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Katie
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Benjamin Franklin Cheatham, a career soldier who served in the War with Mexico, commanded Hood's corps for a while. His entire career in the war was served in the western theater, most of it in and around Tennessee. The war wasn't just with the Yankees when Braxton Bragg commanded the corps, for the two men despised each other.
Cheatham was a man who found the going rough between the two wars, but made his mark in the later conflict, in spite of accusations against his character. After the war, he was more successful as a citizen than before, heading the Tennessee State Penitentiary system for time. However, over the years, with most interest in Lee, Grant, and the eastern theater, he was nearly forgotten
This book is well written and an easy read, but could have used the skill of a good proofreader. Typos and other errors are sometimes distracting. Readers interested in the Civil War, particularly the western theater, will find this an interesting account. They might also enjoy "Five Tragic Hours" by McDonough and Connelly, and "Shiloh: In Hell before Night" by McDonough.
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Current investment practice, and later editions of this book concentrate on the one thing that Graham said was, if not impossible, very non-productive - estimating future earnings. This book concentrates on understanding proven value. Where one spends most of its time on the income statement, this book spends most of its time on the balance sheet. There is a world of difference, and the difference leads to a much different portfolio, and future.
There is, as the author points out repeatedly, a difference between investment and speculation. There is also a difference between helpful discussion and meaningful analysis. The original edition is full of meaning, written by a practitioner who also could teach. Later editions (especially the fifth) make me wonder how much of the master's works the new authors read before starting. It also makes me question how much influence Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette and Autanet exercised in return for their grant to finance the book.
If you want a great book on investing read the original. It will give you much more insight and at least twice as much 'food for thought'.
As an answer I give an anecdote from Warren Buffett's life:
When stock investments started to become popular, the volume increased ten fold, and the modern techniques to make a profit were developed, Warren Buffet was extremely worried. He remembered what happened in 1929. He loathed the new trends in investment that tried to predict the future price of a stock. Therefore he had a meeting with all his fellow Graham students, he expressly forbid to bring anything newer than the 1934 edition of Security Analysis.
This happened decades ago, but history repeats. We all know what happened 3 years ago. We all know how "experts" thought that the market was booming, and how they let it crash. We all know how they made a profit on the money that private investors lost.
Nowadays when I go shopping for a book I always look at the date of pubblication, if it is between 1997 and 2000 I'm very wary. All those books about "new economy", "digital era", "e-commerce", "dot coms", etc. have to be taken with the maximum attention. Usually they contain a lot of inflated ideas that as we look at what happened after they were written we understand how much those "experts" really understand about stock investments.
If they were wrong then, why should they be righ now?
Trust me, but more importantly, trust Graham, trust Buffett, (those that have been consistently right for 50 years) this is the book to buy, "anything newer looks suspicious."
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