J.Michael Campbell

Lest we forget

Revisado: 12-10-22

Why is it that the strongest of characters perseue so often the worst of ends ? Would he have stopped at Danzig ? Was the western front a matter of time ? So much hinges on single weeks of the war and build up to it. I am left with as many questions as answers in the wake of this tomb of a history in its broad unrelenting unfolding of a tapestry frame by frame from the seemingly random circumstance of the rise to power through the choke hold it took when there to the ever bloodier and more disastrous ends this one man drove it towards and into the ground where it belongs. This was Iran in 1979. This was Iddi Amin. This was Dictatorship after Dictatorship. Lest we forget it is rare to find power taken by those who use it well and for the good of others.

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Birds eye view & some earned lessons learned on DR

Revisado: 08-25-22

Birds eye view & some earned lessons learned on Disaster Recovery with a sprinkle of how this happened where

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what fifth wall ?

Revisado: 02-25-22

who's who & what's what ? this play blurs the lines between stage and actors and audience all the way to the satisfying conclusion.

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A longer look at a shorter period

Revisado: 01-03-22

The other two books are good to keep up with who is doing what where along the timeline but the third seems to take a deeper look into the experience of individual captains, airmen, and marines on the ground, in the air, and at sea.

I finished this trilogy with what I was looking for- a basic knowledge of how the war progressed and what the thinking was behind the various strategies involved. I can't help but feel the view was a bit lopsided in favor of the Naval story and left out any involvement from the Allies.

A good side listen to this is the Dan Carlin Hardcore History Podcast series 'Supernova in the East'. The emotional style compliments the more linear fact driven narrative of this trilogy.

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The Ballance of a Wide Brush with Fine Grains

Revisado: 08-29-21

As the title says this is filled with a lot of details such as the individual pilot's mission radio chatter, while maintaining the macro view of issues such as competing demands on Pacific force strength - both internal and external.

As an audiobook I would have rated it higher if they had bothered with a PDF map of the region and significant atolls. And I know this is an individual opinion, but for me the dictation was dry and poor quality more like a cloud AI reading so I struggled at times.

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character study by open source intel of events

Revisado: 11-14-20

a chronology of the past several years of MBS's role in reshaping the kingdom. it manages to paint a portrait of the person without being overly biased by his positive role as a much needed reformer or the at times capricious at times cutthroat methods he brings to the table to accomplish these massive changes within such a compressed period of time.

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An Important Message

Revisado: 07-23-20

We all hang together or we all get hanged seperately as explained over a variety of scientific literature and the personal experiences of the authors with Bonobo monkeys which are worth the read by themselves.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

An epically important idea casually addressed here

Revisado: 06-11-20

The central premise is huge and defendable. We have built civilization around our weakest links and assume the worst of each other. It could be different. While I like a lot of of the data points the author brings to make this case, I find his style a little whimsical like reading a freshman year college journaling project. Some of the topics deserve more rigorous treatment. This book seems to me like a simple casual outline of the more powerful serious book it could have been and which the subject so richly deserves.

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esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

Intersection of a deep dive and all round survey

Revisado: 06-03-20

Given the number of pages and volumes devoted by the author my initial expectation was to walk away with a thorough understanding of the early Eastern theater wrapped up in a bow. I guess I really didn't appreciate how much was going on all at the same time, and this book certainly did convey that well enough. So many pots are boiling at the same time and they run out of Quinine tablets in Feb 1942 so now there is more Maleria to consider. The tonnage of supplies. The tonnage of firepower. The location of both. The internecine geopolitics and miscalculations of each side. The book covers such a wide swath with a wide brush and while you feel you could dive deeper into any one of the stories you do come away with an appreciation for how many stories there are and their feedback to each other. I look forward to the remaining volumes.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

It's a Podcast. On a good topic and we'll done.

Revisado: 08-07-19

#1 Not a book.
Just to get that out of the way. Has interviews and mood music etc

#2 definitely worth listening to just for the depth of this one topic, namely how a big organization embraced an idea it once considered the improbable speculation of scientists on the fringe of established consensus.

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