Military

This volume joins two others than have entered the Audible roster in recent months, the others by David McCullough & David Hackett Fischer. While not as good as those other two, Edward Lengel's work does have some things going for it. It focuses on Washington & on his whole military career, from the French & Indian War to post-revolutionary times. And it therefore has some very interesting & illuminating observations to make about Washington's pre-1776 career, an area that is not often covered in histories of the period. Second, it is military-centric, so it gives a perspective on military strategy, weapons, tactics, intelligence gathering that is hard to find elsewhere (although Fischer's work does this too, for a smaller slice of time). Third, it gives a good account of Washington's strengths & weaknesses as a commander & a strategist.

I have only given this work 3 stars because much of the material that surrounds those points I make above is of a retread variety, especially for those interested in the period. The author does not give much different focus or interpretation to that contextual material, since his main aim is at military matters. The book is nevertheless well-written, moves along at a good pace, and is valuable if only for the twist of the work toward the battleground & military strategy.

John Keegan is always an interesting writer. A good story teller. A good conveyer of fact. However, this book is mistitled. It is not a history of intelligence in war, it is a history of war with a bit of intelligence stuff thrown in for spice. It is an enjoyable book, but somewhat of a letdown if you are looking for the "spy" stuff.

One thing that Keegan does very well though, in the lengthy stories he tells, is to give you an appreciation of the limited value of intelligence in actual battlefield decisionmaking. Which may be why the stories are more about battlefield & strategic events than spying. The intelligence gathering brings forward useful information to commanders, but in the end is usually so stale or easily misinterpreted ... or quickly made obsolete by battlefield actions ... that its value is over-rated in the popular literature. Keegan proves these points repeatedly.

I have read a number of works (or listened to them) about the origins and beginnings of WWII. Many good works in the bunch. This BBC program is a nice complement to those more narrative history and scholarly works. It uses first-person accounts and actual first-person radio recordings to sketch what happened in the summer of 1940. Unlike some programs of its type, it is not completely fawning of the British side, or blindly supportive of the aficionados of the Spitfire over the Hurricane. You get some critical material on these topics and others among the more familiar discussion of the Battle of Britain. This is one of those programs that is nice, relatively light history that can be bought and stored on your MP3 player when you need a respite from more serious and longer books. Production quality is exellent.