Bellamy exudes self-satisfaction about his whole career, and especially having taken on the defense portfolio at London's Independent newspaper in April 1990. Pride in self has the unfortunate effect of filling his account with a multitude of unneeded details about the author, his newspaper, his travels, and other minutiae. But get beyond this self-indulgence and Bellamy's account more than repays the effort. As a military historian who witnessed the Kuwait War first hand, he offers many useful and interesting insights. To begin with, he sees this war as both the final confrontation of one sort (set-piece conventions) and first of another sort (computer-ordered battles). He calls the event "a coalition war without precedent", in part because it finally achieved the goals for air power established by Douhet and Mitchell in the 1920's. He points to the extraordinarily cerebral quality of the allied effort and argues that "the allies won by brain power." Bellamy calls on his historical knowledge to note that this war brought the return of body armor as a general issue item for the first time since the seventeenth century. He concludes that the Kuwait War marks, perhaps, "return to the limited war, even if fought with 'unlimited means.'" These important observations help place the fighting in its proper context and offer implications to chew over before the next round of violence erupts.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1994

An indepth introduction to the major barrier islands on Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast. Good backgrounder for planning and enjoying daytrips, weekends, or longer trips to these varied barrier islands. From the Panhandle in the North to the Everglades in the South.

Information presented includes history, local attractions, interesting stories and antidotes. Specific resturants, resorts, and stores are often mentioned, together with address and phone information.

I was pleased to find I agreed with the author's description and evalutions for many of the islands I am familiar with. I also learned several new things I wished I had know before my visits.

This is a collection of stories and poems like any other collection published by a small press--it includes an array of good fiction and poetry by people no one has heard of except the editors. In fact, most names in this book are friends of the editors--I know one of them myself, and he's told me as much. But what makes this book worth buying is this: the editors new the RIGHT people. Not all these stories and poems are exceptionally brilliant, and not all these writers and poets will go on to greater things, but all the work here is cerainly good. And the editors may have stumbled across a new genre of literature, as well--many people talk about Southern literature, or cowboy poetry, or the fiction and poetry of New England and the Southwest. But White and Todd have set aside a new region: Gulf coast America. Rick Bass comes from here, as do perhaps Flannery O'Connor and Anne Rice.

More interesting, though, is the chance to see early drafts from newly recognizable names. Notably, there is a story here called "Rise," by award-winning author Tom Franklin. "Rise" is actually an early draft of "Blue Horses," a poignant story of the extremes people will go to for their friends; "Blue Horses" was later included in Franklin's first book, Poachers.

So while the Gulf Coast Collection is good for all the reasons any such collection is good (and it is--by all means read the other, very excellent work), reading this gives you the added pleasure of discovering a new genre and seeing early work by an established author. And who knows: you may discover someone new yourself.

Tucker and Hendrickson effectively communicate a criticism of American foreign policy during the Bush Administration. The book is interesting, readable and appropriate for any political science student interested in American foreign policy after the cold war. The arguments are well presented for the most part, but some are problematic. For example, the authors contend that NATO was established as a collective security stating that "NATO, however, was a pure application of collective security: 'It is directed against no one; it is directed solely against aggression.'"(65) While the statement in and of itself may have occurred in practice, the organization itself was designed to combat the spread of Communism, not aggression. In The Imperial Temptation, the authors evaluate the foreign policy of an administration based on a single event: the gulf war. Although this event may be characteristic of the administration, not enough evidence is presented to support that assertion. The Imperial Temptation is a valuable book for the curious and/or critical political science student interested in varying views regarding post-cold war American foreign policy, or simply the gulf war itself. It is an interesting book, and a fairly easy reader on American foreign policy after the cold war.

The security of the Persian Gulf remains a vital national security concern for the United States. Vital, as over 30% of oil imports are sent from the region. A disturbance in the supply caused by internal or external conflict may diminish the economic growth of not only the U.S but will have ramification worldwide. Post Desert Storm the political landscape of the region has changed dramatically. With the Soviet Union disintegrated, the U.S remains the sole power to dictate its term. This new reality has forced nations in the region to accommodate the change in this reality. A significant shift in policies occurred by both Syria and Jordan, which were once supported by Soviet Union and later moved from confrontation to compromise in the relations with U.S. This change occurred after it became evident that Russia could no longer support them financially and militarily. Call it direct or indirect but peace in (how shallow a form) came about after Soviet Union was dismantled. Till the mid 1990's significant dialogue and energy was placed by both Israel and the Arab nations.

In this study the authors have identified the region of conflict in the Gulf, and the access available to the forces from friendly countries. The authors do comparative analysis on military forces, bases and equipment between all the countries. There were two facts mentioned in this study, which I do not concur with, which are:

1.Security and Intelligence sharing between Arabs and Israel.
2.Iranian Opportunism.

I disagree with first on the mere premise that there exists much mistrust between the two nations. The present example is relations between Israel and Egypt. Having made peace in the late 70's the relation has not progressed; it is at best a mere recognition and a non-war pact. True peace cannot be achieved in my perception till the Palestinian cause for a homeland is not addressed and their rights of independence are not respected. In the second case Iranian Opportunism in the region remains a very unlikely scenario. The Iranians like all the people in the region have witnessed the devastation brought onto Iraq after if began its incursion into Kuwait. Besides at present Iran remain both militarily and financially very weak. In the late 1990 the Iran government decided against an attack on Afghanistan (under Taliban) after it was evident that the latter had murdered its diplomat.

An all-Iraqi cast of eighteen authors has combined to put together the single most informative book on today's Iraq. In outlook, the authors (all in exile, of course, except for a few in the Kurdish autonomous region) extend from Marxist to Kurdish nationalist, but all of them share a seriousness of purpose spawned by Saddam Husayn's horrors. Their subjects range from the abstract (Kanan Makiya on the need for tolerance) to the specific (Rend Rahim Francke on the makeup of the Iraqi opposition).

Two articles particularly stand out: Suha Omar argues that the improvement of women's rights in Iraq is a sham. The government insists on at least five children per mother and uses the General Federation of Iraqi Women to police women and to procure them for high officials. Omar concludes that, given the realities of Saddam's Iraq, "women's equality before the law and their right to vote and hold office are sources of pain and oppression rather than pleasure and liberation." Faleh 'Abd al-Jabbar explains that the anti-Saddam revolt of March 1991 (called the intifada) failed because the exiled opposition leadership misjudged the mood in Iraq, "overestimating the strength of Saddam's appeal to Iraqi patriotism." Had the exiles been more bold, he writes, they could have led the Kurds and Shi'is to victory over the despot.

Middle East Quarterly, March 1995

The American and European scholarly contribution to understanding the Kuwait War tended to be limited to military analysis, polemical arguments, and abstract interpretations; and these have mostly petered out as interest in the war has declined. Accordingly, the important task of interpreting that conflict has been left largely to Israelis, who done an outstanding job fulfilling it. In the present study, a mostly Israeli cast of authors looks at the Iraqi decision to go to war, and the consequences of that decision. Baram draws on his unique knowledge of Iraqi politics to take on that most difficult of tasks, probing Saddam Husayn's mind. Mark A. Heller explains why the Iraqi army regularly performs poorly. Ofra Bengio looks at the balance of power within Iraq's ethnic communities. Patrick Clawson points out the subtle economic impact of the sanctions against Iraq while Robert J. Lieber argues that Saddam Husayn's adventurism could easily have deeply harmed the world economy. A host of authors-including Rubin, Shaul Bakhash, Joseph Nevo, David Kushner, and the late Avner Yaniv-then look at Iraq's foreign relations through the 1990-91 crisis and war. But perhaps most interesting is the chapter by Joseph Kostiner on the much-neglected Kuwaiti angle. He establishes the basic precepts of that country's foreign policy-essentially neutralism and good Arab citizenship-and then shows how these guidelines were maintained throughout the crisis leading up to 2 August 1990. He finds the thesis that Kuwaitis provoked Iraq to war not convincing.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1994

Oil monarchies" means the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman). In a very useful survey, Gause reviews the internal and foreign policies of the six states and concludes with some thoughts on U.S. policy. Perhaps the author's most original argument concerns the allegedly traditional quality of the states in question. He notes that the advent of oil revenues gave the central governments unprecedented powers, which the rulers then used to limit the power of Islamic and tribal institutions, then dominate those domains. What we on the outside see as tradition "is in fact a construction of recent decades, in which rulers employ a political language redolent of Islamic and tribal overtones to convince their citizens" of their legitimacy." To those who see the oil monarchies as fragile blossoms, Gause notes that they survived the era of Pan-Arab nationalism and look to outlast radical Islamic ideologies. Indeed, he calls their legitimation formulas "remarkably successful" and concludes that "they must be doing something right."

Gause's only weak suit becomes apparent when he takes up U.S. policy. On the one hand, he would have Washington begin a dialogue with Tehran about the future of Iraq; on the other, he advises against American efforts to combat fundamentalist Islam or to increase female rights in Saudi Arabia. It's hard to say which is a worse idea.

Middle East Quarter, September 1994

I actually downloaded this from Audible about six months ago. I rarely bother with abridged works, but at the time there was no complete recording of Herodotus available. Roy Marsden is an adequate narrator, but there doesn't seem to be any enthusiasm or fire in his delivery. It becomes monotonous after a while. On the plus side, Naxos have selected the best parts of Herodotus to record and you will find these portions superbly written. I recently downloaded a brand new version by Audio Connoisseur, also from Audible.com. This version is unabridged and it is simply spectacular. It's about 29 hours long and the narrator is splendid. I would gladly give it a five star rating. However, I can't find it here on Amazon.com. But it's apparently new and maybe it will show up later.

The good news about the book is that it just gets over 100 pages thus you can finish it in a few hours. The first thing that struck me when starting to read this book was that it seamed like a report created for a government Agency that they decided to publish as a book. That is not all bad, it just makes for somewhat flat and dry reading. I really enjoyed the discussion on the current (as of 1999) political and economic issues of the Gulf States. With the current focus on this part of the world it is interesting to read about some of the underling factors to how and why they act the way they do.

The book was not the one source for your Middle East education, but it could be used as a primmer for Middle East reading. It gives the basic facts that many other sources scan over or skip. I especially liked the details on Iran, which proved to be very interesting. The authors made Iran look to be more of a threat then Iraq, with all the trouble they have caused during the 90's via Hezbollah. One hole in the document seams to me to be the complete lack of mention of Al Queda even though the test covers Non State sponsored security issues. I think they were mentioned all of tow times even though the attacks on Americans in Africa and Saudi Arabia were discussed a number of times. Overall the book is interesting but not the one and only book to read on the subject.