I read the "WHISPER OF BLADES" which is the U.K / EU version of this book.
I guees the most true and interesting sentance of the book on every chapter. The KING asked the adviser " WHY A REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING ON MY WATCH " adviser answers " YOU BROUGHTED ON YOUR SELF ".

Erik Durschmied is one of those authors who provokes passionate views among his critics and a certain enthusiasm among his fans. I happen to like his books, though I can understand why others might disagree.

First, the strong points of "Blood of Revolution": Durschmied knows how to tell an exciting story, and he has picked some dramatic tales to work with. Some are well known: the climax of the French Revolution in 1792; the Russian Revolution of 1917; the plot to kill Hitler, which nearly succeeded in July 1944; the palace coups that tried to prevent Japanese Emperor Hirohito from broadcasting the order that ended World War II; and the revolution in Iran, which brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power and led to an international crisis in which 52 Americans were held hostage.

Other events are a little more obscure, at least to me: the martyrdom of the Tyrolean folk hero Andreas Hofer in 1809; the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1919; the Spartcisit revolution in post-World War I Germany; and the capture and execution of Che Guevara in Bolvia in 1967.

Each of these stories is told with gusto. The people involved are cruel or kind, cowardly or bold, wise or foolish, without a lot of shading in between. The prose is often a bit lurid--Durschmied seems to be in love with all of the adjectives that Hemingway did without. And the author is always very certain of himself, which makes me a bit suspicious about his conclusions.

Although Durchmied has a vigorous writing style, it has some quirks that have irritated other reviewers. Keep in mind that the author is an Austrian-born journalist who emigrated to Canada during World War II and now lives in Paris and Provence--that's enough language experience to play havoc with anyone's syntax. As for me, his style kept me turning the pages (though I admit to wincing a few times).

If you're looking for a sober, scholarly history, this book probably isn't for you. And if you are already familiar with the events that Durschmied describes (as I was with the fall of Japan), you aren't going to learn a lot that's new. But if you think you would enjoy a quick and passionate survey of some interesting historical events, this book and its predecessors "The Hinge Factor" and "The Weather Factor" are definitely worth picking up.

And, for the Durschmied fan, here's a tip: for some reason or other, Durschmied's books appear in the United Kingdom about a year before they arrive in the United States. "Blood of Revolution," for instance, was published in February 2001 under the title "Whisper of the Blade" (see what I mean about melodrama?). And Durschmied just published "The Hinges of Battle: How Chance and Incompetence Have Changed the Face of History," which can be found on Amazon's UK site--I already have my copy in hand.

Historical texts, eyewitness accounts, and analysis blend in Blood Of Revolution, a survey of a range of revolutions and revolts, from the French revolution to those in the Middle East and Cuba. Each revolution has its own dynamic and cast of characters but all result in betrayal, glory and death. A fascinating survey of world revolutionary influences.

I very much enjoyed reading "The Hinge Factor" and so I bought this book hoping to find more similar reading material. Chapter 1 raised my doubts and after finishing Chapter 2 I was really disappointed by this book. The episodes are really lenghty and somewhat hard to read/follow - the book is not well written. The most disappointing fact, however, is that this book has not very much to do with military history but focuses almost entirely on political history. The influence of the weather, as the title of the book suggests, seems almost constructed and bears almost no meaning to the events described.

First the positive: "The Weather Factor" is a readable book that tells some good stories. Now the negative: it is also not terribly insightful for anyone who knows a lot about history. If you already know the story of events such as the Irish potato famine, the retreats of Napoleon and Hitler in the face of the Russian winter, or of the massive Pacific storm that savaged Admiral Bull Halsey's fleet in December 1944, then you aren't going to learn anything new. For a book allegedly about the weather, Durschimed spends so much time giving general background information that the weather itself gets the short shrift in his narratives. He could just as easily have called the book a collection of random historical essays, which is essentially what it is.

The two most bizzare chapters come at the end. One tells of his own personal experience as a war corrrespondant in the Mekon Delta, like the revelation that jungle conditions hampered American war efforts in Vietnam is a something new. The other is his essay on possible future attempts to use weather control devices as military weapons. This is an intriguing notion, but anyone who knows anything about science will realize that the technology for such a possibility will never be had, if at all, by 2025, which is the random date picked by the author for the title of the chapter.

Overall, "The Weather Factor" is not a bad book, but people with a real interest in weather as well as history buffs will likely be disappointed.

My local library had this book filed under 551, i.e., in the meteorology section, which I think is an error. This book is more of a military history focusing on how weather has influenced the outcome of battles and therefore of history. The science of weather plays a small part.

That being said, it's an interesting read. It's divided into chapters, each devoted to a specific incident. Some are reasonably well-known, such as the battle at Teutoburger Wald that cost Rome three legions (included here due to a thunderstorm that bogged down the Romans and led the Germanic "barbarians" to think that their gods were on their side), the typhoon that destroyed Kublai Khan's fleet heading to invade Japan, and Napoleon's disastrous march on Russia that was devastated by the legendary Russian winter. Others were (to me, at least) more obscure: the thunderstorm that scattered the mobs in Paris and thereby cost Robespierre his supporters, the weather during the Battle of the Bulge that first protected the Germans from air attack and then cleared to leave them vulnerable to the Allies' unchallenged fighters and bombers, and the typhoon that devastated the American Pacific fleet in World War II.

The one non-battle chapter focuses on the Irish potato famine, which was facilitated by a cool, rainy summer that allowed the potato-killing fungus to flourish.

The penultimate chapter, about fighting in the Mekong delta during the Vietnam War, provides a change since it's written in the first person. The author, a war correspondent, was actually there, and gives a personal view of what it's like to fight natives in the muggy misery of a tropical jungle.

The final chapter addresses the possibility of manipulating the weather in the future to provide better prospects for one's own forces or worse prospects for the enemies'. This has apparently already been tried, with American forces trying to get it to rain on the Ho Chi Minh trail in order to bog down Viet Cong supplies.

The book is readable enough, though with one strange quirk: footnotes that provide additional information rather than references. These quickly become distracting, and I think some should have just been incorporated into the regular text while the rest should either have been eliminated or moved to the back. It's a strange affectation and not at all helpful.

So, overall it's an interesting book even if not what I expected.

"The Hinge Factor" is an exercise in historical Monday-morning quarterbacking. In it Erik Durschmied, a former television war correspondent, describes 18 critical military engagements beginning with the Trojan hourse in 1184 BC and ending with the Gulf War. He then, equally briefly, gives what he thinks is the single "hinge factor" on which the battle turned. His subtitle "How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History" gives a clue to the kind of hinge he is talking about. In TV jargon I think this is called a hook.

Durschmied tells a good story -- quickly and yet colorfully. He shows us parts of the action through the eyes of specific participants -- including bits of dialogue that lend flavor to the scenes. (I was left wondering if these were authentic; they sound almost too cinematic for words found in soldiers' letters and diaries.) The best sections of the book are those Durschmied covered as a journalist himself -- especially the fighting in Hue during the Tet Offensive.

Durschmied's assessment is sometimes colored by his enthusiasms and his need for a hook. His description of the battle of Antietam mostly features courageous Confederates slaughtering ill-led Union troops. Some readers may be unprepared for his revelation at the end that Confederate casualties were substantially higher than those suffered by the Union army. He concludes it was a moral victory for General Lee. He ignores the fact that Lee lost an irreplaceable quarter of his army in a battle he needn't have fought, that he was forced to retreat back across the Potomac in the middle of the night nearly losing his entire artillery reserve in the process, and that his objective of fomenting an uprising among Confederate sympathizers in Maryland was thwarted by the battle. Durschmied compresses the complex motivations and movements of Russian and German forces that clashed in Prussia in August 1914 to just 17 pages. He distills the reason for the Russian defeat down to a single personality clash. When studied in detail, the history of great events is seldom that tidy.

Durschmied is clearly not writing for the serious student of history -- military or otherwise. The maps he provides are inadequate. They contain little topgraphical detail and geographic points mentioned in his text do not appear on the accompanying map. There are errors of fact that should have been caught by his editors. His bibliography is sketchy.

The subject of this book intrigued me, as there have been many events in history that historians attribute to the greatness of great men on the winning side, but are more often the result of morons on the losing side.

There were certainly some interesting and even entertaining stories, like the lack of nails at Waterloo, and the barrel of schnapps, but Durschmied too often attributes the events described to a single factor, when it is often a combination of decisions (many of which are sound, given the circumstances) and other factors. Unfortunately, the author is bound by his format to only allow twenty or so pages to events about which volumes have been written.

A couple of times, Durschmied describes the factors which led to a series of events, and claims the "Hinge Factor" was something else entirely. The "Hinge Factor" becomes the spark that ignites an already absurdly inflammatory situation.

This is a pretty light read, and offers a unique perspective, and when taken with a grain of salt, is good reading. Pretty good stuff, but not a lot of substance.

The Hinge Factor relates some important events in history as entertaining anecdotes. The book does live up to it's subtitle "How chance and stupidity have changed history". Each of the anecdotes shows how chance or someone's stupid decision changed the outcome of an important historical event. A number of unrelated historical events were chosen as examples.

That is actually the biggest problem with the book. While each example stands on its own, there is no attempt to draw the piece together into a coherent whole. No lessons are drawn. The book comes to no conclusion. Perhaps the author intended that the lessons be clear to the reader from the stories he chose. If so I missed it.

In fact I do not believe the author had any lesson in mind. The events described were chosen for their entertainment value, not for any educational purpose. If that is the authors goal, I would say it was a moderate success.

Durschmied is a television corespondent. That witting style is reflected in The Hinge Factor. Each of the seventeen short vignettes is filled with action and keeps a fast pace. The author never gets boughed down in details or pesky facts. Since each story stands on its own, it is easy to pick the book up and read any one at random. The helps the book server as an occasional diversion.

This book consists of superficial descriptions of ten different battles, wars, and leaders, including Attila, Napoleon, Custer's last stand, the Zulu war, the fall of Constantinople, etc. I enjoyed the description of the Zulu war, which seemed to me the best chapter in the book.

The author's questionable claims in his account of Custer's Last Stand made me wonder how accurate the rest of the book is. For example, he estimated that 10,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors were arrayed against Custer. That seems a vast exaggeration. I would believe an Indian army of 2,000 -- maybe even 3,000 -- but 10,000? No. Also, the author probably overestimates Indian casualties. He mentions "hundreds of dead and dying" Indians in one minor sub-battle of the engagement. I don't think so. Hollywood to the contrary, Indians had a well-developed sense of self-preservation and rarely pressed an attack in which they suffered heavy casualties.

There's too much good writing on war to bother reading this book.