It used to be that the U.S. military turned out officers who could write decently. Apparently this is either no longer the case -- or the Rangers tend to draw their officers from that portion of the corps which consists largely of people who can't even write a decent field manual. Major Lock is one of these officers, and TO FIGHT WITH INTREPIDITY suffers badly because the publisher of this book didn't assign someone to edit Major Lock's manuscript as thoroughly as it needed to be. This notwithstanding, Major Lock's book is an uniquely well-researched and enormously valuable source of information on the history of the Rangers in America and the Ranger units of the U.S. Army in the wars and other armed conflicts of the 20th Century. I find this book a valuable addition to my library despite the fact that it reads like a badly translated copy of a textbook from the Frunze Academy, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the U.S. Army's development and employment of light infantry forces.

LTC Lock has done in a compact form a BDU pocket-sized complete history of the U.S. Army Rangers, this quantification is usually what we praise, but we forget the quality of his writing when he does this. We need to realize what is it that we want to learn from Army Ranger history other than the predictable HOOAH! stuff?

LTC Lock in his book reveals an aspect of light infantry operations we simply do not understand today with our men turned into pack mules with "100 pounds of lightweight equipment". Read his accounts of Roger's Rangers and you will see a light infantry that could "fly" on its feet through the woods and outfight the Indians. The recent film, "Last of the Mohicans" best captures this capability. This was a Ranger infantry that was willing to use unusual mobility means, also---boats, ice skates, snow shoes, living off the land--all to get that mobility edge over the enemy. In WWII, Darby used speed-marches and carts to carry mortars/ammo to close on enemies rapidly to gain surprise/violence of action. Merrill's Marauders used mules to carry 75mm pack howitzers and supplies to penetrate deep into the jungles of Burma and take Myitkyina airfield from the jungle-seasoned Japanese. In Five major (WALAWBUM, SHADUZUP, INKANGAHTAWNG, NHPUM GA, & MYITKYINA) and thirty minor engagements, they defeated the veteran soldiers of the Japanese 18th Division (Conquerors of Singapore and Malaya) who vastly outnumbered the Marauders. Always moving to the rear of the main forces of the Japanese, the Marauders completely disrupted the enemy supply and communication lines, and climaxed their behind the lines operations with the capture of Myitkyina Airfield, the only all-weather airfield in Northern Burma.

Theese lessons need to be applied to today's light infantry that is still over-looking the capability modern mountain bikes and carts with oversized tires could give an Airborne Ranger-type force to close on an enemy after insertion out of detection range by parachute/airlanding aircraft.

My only fault with the book is that it doesn't clearly lay-out the roles/missions dilemma current Ranger infantry is in---it really has 2 types of missions:

1.) on one hand its America's shock troops storming defended high-value targets alone or as a spearhead for other troops (WWII Commando mindset),

2.)on the other, it has to be able to "Range" across the land as light infantry for days at a time to raid/recon (traditional Ranger missions).

These two missions are different and require different mindsets and equipment---and this is why TF Ranger in Somalia did not have armored fighting vehicles--because it was not seen as appropriate for "Rangers to do mech" if one was defining the unit by traditional roles/missions. However, shock troops need shock action and that means Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) and shielded men, which Rangers lead the U.S. military by employing for the first time rifle-caliber resstant body armor and having the physical conditioning and willingness to take Soldier's load risks to go into battle with it. AFVs are not popular in the minds of some Rangers, but its necessary to successfully perform shock action missions in urbanized terrain. Other elite units in the world can ride AFVs without their image suffering. Walking is not always the best way to "range" across the battlefield, as Ranger gun-jeeps, RSOVs (Land Rovers) and HMMWVs attest from combat in Iran (Desert 1), Grenada (airlanded from C-130s), Panama (parachute air-dropped) and Iraq (Desert Storm). But these are unarmored vehicles not up to the task of advancing in the face of concentrated enemies and their fire. LTC Lock in his superb chapter on the Mogadishu raid expertly outlines why Rangers should have had armored vehicles and that they would have prevented 1-18 men dying that day. His Somalia chapter is as good as Bowden's entire book, "Blackhawk Down!" and in some ways better---because it doesn't mince words and gets to the point that AFVs were needed in the force structure.

If America's light infantry forces would look back via LTC Lock's fine book into its methodology of Roger's Rangers; it will find the mindset needed to make it the most mobile and hardest-hitting infantry on earth that can range across the terrain quick enough to defeat the stalemate sensors and optics will create against a slower moving force. If these forces will understand that as Col Daniel Bolger states in Death Ground: America's Infantry in battle: "Ranger tabs don't stop bullets", and accept a modest number of air-droppable and helicopter transportable light tracked AFVs into its force structure for its own organic shielded mobility and heavy firepower, it will have learned well from its Somalian ordeals and be ready to lead the way! into the 21st century.

Ranger units have always put tremendous emphasis on history and tradition as an aspect of pride in duty, and that's where this work has real value. Academic critique from recreational readers won't reflect this --it's just another book; however; Rangers and men in the Special Ops business out there will see much deeper meaning in it. If you want to take pride in wearing the beret a step further (whether today or years ago), read Lock's book. There are nearly four centuries of tradition behind the Ranger Creed and Roger's Standing Orders: Learn the history.

Military historians will love this book, which is replete with battle plans, diagrams, maps, and minutiae regarding the War of 1812. So clear and cogent a description of our army's actions and tactics is an impressive accomplishment, obviously the result of years of assiduous research. Information is derived not only from military and government records but also from personal correspondence of the time. One emerges from this book with a new respect for Major General Jacob Brown, whose victories at Chippawa and Lundy's Lane strongly influenced the outcome of the war and earned him a Congressional gold medal. John Morris's book offers a plenitude of information about the War of 1812 and also describes the changes in American military organization that resulted from Brown's ideas. (The author has also unearthed financial and personal records showing that Major General Brown labored under a backbreaking load of debt all his life, and was never free of financial worries. In present times, such a military celebrity would be making millions on the lecture circuit.)

I am not particularly well qualified to review this book, having bought and read it for family rather than academic reasons, but it is definitely a must-have for any serious student of American history. Put it on your Christmas list as the perfect gift for historians, war aficionados, and military scholars. It is not only a gold mine of information but also an elegant coffee-table display volume, containing numerous reproductions of portraits of the dramatis personae of the period.

This book provides a sparkling bio on the life and times of Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown. For too long we have ignored the study of the US army in the post Revolutionary War period. Jacob Brown, a Quaker turned soldier was one of the founding fathers of the American army in the early part of the 19th century. Like Winfield Scott and others of this period they have for too long been overshadowed by the galaxy of personalities associated with the Civil War. Without the Browns and Scotts in the antebellum US army there would not have been a firm military foundation in this country on which to build anything.

For sure Brown was no military genius, but he possessed common sense and was aggressive in his generalship. After whitnessing first hand the shameful failures in the first part of the War of 1812 when ametuer American armies bumbled their way across the border into Canada only to be sent reeling back, Brown and others learned quickly what not to do. A successful defense against Governor Provost's clumsy attack upon Sacketts Harbor in 1813 quickly marked Brown as one of the few American generals able to best British regulars. He was destined to achieve higher command than just the inefficient New York State Militia.
After the disasterous Montreal campaign of 1813, easily the worst debacle in US military history, Brown achieved rank as Maj. Gen. in the regular army. His promotion was one of several which was intended to remove the aged and incompetent generals that were ruining the army.

Brown and Winfield Scott worked hard in preparation for the 1814 Niagara campagn. Scott has been given a lot of the credit for this work, but it was really Brown who put the wheels in motion and who gave Scott the latitude to train and perfect his little brigade. The 1814 Niagara campagn would be the coming of age for the US army. The fiercely fought battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie are at long last starting to receive the attention they deserve. Morris in his bio goes into some depth concerning these actions, and rightfully so as Brown played a major part in them all. Still, we see that it was Brown's maanagement and control of the army as opposed to his battlefield genius that accomplished more than anything. Brown got the militia to actually cross the border and support the regulars. Brown is often credied as the only general who was never defeated by the British. American historians are often desperate to point this out in order to regain some pride from an embarrassing conflict. While Brown was successful in all his battles save Fort Erie, he very easily could have lost at any one of them. Still, compared to the likes of Dearborn, Wilkinson and Hull, Brown comes acorss as a towering military genius!

This biography on Brown paints a nice picture of the man and the times he lived in. We learn of the origins of this old and honorable American family and how they became the land barons of northern New York before the war. We learn of Brown's domestic life and large family from the fragmentary records which the author has put together and carefully arranged. Where there is not enough evidence the author tries to put together the pieces. The War of 1812 takes up about half of this book, while the remainder shows how Brown struggled to maintain a tiny US army under the constant attacks of scheming politicians in Washington. Without Brown's harmonizing efforts the US army might not be what it is today. Brown was also instrumental in reorganizing many departments within the army, and deserves every bit as much credit as Scott has recieved over the years. All of this was done while Brown struggled with heavy debts and a failing health.

Morris has rescued the honor of a general who deserves a very important place in the early history of the US army. This is a very readable and concise biography. All students of the War of 1812 and the period in general should enjoy this book.

No other US general was as consistently successful in the War of 1812 as Jacob Brown. Although a politically appointed general officer in the New York militia, Brown quickly earned the nation's respect, and a regular commission as a Brigadier General. Morris' well-written book objectively follows Brown's amazingly successful career from pre-War of 1812, to his death while serving as General of the Army in the post war years. The bulk of the book chronicles Brown's various commands on the Niagara Frontier during the War of 1812. During his tenure on the Niagara Frontier, Brown was a central player in most land combat actions. He was in command of US forces against the British in such major battles as the Battle of Chippewa, and the Battle of Lundy's Lane- the bloodiest battle of the war. Morris covers Brown's development of standardized training for not only enlisted, but the officers under his command as well. This served as the start of professional development for the US Army that continues through to today. Morris also ably covers Brown's post war career as one of only two Major Generals retained on active duty after the war (the other being Andrew Jackson), and his rise to become General of the Army. It was in this post where Brown was able to truly begin to instill professionalism in the Army. Although the book devotes most of its space to Brown's military success, Morris also delves into Brown's personal difficulties- severe debt and deteriorating health, which serves to round out the reader's understanding of the man. Despite his status as a national hero at the time of his death in 1828, the public unfortunately has generally forgotten Brown and his contributions the United States and its Army. Morris' book will hopefully help widen the public's knowledge of the forward-thinking Brown past those interested in the War of 1812. A highly recommended book for those not only interested in the War of 1812, but also for those interested in the development of the US Army and early westward expansion.

This book deserves one more than one star because of its subject matter. Clifton Fadiman, who also gave us THE WINE BUYER'S GUIDE & THE JOYS OF WINE, shows a sincere love for books, yet he is unfortunately one of the most ridiculous critics I have ever encountered. He consistently sounds far too pompous and misplaces his emphasis left and right. He tells us that Shakespeare should not be studied and is frequently pretentious and obscure; he says that Milton wrote in an often lackluster foreign language; he declares that Dickens is tedious and produced one of his worst novels in A TALE OF TWO CITIES; and he implies that DON QUIXOTE is something you should read in the 50-page version for children. After leaving us a bit ambivalent about those who have long been considered the greatest writers ever, he goes on the exalt Nabokov, Camus, and James Boswell (merely fine writers relative to the former ones).

Reading Cliff Fadiman is like listening to a history professor tell you that Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR were really mediocre presidents, but that Garfield and Coolidge were enlightened and really got a hell of a lot done.

I hate to be so negative, but there are just so many better books than Fadiman's on the same subject.

If you are looking for a lifetime reading plan and an inspiring critic, I suggest you try Harold Bloom (THE WESTERN CANON, SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN, HOW TO READ AND WHY).

After you read Bloom's chapters on Cervantes, Milton, Dickens, and above all Shakespeare, go back and read Fadiman's sections on these authors. Talk about Hyperion to a satyr.

This new edition of the Lifetime Reading Plan is a brilliant updating of Fadiman's old standard that promises to keep the book useful well into the 21st century. While a few of Fadiman's essays on great authors (Shakespeare, Dickens) are starting to look a little stodgy and old-fashioned forty years after they were first published, most remain surprisingly lively and fresh. Fadiman was an immense force in molding America's literary taste throughout most of the last century, and his opinionated, judicious, friendly voice continues to resonate in our own time. Fadiman's new co-author, John S. Major (whose contribution justifies calling this the NEW Lifetime Reading Plan) has re-organized the book's content and has contributed essays on a number of works that are new to the list; these new works broaden the book's appeal considerably. (Major is an excellent guide to good reading; see also his new book 100 One-Night Reads.) The best thing about this new edition of the Lifetime Reading Plan is that it recognizes that we are all now heirs to a truly global culture, so that, for example, Confucius and Muhammad have a daily impact on the way all of us think and behave; it behooves us to be familiar with their works. In other words, the Great Conversation of human literary achievement has moved into a more capacious room, broadened beyond the old "Western Canon" to include representatives of the world's other great traditions. (In fact those representatives were always in the room, but most of us Westerners were too wedded to our own tradition to be willing to listen to them.) The reading plan that this book proposes is thus full of fascinating juxtapositions: read Thucydides, and then read his ancient Chinese counterpart Ssu-ma Ch'ien; both confronted the problem of how to shape the past into a memorable literary form that remained true to the facts of history. Read Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji - the world's first true novel - and then read George Eliot's Middlemarch. Read Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe back-to-back for two complementary, powerful views of European imperialism as well as two wonderful exemplars of English prose. And so on. The possibilities are endless; this really is a book to use as a companion to a lifetime of reading.

perhaps the most concise, cogent and catholic (not in the religious sense!) book of its kind, "the new lifetime reading guide" will become your instant friend and companion for what could well be the rest of your life, leading you to the world's wellspring of must-read, mind-expanding books. of course, several of the selections "write themselves" but many do not. and even those that do are accompanied by brilliant insights and recommendations, e.g. joyce, shakespeare, faulkner and tolstoy. i wonder if i would've picked up, "the adventures of augie march," "stamboul train" and many others if not for this book. for the daunted, see van doren and adler's gem, "how to read a book," chapter 21.

John Feinstein first tackled the PGA tour with his excellent book A Good Walk Spoiled. In that book he extensively looked at the lower end of the tour, Q School, in which golfers competed to gain a Tour Card that would allow them to opportunity to play on the PGA Tour. In his latest, The Majors, he dives into the other end of the spectrum as he dissects the four tournaments that make up the Grand Slam and the elite golfers chasing the immortality of being a Majors champion. As usual, Mr. Feinstein's research is impeccable and we get some in depth information about the history of each of the tournaments, especially that of the Masters. While Tiger woods, David Duval, Phil Mickelson and other stars are profiled, the real star of the book is Mark O'Meara who won two majors in '98 after previously winning none. As he notes several times in the book, a golfer is never considered to be a truly great golfer unless he has a Majors victory on his resume. Mr. O'Meara had long been considered the best of the B's (golfers without a major) and the insight we get into his quest of a Major is superb journalism. The one negative of the book is that too often we get into the personal lives and relationships of the golfers and those sections start to read like a copy of Tiger Beat. That aside, this book is a good read and has the right balance that will appeal to both the hardcore and casual golf fan.

Mr. Feinstein would probably agree that many golfers describe golf as the game of life and say that you get to know everything you need to know about a person by watching a person on the golf course. I feel like I have shared the thoughts of those written about in THE MAJORS. Having watched when O'Meara won the British Open and watching Tiger Woods here, make it clear how important one stroke, or being off by just the slightest angle is. Golf really is a book about life, and we are getting a glimpse at those who excel in THE MAJORS. To excel in what we do every day, I also suggest reading THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, by Mitchell, Coles and Metz. You will find an occasional tradition story of etiquette on the golf course, and, of course, Tiger Woods "mastering The Masters" in the chapter about identifying your ideal best practice for you key activities. Mr. Feinstein is to be congratulated for doing such a thorough job and for making it so easy to dream with THE MAJORS.

I couldn't put this book down. Feinstein weaves a great story together about the 1997 Majors season. This was Tiger's first US Open defense, and a great year for O'Meara. John Daly was falling apart, and Fred Couples was having his challenges.

I'm guessing that through interviews with the players, as well as their friends and family, Feinstein gets a great deal of background material. The story that he's put together takes the reader through the four Majors in order, and makes each place come to life. I learned a great deal about what it's really like to play at Augusta National. For that matter, I learned a great deal about what it's like to spectate at the Masters.

Admittedly, I have a love for the game of golf. I have played it for over twenty years; since about 7th grade. I play well, I love being on the course and I love watching the majors.

So, buyer/reader beware. I ought to have loved this book. That being said, it's got plenty to offer if you're a golf widow or just like a good read about professional athletes.

I was forced to read all of Ibsen's work as part of an english degree but, unlike the wordy and old-fashioned prose of books like "Anna Karenina" or "Middlemarch", Ibsen was a refreshing break - with his down-to-earth, probable, moving and tragically realistic plays that are relevent even in modern society. I especially recommend "Ghosts" - although if you like the corny "resolve everything" endings of Hollywood, this tragic and open-ended play is not for you! For readers who like to guess their own ending, get "Ghosts" right now!!

I first picked up a copy of Ibsen while searching through my parents' bookshelf for something to read; after zipping through 'A Doll House' I knew I was hooked. All of Ibsen's (late) plays are amazing in that they adhere to a strict structure - always set in Norway (even though Ibsen lived all around Europe) in a small town and, with the exception of 'The Wild Duck,' have a similarly bittersweet ending - but are nevertheless full of brute and honest emotions and characters who are incredibly multi-dimensional, all within about 100 pages per play.

These four plays are no doubt among Ibsen's best. 'Ghosts' deals with disease of the body and the spirit in the Alving family, while 'The Lady from the Sea' is comparable to 'Hedda Gabler' in its strong feminism: the main character Ellida demands the right to choose her own future. In 'John Gabriel Borkman' the title character comes down from self-imposed confinment in the attic of his house to begin his life again.

However, my favorite has to be 'An Enemy of the People', which is one of the most powerful indictments of bourgeois democratic politics I've ever read. Those interested in such nineteenth-century philosophers as Kierkegaard or Nietzsche would particularly enjoy this play, since Ibsen strongly denounces the idea that the will of the majority is always right. While the American film of the play was not that good, there's a reason it was made in the first place: 'Enemy' might be the most relevant of all of Ibsen's plays to contemporary society (and I thought that even before the 2000 election!). While you might not agree with the sentiments of the main character, Dr. Stockmann, his ideas will provoke a reaction one way or the other, I promise you.

Finally, the book also contains a lengthy and informative foreword by the translator Rolf Fjelde.

Ibsen's "Enemy of the People" is not dull and unmoving; it characterizes the machinations of small-town politicos in a way that parallels many "democratic" examples we have around us today (in 1998 America, that is). Predictable at times, Ibsen's Dr. Stockmann provides the reader with a perfect candidate for this tragic affair: he is an idealist through and through, and readers know Ibsen is speaking from actual life experience. "An Enemy of the People" is therapeutic for anyone who has been stung by things political, and enlightening for those lucky enough to have avoided that sting.

Bloom is the editor of this book of essays concerning the poetry of John Milton. Students or casual readers of the book will both profit from and enjoy them. Milton was a great poet,and should be understood on his on ground, on his on terms, and the essays will facilitate such understanding.

Please do read Abdiel Agonistes review, but keep in mind that his view is biased by his religious beliefs; and his misconceptions of great poets such as Whitman and Goethe as well as his scurrilous (and discredited) view of Modernism should be taken with a grain of salt.

John Milton's reputation has unjustly suffered a diminution during the last two centuries. The romantics, repulsed by his religious theme of the earthly pilgrimage of the soul, corrupted his poem by maliciously interpreting Satan as the hero, despite Milton's unequivocal condemnation of Satan and his equally lucid characterization of the repentant Adam as the true hero. T.S. Eliot and those who ape his opinions also find Milton the man and his religious beliefs repellent. The poets of the modern era deride Milton because, in general, they have abandoned religious belief and turned to vague forms of idealism, as in Whitman's Democratic Vistas, and to the creation of idiosyncratic ersatzes, as in Poe's Eureka. John Keats's Endymion and the Hyperion poems fail as much because of their superficial content as their poor structure and execution. In Auden's analysis, "the modern problem" hamstrings the romantics as much as Yeats or Pound. Milton never suffered from such a malady and hence the envious detestation he has received from minor poets who are unquestionably his inferiors. Milton possesses a serious vision of history and humankind that could only achieve full expression in the most demanding form of poetry--the epic. But most poets of the last few hundred years have not found themselves entrusted with such a vision. Much to the contrary, they excel in every imaginable type of turpitude and triviality that the human mind is capable of producing. Like Yeats they have often thrown together every decadent principle or superstition that has ever happened along. This sorry state of affairs has become so common in postmodern poetry that anyone who would attempt to restore epopee to its glorious heights of noble seriousness and serenity would find ranked against him every academic hack and, as Milton phrased it, every "libidinous and ignorant" poetaster who has "scarce ever heard of that which is the main consistence of a true poem."

Milton knew the "consistence of a true poem," and both Paradise Lost and many passages scattered throughout his prose attest to it. In The Reason of Church Government he surveys the abilities of such masters as Homer, Virgil, Job, and Sophocles. Along with the modern loss of belief in God has gone his high and serious belief in the office of the poet. Equally banished from the modern conception of poetry is all respect for positive values, morals, and virtues. The story of twentieth-century literature is the abuse and misguided replacement of such healthy standards with the perversions of modernism and postmodernism. In brief, "the modern problem."

Unlike in the work of Jacques Derrida and his academic flies, the "presence" of God is a reality for Milton. Here in the abstract Milton gives us what throughout Paradise Lost he has been dramatizing--the "principles and presuppositions" to which Adam, representative man, must obediently submit, not merely in Eden, but for the fulfillment of his life during his journey on the earthly plane. In Satan, Milton presents the picture of the rebel, almost a type of the Renaissance hero Benvenuto Cellini, who through pride usurps power and whose fundamental actions and motives have their most appropriate modern analogue, as many have observed, in the archvillains Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Such men fully embody the will to power that the nihilist Nietzsche, as Thomas Mann put it, glorified. Such totalitarian dictators were the inevitable product of the romantic fascination with Satan, as though he were a hero and not an arrogant aspirant after power. Such cultural confusion reveals itself in Goethe's Faust as well as in Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Such errors in judgment, such fundamental confusion of values, mark the modern era and set it off from the spiritually healthier times of Dante, Langland, Spenser, and Milton--healthier only in terms of possessing to a degree a unified spiritual vision that provided universal standards with which to confront the damnable deeds of their day. Far from the banal optimism of the modern era, as in Whitman, they know that the long hard way of man is through suffering and turmoil and that the assurance Michael gives Adam about future generations abides eternally: "Doubt not but that sin / Will reign among them." Despite Freud's "freeing" man from sin, the twentieth century proved to be the most sinful in history, precisely because the unique spiritual reality of each soul and its fundamental limitations were denied. The violent, arrogant, insidious deeds of the archvillains of modern political nihilism alone account for the suffering and deaths of hundreds of millions of people, while much of the so-called intelligentsia of the West and East defended or prepared the way for the slaughter. Whereas Virgil denounced war except as the last resort for establishing peace, modern poets have often ignored the inhumanities of our century--save for those like Pound whose totalitarianism abetted the brutalizing of millions of innocents and the early Auden who approved "the necessary murder." Here at the end of the twentieth century when humankind still stands technologically capable of destroying much of the vast expanse of the globe and much, though not all, of its population, here when a more trustworthy political form has yet to be securely established to channel the will of the citizens of the international community, epopee must again take account of the social domain and man's earthly journey through these immense atrocities. For by faithfully treading the dark way of horror, by weighing the modern loss of belief, humankind may begin to regain the path in the twenty-first century, and, like Dante's persona, attain the highest summit of peace and glory.

This compilation of the analogues to Paradise Lost, beginning with the Anglo-Saxon Genesis poem, makes a very useful tool for interpreting and understanding the tradition in which Milton was writing. I only wish it came out in paperback.

Rod Paschall has written a very tidy piece of military history which goes a long way towards showing how many of the conventional beliefs concerning WW1 are totally innaccurate. He dosen't diminish the loss of life but he does show that the generals in charge were no less capable than their WW2 counterparts. Much of what was practiced in WW2 started in WW1. Pascall builds a compelling case that the generals on both sides invented ingenious new strategies that simply failed in the context of a war of attrition. An outstanding contribution to the body of knowledge of World War One.

The book is about the coming changes to our consciousness in the next age.The author's theory is that the stories through the ages about the end of the world are not what is really going to happen,but that we will change as a species,on a mental level.Every 26,000 years our sun is in alignment with the very center of our galaxy.the center of the galaxy is connected to everything that revolves around it.For a long time our world has been in a down cycle,very low consciousness,greed,anger materialism.There was a time (our golden age)when we were in a up cycle,when our world/consciousness was connected to this nucleus/life force.The book goes into detail about astrological alignments and the old religions that new about this connection to our consciousness.This knowledge has trickled down to our times through things like the occult and meditation teachings,but has become distorted.It made me think about why it seems that the world is going crazy(lots of medicated people out there!),and that this is part of the effect before the 2012/new age changing.It might also explain why more and more people are experiencing paranormal stuff and becoming more spiritual,and the tensions for war are also building.It got me to read some more books on this subject.Instead of doom and gloom about coming earth changes the author's theory gives us some light at the end of the tunnel.

John S. Major takes the impenetrable Huainan Zi and penetrates it. The book is very academic and crawls with footnotes, but then I don't think there's any other way to deal with a 2,000 year old encyclopedia from a culture we know almost nothing about. If you're after cool, cosmic Dao, this ain't the book. But if you want to know how and what the inventors of Daoism were really thinking, it definitely is.