I find three books of this author, Richard Carvel, The Crossing and The Crisis loosly in a series. Carvel during the Revolution, The Crossing about the time Louisanna Putchas and the Crisis during the Civil War. These are three very good books and I believe I have all three but cannot locate The Crossing.

This book was not written by Sir Winston Churchill but a different author with the same name. I read this book as it was mentioned in my family history as a good description of the frontier in Kentucky around the Revolution. I rarely read novels but this book captured my attention and was a great read. It transported me back to a much tougher time in American history and in the area where my ancestors were located. It gave life and meaning to the hardships of my ancestors lives.

My dad was born in 1921 in the farmlands of Edgar County, Illinois, and the Crossing by Winston Churchill (not the British leader) was his favorite book as a young boy. It is a tale of US western expansion, especially the crossing over the mountains into Kentucky, and much of the story is told through the eyes of a rather wide-eyed young man. I would recommend this book to parents who want to develop a love of history in their children and who want to spend time reading books together -- the rhythm of the author's writing is especially wonderful when read out loud. I would imagine boys would especially love this tale; however, I loved it, also, and I'm about as girlie a girl as you can get!

Provides great color photos of Florida reptiles (including snakes, alligators and crocodiles) and amphibians. The book is intended for those with an interest in nature, not for experts. While it is easy to read, there are interesting facts about various species that will surprise most readers. However, this book is not intended as a guide for species identification. The book contains information on conservation and the importance of reptiles/amphibians in our environment. Good information on the venomous snakes of Florida. Readers of many ages and backgrounds will enjoy the information & photos in this book. A good investment.

This book was given to me when I relocated to Florida, and I have thanked my benefactor many times over. Living in Florida means living with and respecting the wild critters, who are part of the beauty of this wonderful state. The colorful photos make it easy to identify the animals who slither through my new world and give me valuable information about which ones I should admire from afar.

If it's slithering, clawing or hopping around your Florida yard you'll find it in this book. The photographs are very well detailed for easy identification. I also recommend Florida's Fabulous Insects for other creepy crawlies.

Oftentimes in recorded history a leader emerges as literally the "right man at the right time", a godsend for a country desperately in need of leadership after being led to the brink of disaster. Churchill was such a leader, and Britain desperately needed him in 1939 as Hitler's armies blitzed into Poland while Chamberlain stood by powerless to stop him.

This abridged memoir of the conflict by Churchill, one of the most dynamic personalities of the last century, is a fascinating profile of leadership, offering a unique glimpse into the problems faced by the Allies as the war destroyed the shaky peace of Versailles.

Here is Churchill in all his bravado, bemoaning Britain's woefull lack of preparation, and discussing in shocking detail the problems faced by the Allies as Britain joined the conflict and tried without success to keep the Nazis out of France. You are there as Churchill finds out, to his amazement, that the French have no reserves after the Maginot Line is pierced and the Germans head, unopposed, toward Paris. You understand the tremendous burden faced by Britain as Churchill explains the efficiency of the german war machine, churning out tanks and u-boats on a daily basis at the outbreak of the war while pacifist Britain's military industry had literally ground to a halt.

This is not a battle by battle narrative of every major conflict, and the Pacific theater is in particular given short attention as Britain played a relatively minor role there. Readers interested in the specifics of troop movements, maps, etc. should look elsewhere. However Churchill provides fascinating glimpses into the leaders of the Allied powers, recounting Stalin's relentless demand that Britain and the U.S. open a second front to divert attention away from Hitler's armies. And every American's heart will swell as Churchill expresses the pride and confidence he felt as the Americans entered the war: "Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force." Churchill's words here, and the exerpts of his speeches to Parliament, are as stirring now as they were 58 years ago when he pumped courage into the British as they endured countless bombing raids.

The book has its lapses. It seems like Churchill at times seems a little too interested in presenting his arguments for or against certain operations, (and of course as the author he is usually right), and the abridgement here seems to devote more attention to relatively minor battles like Tobruk than to the Normandy invasion and the liberation of France. However any history buff will want to consider this book required reading for a fuller understanding of WWII.

He said of this work, "This is not history, this is my case." That is, it's his viewpoint on events, and to some degree, his justification for the actions he took during the war. He was too modest. This is also great history from the pen of a man who was not only a great statesman and war leader, but a gifted writer. To read it is a pleasure--and a bit sad since it underlines the decline in letters since Churchill's generation. Only his speeches are more inspiring. For the few remaining purists among us, I would recommend the full six volume set, but much is captured in this condensed version. Get it and learn not only history, but the proper use of English.

Winston Churchill's 'Memoirs of the Second World War,' is one of the most illuminating works on the subject ever written. Churchill tells the story of the war from the massive rearmament of Germany in the thirties to the final victory over the forces of fascism. As a general history of the war it is understandably one-sided, but as a wartime memoir it succeeds on many levels. The feelings of the British Prime Minister on the strategies, soldiers, enemies, and allies of the war are brought to the foreground with an amazing command of language. Churchill justifies many of the more controversial decsions of the war including his stand on British rearmament before the war, the terror bombing of German cities, the 'unconditional surrender' policy of the allies, and the use of the Atomic bomb. This is a finely crafted work that is a tribute to a man who could make history as well as write it.

I used this book when I took OR class and I think that the book is quite good but it lack of theory calculation and also scientific calculation about each problem. In general I still believe that this is a good book.

I own both editions where I belive the 1st edition is better than their second. I don't particular like their new approach in teaching network modeling; it's non-intuitive. The first edition was a bit more 'logical' and easier to set up than the approach use in their 2nd edition. Secondly, their use of the Palisade @Risk is definitely a good choice, but the time lock (1 year if registered online) somewhat deflates the enthusiasm knowing that at some future date your software will cease to work. I bought the @129 upgrade but jumped through hoops with palisades (their authorization code did not undo the time lock and tech support argued that it was a publisher issue--in the long run they discovered a problem with the software where it was not taking the time lock off the application as designed.) I do like the 2nd edition's choice of larger fonts and the broader examples. I am still yet disappointed that unlike many other quality text books, the text does not include answers to 'odd' or even selected problems. I don't think the authors realize that their text is used by professionals looking to develop workplace skills and are not necessarily enrolled in a formal academic setting. Nevertheless, I bought the second edition because I think management science is a terribly valuable skill to have and that the authors have published the best book in the area of MS.

I am a business unit manager who frequently purchases books and software to maintain my level of competence in operations management, and I recently purchased the second edition of this book, copyright 2001. I have found it to be a great value, and agree with the reviewers the earlier edition who found it to be a very fine text on Operations Research. It comes with the standard version of Palisade's Decision Tools software, which is just outstanding. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone. Additionally, there's an option to upgrade to a fully licensed edition of this software at a greatly reduced price; the student version that comes with the book is fully functional, but is only licensed one year for students, 30 days for professionals. Microsoft doesn't give their software away for free either.

It is often said in both literature and music that large scale works need a small number of simple themes.
In despite of Grass' immense abilities, this book showed me that even one of our greatest living writers can get lost in a swamp of his own making.

Hot on the heels of his highly engaging "My Century", in which he gave an overview of 20th century German history in 100 short stories, Grass decided to write a novel focusing on the German reunification and to place it in the context of about 150 years of national history. To provide the link between present and past the protagonist Theo Wuttke, a soon to be 70 year old filing clerk, has an alter ego Fonty, who happens to be the reincarnation of late 19th century writer Theodore Fontane. So far, so good. Based on the first 50 pages of this book I had expected that Grass had chosen Wuttke/Fonty as a symbol of the German nation as he did with Oskar in the Tin Drum. Alas, while the book ends with Fonty's liberation, the next 700 pages (I read the original German version) contain one great scene, a number of good nuggets, but too little of a book one has come to expect of Grass.

As a counterbalance to Wuttke's often fond reminiscences of the former Eastern Germany he is still in daily contact with his former designated Stasi spy Hoftaller, who knows every detail of Fonty's political and maritally infidel past and seems to require Wuttke to retain his own identity. Add to the mix the disgruntled Mrs. Wuttke, the soon the be married Ms. Wuttke, her capitalist husband, the French illegitimate grandchild and many an obscure reference to the works of Fontane and things get worse. Topple it of with continuous time traveling of Fonty between Wuttke and Fontane and the reader ends up in quicksand. Moreover, the text is at least 30% too long and often gets lost in tens of pages of superfluous diversions.

In Germany this book caused quite a stir due to its view of the "West taking over the East". I had the opportunity to walk the streets of East Berlin three months before the wall came down. While Grass makes some valid points about Western Patronization, anyone having first person experience with the former Eastern Germany will just respond with a highly appropriate "so what".

Finally a note on the translation. While Grass is notorious for his long and complicated sentences he has outdone himself here. On top of that there are endless pages of stream of conscious conversations. The translator has done an admirable job in untangling, predigesting and finally translating. As such, the translation is definitely more easily readable than the original. Yet, a lot of the rhythm and flavor which defines Grass gets lost.

In all a virtuoso, yet unfocused effort. While the wedding banquet scene is on par with Gunter's best and intimate knowledge of Fontane's works may lead to greater appreciation of this text, I did not feel appropriately rewarded for the effort that reading it took.

The way to get the most out of this novel is to be both well-versed in German literature (especially the work of Fontana), as well as to be knowledgeable about the history of Germany, and of Berlin in particluar. For me, to read this book was to embark on a rigourous journey of two extremes:
On the one hand, I did not understand and thus could not appreciate the no doubt rich literary commentaries and allusions that surrounded Fontana; I am simply not conversant with his writing. All I could do in those parts of the novel was read what was written, and wish that I had read Effi Briest, etc. first.
On the other hand, I was at times mesmerized by the depth and breadth of Grass's probing and questioning of historical issues pertaining to Germany and Berlin. By my having spent the equivalent of almost a year in Germany, including time in Berlin in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I was able to grasp Grass's commentary on the transformation of Germany and Berlin into one country and city, respectively, from their previously divided conditions. Grass makes all sorts of subtle and clever references to certain streets, neighbourhoods and buildings ("the hall of tears") in Berlin, as well as to various historical incidents and figures (e.g. the "Goatee": Walter Ulbricht), referring to them by their locally-known idioms or nicknames; this rich aspect of the novel, which, gratifyingly, made me feel very close to the author and to the story, will likely be lost on readers without a firm grounding in 20th century German history. The historical commentary is usually highly concentrated, at times hypnotic in its relentlessness and directness; I often found myself mentally exhausted from having to concentrate as much as I needed to, to follow the threads of discussion and inquiry. Invariably, though, I wanted to do nothing more than keep reading, so compelling is Grass's writing style.
I did not want the book to end; I did not want to say goodbye to Wuttke|Fonty. I was sad that the exhilarating experience of reading this novel was over. I felt a certain wistfulness toward Germany, its people and its turbulent history. One can tell that Grass both loves his country, and is most wary of its history and circumstances.
One needs to invest a lot of emotional and intellectual energy to get through this novel, but so long as the reader is conversant with German literature, German history, or, ideally, both, it is well worth the effort.

Here we are, another masterpiece from one of Germany's greatest contemporary novelists.

This work, which first appeared in Germany in 1995, is Grass's treatment of Germany's reunification. Among the novel's central themes is this: that through successive periods of history some things never change. They may be harder to spot, they may have a different name, they may be lurking in a cellar where no one wishes to find them, but they are there all the same. Grass here uses the medium of the novel to assert that the celebrations of 1989-1990 ignored the dark side of the German national identity.

He accomplishes this by invoking minutiae from throughout German history, all of which is related through the novel's two central characters: Wuttke, who believes himself to be the nineteenth-century writer Theodore Fontane; and Hoftaller, a former East German police agent who is Wuttke's "shadow". What emerges is a fascinating montage where elements from both past and present intermingle, which is what Grass wants us to believe anyway: that what is "past" isn't really in the past at all.

A variety of symbols reinforce this message. Much of the novel takes place in a quintessentially symbolic building in central Berlin: a building which originally housed the Third Reich's Aviation Ministry, then East Germany's "House of Ministries," and now (although not mentioned in the novel) the Federal Ministry of Finance. Within this building one finds the "Paternoster," an old elevator system which Wuttke attempts to save from being replaced by modern high speed elevators, and which carries a symbolic import of its own: it represents the rise and fall of various people within the building, the memory or in the novel the "Archives" of Germany.

At more than 650 pages this is a formidable undertaking but in the end well worth the effort. A reader not terrible familiar with German history or literature may find many of the references terribly confusing or elusive. But here is Grass at his finest--his wit, his insight, his courage to poke fun at everything the Germans have considered sacred: from the former chancellor and "hero" of reunification Helmut Kohl to contemporary author Christa Wolf.

I found this book to be a very nice overview of NASCAR history and the modern circuit. For anyone who wants to know the history and some neat anecdotes about the sport, this book is perfect. And while I found Hemphill's description of the 1996 season entertaining, it wasn't as complete as his background. All in all, it makes the perfect first NASCAR book--everything the basic fan should know about the sport.

I enjoyed this book. WHEELS is a non-fiction story about a year on the NASCAR Winston Cup Circuit. It is full of rip roaring action and excitement. the author writes it lap by lap, wreck by wreck, race by race. I thought the wrecks were the mast interesting parts of this book, followed by the fixing of the cars. The author shows true spirit for all the tracks and drivers. Some of the drivers in this book are Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mike Skinner, Steve Park, Dale Jarret, and Darrell Waltrip. Some of the tracks are Martinsville Speedway, Darlington Speedway, Daytona Speedway, Talladega Speedway, and Atlanta Motor Speedway. I think every NASCAR fan should read this book.

Paul Hemphill has captured all the flavors of the fans, racers and the sport of racing. He details information not readily available to non-racing fans. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the south, in racing or in just plain good writing.

In "Forged In War," Warren Kimball seeks to shed light on the relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill that was, well, forged in World War II. For those who are interested in what happens away from the battlefield, this book provides an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at cooperation between two Great Powers. After a brief discussion of the two major players and their characters, the book plunges into the meat of its subject, namely the political and military cooperation between America and Great Britain during and after the war. Essentially, the narrative is divided into three (somewhat overlapping) parts. The first segment covers the events leading up to the war and FDR's decision to enter it; the second, the struggles to defeat Germany and Japan; the third, the diplomatic maneuvering over postwar arrangements once the defeat of Germany had been assured. It's the third part that's most prominent, and also most interesting, as Kimball delves into a discussion of how the prosecution of the war effected, and was effected by, competing visions of the postwar world. The upheavals caused by wars tend to have a dramatic impact on the way the world looks after they're over, and "Forged In War" is a comprehensive examination of how Roosevelt and Churchill (and Stalin for that matter) attempted to exert their control over these upheavals. Although Kimball obviously has a certain level of admiration for Churchill and Roosevelt, he makes it clear that for both men practicality overrode principal; as Roosevelt said, he was not a Wilsonian idealist, and the same held true for Churchill. At the same time that the two Western leaders were finishing off Germany militarily, they were also positioning themselves to prevent Soviet domination of Europe at war's end. A central focus of the book is the massive series of formal and informal discussions that eventually culminated in the acceptance of Stalin's axiom: whoever liberated a conquered country got to impose on it their own political system. In this sense, probably the most impressive aspect of the book is the extent to which Kimball captures the intermingling of political and military considerations that can occur during wartime. Kimball has a straightforward and sometimes entertaining writing style that prevents his narrative from getting too bogged down in detail, so most should find reading this book pretty easy. For history buffs, "Forged In War" gets a high recommendation.

Forged in War is a well researched although often quirky history of Churchill and Roosevelt during World War II. As diplomatic history, this book is a good review of the key events during the war years, including the many conferences and meetings between Churchill, Roosevelt, and sometimes Stalin. Kimball reminds the reader that during the war Britain and the United States were allies with the Soviet Union. He correctly discourages the reader from using the Cold War as a prism for viewing the decisions of high strategy made during the war, while at the same time he reviews those key wartime decisions that were so important in shaping the postwar world.

Kimball uses various unnamed sources throughout his otherwise meticulously researched book. For example on page 10 at the end of a paragraph about how postwar leaders "exploited the Churchill legend" Kimball states: "Even one of those convicted in the Watergate affair during the Nixon years adopted as his public motto a Churchill admonition not to give way "in things great or small, large or petty." On the next page he refers to: "One student of international affairs, who by 1990 had become a regular contributor to the op-ed page of the New York Times . . . ." Such references to unnamed sources leaves the reader wondering why Kimball uses such sources at all, if he can't or won't name his source.

Kimball is a talented writer although he too often inserts comments that remind the reader when he is writing-in the 1990s-and by doing so he cheapens his narrative. One example is in reference to the Yalta Conference and its influence on postwar popular culture. "Fifty years after the Big Three met in the Crimea, a supermodel, appearing in a motion picture depicting her vacuous, if remunerative, occupation, specified the place of the conference in historical memory. Searching for a stark contrast between what she did and what was truly important, she quipped: 'I mean, the worst thing that can happen to me is I break a heel and fall down. This is not Yalta, right?'" (pp. 310-311) He then refers to this broken heel later in his text. The name of the supermodel is supplied in an endnote, however the reference is a strain on the narrative. Kimball would have done much better not to include such references at all, however they are laced throughout the book.

Despite such quirks in his narrative, Kimball still manages to deliver a good review of the leaders and their strategies for winning World War II. Churchill is depicted as loveable, immature, brilliant, drunk, determined, and loyal to his country and empire. Roosevelt is shown to be shrewd, duplicitous, patrician, informal, irreverent, and equally committed to his nation's interests. FDR constantly urges Churchill to abandon his colonies in favor of self-determination for those under British rule. Churchill is adamant in his desire to maintain the empire. Kimball completed a three-volume study titled Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence. He draws heavily on this research and includes choice quotes from the correspondence between the two wartime leaders. Kimball looks far beyond the Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence however, and gives the reader a comprehensive summary of both the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship and their independent actions as they led the world to victory over the Nazis. The book focuses on the war in Europe with fewer references to the war in Asia. Stalin is also prominent in this narrative as befits the leader of the nation who took the brunt of what Hitler's armies had to offer.

Kimball reviews all of the summit meetings of the war from the Atlantic Conference through Yalta. Churchill met with Roosevelt eleven times, with Stalin twice, and all three met on two occasions. The travel logistics and risks were enormous in these meetings, especially for the handicapped Roosevelt. Churchill too was not a young and strong man. Included among Churchill's many serious health problems is the story of when he nearly died of pneumonia after the Tehran Conference.

Kimball argues against putting excessive blame to "losing eastern Europe" at Yalta, reminding the reader that most of the postwar agreements, including the fate of eastern Europe, were already agreed to prior to Yalta. Those agreements were made with the Soviet Union when they were a desperately needed ally in the fight against Hitler. Churchill was especially worried about Stalin negotiating a separate peace with Hitler.

Even with his quirky writing style, Kimball managed to write an excellent history of Churchill, Roosevelt, and their wartime leadership that led to the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and set the foundation for the postwar world.

Warren Kimball once again, with an adeptness uncommon among documentary-based historical narratives, weaves his way through the complexities of the Roosevelt-Churchill wartime partnership. As suggested by the title, Kimball frames for the reader a political and personal relationship that, although rife with an undercurrent of conflict, ultimately is hammered into the finest weapon of war. A picture immerges of two leaders, who despite the immense internal political and external military pressures of the war, never lost their edge in dealing with one another, let alone their common foes. Many internal skirmishes over the conduct of war policy are revealed in the author's apt analysis of the documents. The correspondence reveals that the duo often disagreed quite intensly about the conduct of the war and the way to win the peace at war's end. The careful reader will appreciate the pains professor Kimball undertook to reveal the many shades of the relationsip. The two statesmen did not always see eye to eye and frequently utilized subtle, to not-so-subtle methods of deception in order to force the other's hand or coax the other slowly but surely to eventually concurr. However, a final balance in the narrative is achieved by a paralleling focus on Roosevelt's and Churchill's shared mutual objectives. In the end it was Roosevelt's and Churchill's compatible visions of future that transended their differences in style, personal judgement and even national self-interest.

This is a good supplement to "AI - A Modern Approach by Russell and Norvig". The students and myself found the examples and illustration to be of great value in the understanding of the concepts. Would be great if authors could links references on the web for more information. Good book for the delivery of AI at foundation level.

Suppose you are, like me, a software engineer who never actually studied CS beyond junior level undergraduate 'data structures'... and now you have to work on something involving complicated pattern matching... this is how to do it: buy this book and Sipser's on the Theory of Computation. After digesting them (which is easy if you're as good with logical mathematics as the typical software engineer), you should be able to read current literature in either field, and will have a deep, fundamental understanding of how to best solve whatever problem you're working on. That's what worked for me, anyway. An excellent book, as is Sipser's.

Having purchased this book as a supplement to Winston's course at MIT, I can very highly recommend it as a very comprehensive, up-to-date, well written text summarizing the field. The book covers essentially all of the topics pertenant in modern AI with enough detail for a complete implementation without being overly technical. I strongly recommend it to anybody looking to build intelligent systems or to anybody simply perusing the field for abstract ideas.

I bought this book based on the reviews as was sorely dissapointed.

The writing style is of a programmer who never took an english class (it almost reads as if it were a program; every paragraph has its own number, and the organization is reminiscent of a C program).

The content fits the style. E.g., in an early example he shows how you can modify the Integer class to have calorie converter functions (his example application is a food calorie viewer). It seemed bizzare to me, so asked on comp.smalltalk and found out that this is an inappropriate use of the feature.

All in all, this is one of the poorest programming books I've ever seen.

Shayne Wissler

This is an excellent book. Writien and organized in a style that is uncommonly clear and concise for an book of it's type. Winston explores the basic features of Smalltalk while continually implementing them in a workable application throughout the book. This is an extremely effective instruction technique. I recommend this book not only to Comp Sci students, but to professionals who want to add Smalltalk to their skillset.

I love this guy's writing style. It is just matter of fact and to the point. He cuts all the crap and teaches the language only. Result, you have a lean ~280 page book easily 1/4 the size of many other programming books. The author breaks all the topics up into small chunks and they're placed in logical order. This makes it not only easier to learn the material, but makes for a great reference book. If you've forgotten how to do something you can turn to the appropriate chapter and get the info you need without wading through many pages and searching. Each chapter is short and specific. Smalltalk is a great language and this gives you a great overview of it all.

This is a remarkable book that Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics (reviewed earlier) led me to read. Kaplan begins his book with a glowing description of the River War and argues that those of us trying to deal with 21st century Afghanistan, Africa, Bosnia, etc., would do well to study the lessons in Churchill's report.

Churchill was a British officer who wrangled his way into Kitchener's campaign up the Nile through connections in high places and against Kitchener's wishes. Kitchener was angry that a journalist-officer of Churchill's age (early 20s) would even presume to render judgment on the Generals and the government.

Churchill recounts the rise of the Mahdi, the defeat of Gordon at Khartoum, the decision of the government to retake the Sudan, and the careful preparations by Kitchener (in some ways a forerunner to Schwarzkopf's massing overwhelming force against Iraq in 1991).

There are a number of lessons in this book. Churchill talks constantly of "scientific warfare" and the inability of the Mahdist forces to cope with it. By "scientific warfare" he meant the telegraph, the railroad, the armored steamboat with cannon, the Maxim gun (an early machine gun), and the disciplined infantry squares. It is helpful to be reminded that predators, B-2s, and Special Forces on horseback with laser designators are simply our generation's version of the "scientific war".

Churchill also points out how few British troops were engaged in the campaign. The majority of the battalions were Egyptian and Sudanese with British officers. Only a minority was British. On the other hand, it was British communications, British logistics, British gunboats, and British firepower that made them dominant. These were Egyptian and Sudanese troops officered by the British and trained to British standards, a lesson for Afghanistan and elsewhere. In one expedition there were 1,300 men of whom only 7 were British.

This is a very useful book as we think about the complexities of the 21st century third world and its problems of poverty, violence, disorganization, and ruthless petty tyrants.

This is the Churchill book with the account of the last war charge of British cavalry in the field. In which Churchill, always a little different, uses a pistol rather than a sword, due to his dislocated shoulder problem from way back in Bangalore days (prelude to his first War Book, The Malakand Field Force).

For such a young writer, there are surprisingly mature observations on the topic of war, to the effect that everyone on both sides is all for it before it starts, then generally eager to be done with it once it's underway. The tone of this book, though, mostly reflects eagerness.

This book is a good resource to better understand the events faithfully portrayed in the video "My Early Life" and this book can itself be better understood as a follow-on to watching Charleton Heston in the role of General "Chinese" Gordon getting killed at the end of the movie "Khartoum," which is the event that actuated the punitive expedition which forms the subject of The River War.

You won't find a better blend of action and theory, than this book written by a participant who at least lopped off the interesting parts of this campaign to form a part of his own, far more wide ranging life story.

Winston Churchill is one of the greatest figures of world history; this book, written when Churchill was in his twenties, is a wonderful book that considers the reconquest of the Sudan both from a first person point of view (because Churchill was there), and from a broader historical perspective.

Churchill begins the work some 13 years before the war, with the killing of the legendary General Gordon in Khartoum at the hands of the fanatical Dervishes. Churchill lays out in detail the reaction in Britain, the political reasons for why no action was taken at the time, and then goes into a wonderful segue about the intervening years of the wars of the Mahdi and his successor, the Khalifa.

The book is painstakingly researched; and the young Churchill is obviously trying to "get it right"; interjecting his opinions where it is relevant and introducing facts and tables where it is necessary to make his case.

The military buildup, the logistical and technical feat of the railroad built to support the army, the manufacture and employment of river gunboats, and the precise orders of battle and description of equipment -- these are details that show Churchill's immense grasp not only of the broad strategic picture but also a consummate mastery of the details of nineteenth century soldiering. One can see at work the mind that made Churchill a valuable cabinet member in the following thirty years, and an invaluable Prime Minister in wartime.

The prose style is a bit heavy, and Churchill's writing is not at the same level that won him the Nobel Prize, but it is a fine early work about an interesting, if little known, war.

The book itself also caused a rift between Kitchener and Churchill that was never really mended; as a result, Churchill's fall from the Admiralty and the failure of Gallipoli may have had this book as a very small cause. But this is not the book's fault!

A very good work of military history, and an excellent insight into the incredible mind of Winston Churchill.