Let this no nonsense 12-step action plan be your guide. It
includes frequently asked and tricky questions, pro-active
answers, and some simple but valuable tips to demystify the
process. Keep Allen's list of action and buzz words handy,
so you can have what he calls a "winner's vocabulary".
Preparation is key, and Allen keeps it simple.

His writing combines a deft mastery of mathematics with the ability to lay it out on the page so carefully that you'll wonder how you didn't think of the idea. His prose is simple, concise, and often, funny. Bogle is best in speeches and essays, this book combines a very well selected combination of both.

I read other investment literature, and I frequently see the articles and speeches in this book cited. Any interested observer of financial markets, investor wanting to keep from losing his shirt, or professional in the investment management industry would benefit from reading this book. I heartily recommend it!

His arguments that most mutual funds underperform their respective index is convincing. This coupled with the difficulty of picking the managers that will outperform the index over the long term in advance, has convinced me that only by investing in the index can you guarantee that you will be investing in one of the leading funds.

The other 3 sections while interesting are more ruminations from Bogle about life, business and the stock markets. Interesting but not world changing. In fact I suspect that most people would be better off buying "Common Sense on Mutual Funds" by Bogle.

I would heartily recommned this book to anyone who wishes to be convinced that they can maximise their return, while avoiding the risk of underperformance by investing in index funds.

It is especially interesting to read John Bogle's speeches delivered from 1-25 years ago and compare his predictions of the future to what has actually occurred. Comparisons to the market of today can then be made.

For example, in a speech given a year following the "great stock market crash of October 19, 1987", John Bogle on p.68 related his analysis of why the market downturn occurred, including these two reasons: (1) stock prices too high (p/e ratios hitting 23 for the S&P 500 index in 1987); (2) some deterioration in the economic outlook, with no progress being made to reduce the Federal buget defict and a whiff of inflation. Sound anything like 2000 and 2001?

A more recent speech included in the book, from January 2000, predicting that the market's heady optimism will depart and leave stock market returns of 5.2% or so over the next decade. As John Bogle readily admits, however, anything can happen in the stock market.

There are many sections which detail the evolution of, and triumph of, passive indexing over active management. Other speeches provide a historical overview of the founding of Vanguard and its rise over the last 25 years.

Business leaders will find inspiration from several speeches delivered with a more personal note, in which he provides perspectives on the need for persistence, the need for lifelong learning, and the desire to build meaning into life through devotion to commitments to others. Very moving is his speech following his receipt of a transplanted heart.

More recent speeches by John Bogle, which give you a sense of what can be found in this book (but not the added value of looking at speeches from years past and comparing predictions made to what has actually occurred), can be found at the Vanguard website. Look for the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center.

This is not the first book a reader interested in investing should tackle. That honor belongs to John Bogle's 2nd book, "Common Sense on Mutual Funds." Other books should follow, including, perhaps, those by Larry Swedroe, Burton Malkiel, and Bruce Temkin.

For those who have already read several books on investing, the speeches in this book provide added perspective and reinforcement regarding the role of passive indexing, the folly of trying to outperform the market over the long term, and the philosophical ideal of service to others through truth and fairness. For these readers I wholeheartedly recommend adding this book to your investment library.

The book is an important one, although it may not appear so at first. I believe that it is an important one for those teaching and administering kids in schools because it clearly shows that the normal mold of schools will not work with some kids. They need alternatives -- alternatives that respect the skills they do have and wish to exercise. Indeed, their aberrant behaviors towards "the enemy" display brilliant tactics artfully employed to "get even."

For anyone who has shared a classroom with a motley bunch of early adolescents and grown to love them over time, I invite you to enjoy this book. For anyone who has shared a classroom with a motley bunch of early adolescents and has grown to hate them, you must read this book. It contains truth -- something rare in the halls of education. It also helps each of us come to a better understanding of our limits as teachers in "making" kids do our bidding.

Dixie!

I used it as a part of my quiet time.

This book is destined to be a classic. There is no other person who spent over 17 years focused on intelligence about Viet-Nam, and very rare is the person who can say they have spent over 50 years in continuous intelligence appointments, 20 of them after retirement. It is a personal story that I consider to be balanced, deep, and trustworthy. While it has gaps, these are easily addressed by reading, at least on the intelligence side, such books at Bruce Jones' "War Without Windows", Orrin DeForest's "SLOW BURN", Douglas Valentine's "The Phoenix Program", Jim Witz's "The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War", Tom Mangold & John Penycate's "The Tunnels of Chu Chi", and the Viet-Nam portions of Jim Bamford's "Body of Secrets."

I mention these books in part to emphasize that George Allen has produced a book that will stand the test of time and should be regarded as an exceptional historical, policy, intelligence, and public administration case study. It is truly humbling and sobering to read such a calm, complete, and broad treatment of the history of both American intelligence in relation to Viet-Nam, and the consistent manner in which policy-makers refused to listen to accurate intelligence estimates, while their Generals and Ambassadors steadfastly "cooked the books." The manipulation of truth from the Saigon end, and the refusal to listen to truth on the Washington end, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, Vietnamese, Loatian, Cambodian, and American, as well as allied nationalities.

This book is gripping. I could not put it down. It is one of the most serious personal accounts I have ever read where the vivid realities of intelligence, ignorance, and policy come together. The author excells at painting the details in context, and his many specific portraits of key individuals and situations are superior.

This book is relevant to today's war on terrorism. Many of the same issues prevail--rather than enumerate them, I will give this book my very highest mark, and simply say that you cannot understand intelligence, or the intelligence-policy relationship, without having absorbed all this author has to say.

He's hit it out of the park. Every voter who wonders what it will take to hold politicians accountable for "due diligence" in decision-making, needs to read this book.

Mr. Allen, a top official with the CIA during the Vietnam war, shares his experiences, insights and perspectives as to "the intelligence failure" in the war. Based on Mr. Allen's account, the real intelligence failure was on the part of the military and political leaders of the time; they simply refused to lend any credence at all to any intelligence that didn't tell them what they had already determined they wanted to hear.

This book will make you angry at times as you read of the author's continued frustration at people either ignoring his message or "killing the messenger". This is a very well-written book. I would consider it essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Vietnam, the war, or the politics of that era.