Saturday, November 29, 2003
HOLIDAY READING
I'm using the long weekend to catch up on my reading. I finished Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. This is a noir-ish SF novel and, although the technology/society fit has some serious problems, it's quite well written. Meanwhile, my "background" book is Modernizing China's Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects by David L. Shambaugh. This got demoted to the status of being the book I'm reading in breaks from other reading because it's really a technical academic book and requires the kind of close attention that its hard to give while I'm doing other things.
Yesterday, I started The Iraq War: A Military History by Williamson Murray, Robert H., Jr. Scales. Even though the main combat phase of the war has only been over a few months, this is an excellent book. The first few chapters are an extremely well-written history of Iraq and its relations with the U.S. and other countries as a foundation for the detailed material that follows. If you're looking for a very good summary history of how Saddam Hussein came to power and how he became the target of the Coalition's attack, the first 100 pages of this book does the job very well.
As usual, you can find more extensive notes about my reading at my reading pages.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:01 AM
