Review: World Out of Balance–International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy

Erudite, Itself Out of Balance, Secoond Tier Reading January 8, 2010 Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth This is one of three books I bought to reflect on the same generic topic, the other two are Power & Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threat and To Lead the World: American Strategy after …

Review: A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (Yale Library of Military History) (Hardcover)

Brilliant but Narrow, Simplifies A Bridge Too Far December 19, 2009 Mark Moyar EDIT of 21 Feb 2010:  A colleague in COINSOC has pointed out that I missed one key aspect of this book and I hasten to add it: “Moyar’s point that we are applying peacetime personnel policies by putting people in place based …

Review: Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution

Beyond 6 Stars–And a Seventh for Accessible Pricing December 5, 2009 Peter A. Corning I could spend a lifetime reading and re-reading this book, and each of the cited sources, and not waste the time at all. This is one of the most extraordinary works I have encountered, and while I cannot do it justice, …

Review: Understanding Knowledge as a Commons–From Theory to Practice

Almost a Three–Ambitious Title, Narrow Focus November 29, 2009 Charlotte Hess An MIT publication from 2007, this is actually knowledge from the 2000-2004 timeframe, and it is annoying narrow knowledge written from legal-economic point of view. Well-intentioned, no doubt, this is not the “inter-disciplinary” work that it claims to be, and I demonstrate restraint in …