Things I Read: February 2005

"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War? (David Fromkin, 2004)

I found this useful.

Fromkin explores the causes of WWI; says there were two wars (Austria starts v. Serbia, German (Moltke) starts against Russia/France). Believes Germany wanted to start the war before Russia built up strength, and needed Austria to hold Russia in the east while Germany took out France first. Austria's tiff with Serbia played into this strategy (though the assassination probably qualifies as more than a tiff, it needn't necessarily precipitate a world war).

Germany pretty much required Austria to contend with Russia, and the Serbian war became an afterthought (which I believe Austria ultimately lost).

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Sharpe's Seige (Bernard Cornwell, 1987)

Another Cornwell book in which Sharpe is the hero (compare this). Also listened to this while commuting.

Convoluted plot line set in Napoleonic wars (1814) - Sharpe is working with the regular British army to launch a diversionary action near Bordeaux; American forces are involved; the leader of the British regular army is incompetent; they take a fortress but then have difficulty holding it.