real mark of accomplishment. (Rhodes’s The Making of the Atomic Bomb and McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom are two elegant examples of historians writing fluidly across multiple disciplines).

By examining the war through a series of perspectives, including insight into the decisions and leaders behind China’s entry, the reader gains a fuller sense of the frustrations of the soldiers in the field and their immediate officers about the way in which our forces were committed, equipped, deployed, led, and often times squandered. The images of MacArthur and his staff court in Japan are shocking to contemplate. More devastating, we are shown how MacArthur’s faults are not aberrations of age, but rather lifelong habits. In particular, the 1942 acceptance by MacArthur and his senior staff of substantial cash ‘gifts’ from Philippine leader Manuel Quezon is something about which I have not read elsewhere, and is simply appalling. (It should come as no surprise that Eisenhower, when offered the same bribe, declined it and noted the incident in a memo to his Army personnel file.)

Halberstam’s penchant for interviewing sources gives the actual battle accounts of this book a vivid clarity. The sounds of Chinese bugles and trumpets will rng in your ears as the Chinese trap is sprung on the unprepared American troops as they marched towards the Yalu. The same attention to detail is devoted to the descriptions of men summoned to duty with no equipment or training suitable for the task ahead. Watching these men improvise in the face of deeply disheartening battlefield losses is one of the great success stories of American martial history, and it is told here in ways that are both noble and humane. There is no false glorification of the job these men undertook.

This book seeks to be a one-volume history, and so it condenses all sorts of details that can be found in other accounts. The author is upfront in his goals for the book, and I do not think that is a bad thing. If anything, this book will serve as a stepping stone into the literature of the Korean War. Books like Simmons’s Dog Company Six and Russ’s Breakout are obvious follow on volumes. Whether you are a reader who plans to stop at one volume or intends to embark on the whole Korea canon, I think you will find Halberstam’s book an insightful, rewarding work.

Of the books I read in 2007 (too few), they couldn't be less similar on the surface: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Epic by John Eldridge. The first is long and agnostic, and the second is short and by a Christian apologist. But both are about epics, or stories where heroes, courage, arduous journeys, loss, betrayal, friendship, and ultimately redemption and love are some of the key themes. If you haven't read them, buy them and you'll be glad you did.

I'm currently listening to David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter: American and the Korean War while I commute to teach my MBA students in Charlotte. The fact that Halberstam died last year makes it even more of a poignant "read." He compelling wrote all his books in ways that make you feel like you are right there in those times and places. I will miss him greatly.

Aneil

It’s Sunday, September 16th, at 2:33 in the afternoon on the east coast and my beloved Minnesota Twins will almost certainly end the day at least fifteen games behind the Cleveland Indians, at least five and a half behind the Detroit Tigers. Even as I write that, I can hear protests in my own head: but we have last year’s AL MVP, Batting Title Champ, and Cy Young winner! We have a six-time (consecutive!) Gold Glove winner ranging in centerfield.

And yet: we will not be part of the October magic of the World Series.

Minnesota’s baseball fate will, of course, be shared by all but two teams. We’re not a dynasty team, nor are we famous or beloved for any losing streak or any (even if recently broken) curse. Baseball is, weirdly, a great illustration of that Thoreau line about quiet desperation: aside from a few exceptional teams, both leagues are full of groups of men out for glory who end up settling, just about every year, for anything but.

I know: this isn’t the venue to bemoan my team’s fate. And no book could come close to seeing my guys head into the fall classic victorious, to seeing the Twins pick up another World Series title. That said, if you think you might get some hope from reading about a game—just a game!—that somehow can make its fans both more ecstatic and miserable than almost anything else, any of the following six books are, I’ve found, a good source of tonic for what otherwise is, almost always, a bitter autumn.

The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn

This is the grandaddy of all baseball books: Kahn’s account of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the early 1950’s, the story of the team that broke the color barrier and was absolutely, fanatically adored by its fans. Kahn was, during the time that he’s writing of, the Dodgers beat writer for the New York Herald Tribune, and his book’s immeasurably enriched by the fact that he was, clearly, both friends with and a fan of the men he wrote of for his job. The book’s a two-part monster, starting with an account of the glory years leading up to the Dodgers’ 1955 World Series title, and finishing with an account of the players from that team in 1971, in middle age and, for the most part, far from the diamond.

I don’t know if it’s the first, but Kahn’s classic has to be one of the best accounts of the father-son baseball bond. For those who have lived with and through this sort of bond with their own son or father, Kahn’s book should be great, recognizable reading; for those without any experience, it’s good insight into how the game, simple and straightforward as any could hope, can actually be a matter of blood and family, of youth and adulthood.

And yes, absolutely: the book’s old, and covers players and teams even older. Totally ignoring the argument that there was something more essential and pure about baseball when it was played by men who neither used blood-doping drugs nor played just for the money, its inarguable that baseball is more than a little dominated by its traditions, and Kahn’s book does great honor to both the traditions and the men who lived them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning by Jonathan Mahler

Mahler’s book is not only one of the best book in recent memory, but it’s hands-down one of the all-time best baseball books. It’s as good as it is because it’s not exclusively about baseball. Set in 1977 New York, the book takes a wide view of the life in that city, at that pivotal moment. For those of us whose relationship to New York doesn’t go back further than, say, the mid-to-late80’s, when the city was on the rebound and raking in money and getting safer and richer than its (arguably) ever been, it’s a fascinating glimpse. In the late 70’s, the city was very much on the brink of all sorts of disaster and ruin, and Mahler’s contention is that 1977 was the key moment in the life of the city: the summer of Sam, the riots in Brooklyn, the fires in the Bronx, the contentious mayoral campaign. And, of course, the Yankees.

It’s sort of unfair that so much good baseball writing focuses on the Yankees, a team that’s so easy to hate. Yet in 1977 it was a strange ballclub with a fate up for grabs between the monumentally clashing egos of manager Billy Martin and slugger Reggie Jackson. Again, time plays weird tricks on the reader: it’s almost impossible to imagine Reggie Jackson dodging debris thrown at him in right field by surly fans—can you imagine what would happen if Bonds got pelted? But of course Jackson did suffer the tempestuous fans in Yankee Stadium.

Mahler’s wonderfully analytic tone is perfect for his project: it’s as if his eye is simply staring, unblinking, into this strange, recent past and reporting. Any number of baseball stories get tainted by the author’s obvious fandom, and Mahler’s authorial distance is weirdly reassuring. I know this book’s now a TV series, but I haven’t seen any episodes. If the show’s even one tenth faithful to the book, it’s got to be incredible.

Summer of ‘49 by David Halberstam

Maybe it’s me, but it’s easier to enjoy reading stories about the old Yankees back when they were more mythic and less fixated on money. Like any team, they were always most focused on winning, for which they had an almost eerie talent. In 1949 Joe Dimaggio was showing signs of wear and his team suffered from his diminishment. At the same time, Ted Williams and the Red Sox were growing dominant.

The titanic rivalry between these two teams is fantastic to read about—maybe better to read now that the Red Sox have finally won a championship and broken their curse. Halberstam’s prose is tender and rhapsodic: here, clearly, was an author writing not simply about baseball but about love. Though one might wish he were writing of different teams, it’s hard not to love his prose simply because he so clearly believes the myth of baseball, believes in the legend and glory of it. Every few pages there’s an insider story, some memorable, incredible detail described—Ted Williams calling his own homer to a teammate as he heads to the plate was the one that stuck out most for me.

It’s rapturous writing, and for that alone it’s worth the price of the book. Halberstam’s prose is engaging and comfortably meandering, pulling stories from every corner of the ballfields and many different teams, coaches, and scouts. The story he’s written feels wonderfully told, something that might come in over a radio late at night, or something you might hear from a grandfather-type. In the back of the book Halberstam addressed the fact that in writing the book he got to live many of his friends’ dream: talking to his childhood heroes about the game that so ensorcled him, and I bring it up here just because it’s refreshing and heartening to read an author write so clearly about something he so adores, such a source of fun. It does feel like a book written with glee by someone who realizes he’s the luckiest fan alive.

October 1964 by David Halberstam

It’d be unfair to have to choose between these two Halberstam books, though they’re hugely different in all sorts of ways. The smooth, enjoyable writing remains, and the Yankees feature in this book as well. This book, though, is about the king in decline, the crumbling dynasty: the Yankees in 1964 were on their way out, about to enter a protracted decade-long tailspin that, Halberstam argues well, they brought on themselves largely through racism.

Race in baseball is not at all complicated: old stuffy white guys wanted things to stay the same forever, and those old men fought tooth and nail to keep things that way. The Yankees and the Red Sox were the last two teams to sign a single black player, and both those teams did so, eventually, out of something like exhaustion and desperation.

What’s great is that this, then, is a book about how the Yankees, those proud old bastards of the sport, get just wailed on by the younger, blacker, better-organized St. Louis Cardinals. By the end of the book it’s almost impossible not to get wound up—like, to the point of cheering— reading about Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Lou Brock and the rest as the Cardinals come from behind and overtake the Phillies in the National League and then, wonderfully, take down the Yankees in seven games. It’s a great and fun book—maybe the most accessible baseball writing around.

The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw by Michael Sokolove.

This book’s not strictly about baseball, or, maybe better, it’s about baseball as idea and myth and metaphor. It’s the story of the 1979 Crenshaw High School baseball team and where those players have ended up. The most famous of those players is Darryl Strawberry, the ranging, lanky outfielder for the ‘86 Champion Mets, though Strawberry actually ends up moving through this book like a ghost or cautionary tale.

Crenshaw’s a high school in what might generously be called an economically challenged area of Los Angeles, and many of the team’s players shared similar stories and backgrounds: an unstable home life, missing or unkind fathers. For sure, all the players’ families didn’t have enough money, and so the Ticket Out of the title turned out to be dizzyingly apt: these kids were playing for their lives. Which makes it, in the end, a phenomenally difficult book to read. Most of the players didn’t make it out, whatever that even means. Several of them played in the big leagues—which is a plenty big feat—but none besides Strawberry ever saw the fame and money toward which they all presumed to be striving.

Sokolove’s voice is astoundingly well-tuned for the subject at hand. This is easily the most personal book on this list, simply because Sokolove, unlike Halberstam or Mahler, makes himself present—he’s in the text, he relates how he and the former high school stars speak and relate. And somehow, as if by magic, Sokolove ends up drawing the reader’s empathy by being our stand-in, by asking the questions we’d all likely ask any of the men involved. It’d be unfair to both Sokolove and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc to compare this too closely to her absolutely astounding Random Family, but if you liked hers and you don’t hate baseball you’ll likely enjoy his.

The Long Ball by Tom Adelman

Adelman’s book is one of those strange books that employ the author’s imagination in more ways than might be comfortable. In short: the book, though focused on the 1975 baseball season, is in present tense. Not only that, but Adelman, through research that you’ve got to imagine is a few steps further even than the mere term ‘comprehensive,’ writes scenes and stories in which not only he wasn’t there, but in which no one other than the principal was: Casey Stengel’s thoughts before listening to a game on the radio, or an insight by Catfish Hunter.

If you aren’t bothered by that sort of writing, or if you can find your way past it, the book almost explodes in an absolute kaleidoscope of detail surrounding the baseball season that year. Of course, according to Adelman, 1975 was a pivotal year (as Halberstam would argue ‘49 and ‘64, as Roger Kahn would almost certainly claim the early-50’s were), and there are plenty of details to back him up: it was the year Stengel died, and, very significantly for those of us who came of age when player loyalty was to money instead of club, the last year without free agency for players.

Adelman, in his fervor to paint a complete picture, can sometimes jar the reader with his jumps from team to team, from city to city. He repays the readers’ patience, though, with sneakily interesting anecdotes and asides about the children of baseball greats (Ken Griffey, Jr and Barry Bonds) and future superstars (Mark McGwire and Doc Gooden). That said, his jump-cuts and expansive vision keep the reader both deeply involved and slightly anxious—mimicking, I’d guess, how it felt in 1975 to keep track of the game.

I am testing mac blog client software ecto now. Which is convenient, journler or ecto?

You can put an Amazon.com link on a blog with ecto easily. I want to buy this Halberstam's last book but I think the Japanese editon will sell soon!?

"The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" (David Halberstam)

and you can attach a picture from iphoto directly. This a pizza I ate at a pizzeria in Ravenna, Italy. It taste good.