Review of Running Alone: Presidential Leadership from JFK to Bush II: Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It

James MacGregor Burns is a distinguished and well-published student of the American presidency and leadership. The more than twenty books he has authored have been careful, largely non-polemical, and well received. He received both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1971 for his Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970)

Review of Willmott, H.P., The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War

(First Paragraph) The first edition of The Great Crusade (1989) was a fine, comprehensive, single-volume history of World War II. The revised edition is even better, though readers should be aware that this is a military history of the war that usually focuses on decision-making and activities at the operational level and above. The author sometimes speaks of individual fighting divisions, but almost never about individual soldiers. This work is thus not the place for the reader to discover the tales and yarns of individual soldiers. Those who hope to grasp what it was like to be a Marine storming the beach at Tarawa, or a German civilian in Dresden in February 1945, should look elsewhere. H. P. Willmott gives considerable attention to the broad political and economic motives of warring countries and ample time to the analysis of the thinking behind major military decisions. Nevertheless, individuals who view history through the lens of the trinity of race, class, and gender will also emerge disappointed. Race is considered as it applies to the Holocaust, German and Japanese expansion, and the occupation policies of those countries. But, class and gender hardly rate a mention. The bottom line: The Great Crusade is not a social history of the war. Similarly, Willmott makes no attempt to replicate the anecdotes and stories that leaven the contributions of historians such as John Keegan, or his one-time student, Antony Beevor. His concern lies with the overall sweep of events and their import, not with individual reactions and stories

Review of Stansky, Peter, The First Day of the Blitz: September 7, 1940.

(First Paragraph) Was fall 1940 truly Britain\u27s finest hour, as Winston Churchill memorably suggested? More particularly, are time-honored stories of stiff-lipped Londoners refusing to buckle under the onslaught of the Luftwaffe on the first day of the Blitz (September 7, 1940) myth or reality? These are the questions Peter Stansky addresses in this well-written, occasionally almost sentimental, essay. He concludes ultimately that the popular version of Blitz history substantially reflects reality, but nevertheless contains many elements of heroic, comforting, and somewhat off-target mythology

Review of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man

(First Paragraph) Hugh Sebag-Montefiore correctly notes that multitudes of books already have been written about the evacuation of the British and French troops from Dunkirk in May and June 1940. He argues, however, that these accounts generally have neglected the crucial role of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in making this escape possible. He agrees that great credit must go to Adm. Bertram Ramsay, the Royal Navy, and almost one thousand small boat owners who actually moved the beleaguered troops from France to England. Nevertheless, he asserts, without the BEF, there would have been no evacuation, or at least a much smaller number of troops would have escaped from the jaws of the Wehrmacht. The evacuation is a well-examined incident. What distinguishes this volume from its many predecessors, however, is the inclusion of hundreds of first-hand, sharp-end-of-the-stick reports by members of the BEF

Costs of Defending Against Rising Sea Levels and Flooding in Mid-Atlantic Metropolitan Coastal Areas: The Basic Issues

Rising ocean levels have resulted in increasingly severe flooding in numerous metropolitan coastal areas. What would it cost to minimize or eliminate such damage? Relatively little economic work has been done to provide an answer, at least partially because some authorities believe attempts to deal with flooding ultimately are futile. Further, discussions of funding always involve massive welfare transfers from the non-flooded to the flooded. The cost of erecting a single mile of new sea wall exceeds $35 million in 2009 dollars and annual maintenance costs range between 5 and 10 percent

The Revolution in Higher Education

Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian born economist and social historian who spent a major part of his academic career at Harvard, was a cogent observer of how societies develop. His Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy is still considered a classic. Schumpeter spoke of perennial gales of creative destruction (often technological) that shock societies and force change. The advent of electricity and the coming of the automobile illustrate technologies that created new power arrangements and destroyed or modified existing institutions. Higher education is now in the midst of a Schumpeterian gale of creative destruction --a revolution, many say. After almost 150 years of reliance upon a model of higher education that was borrowed substantially from the Germans and the British, a fundamentally new model is developing. The old model has been based upon staples such as courses, credit hours, 50 minute lectures, Monday through Friday course schedules, and semesters. In many of its incarnations, it has been supplemented with fraternities, football teams, and a variety of other social activities that occur on a home campus that usually features many youthful students who reside on or near that campus. Traditionally, the colleges and universities operating in this framework have functioned as self-contained small towns in the sense that they provide their own housing, food, entertainment, transportation, and the like. And, the institutions that have become household names for one reason or another such as Harvard, Michigan, Florida State, and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas have largely operated on a non-profit basis such that the attendance of an individual student has been highly subsidized by nonstudents. With respect to academic work per se, the predominant paradigm has been termed the teaching model because it has emphasized students coming to the information by attending approximately 45 lectures delivered by faculty at an appointed time and place on a home campus during a semester. All of this occurs in virtual lockstep and rare is the student who breaks away from the usual cadence. Examinations are given at the end of the semester; two semesters make one academic year; and, four years of such activity translate into a bachelor\u27s degree

The Economic Realities of Amateur Sports Organization

SYMPOSIUM: Antitrust Issues In Amateur Sports, held at the Indiana University School of Law - March 198

Review of Brooks, Stephen, ed., Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy: A Selection from the Diaries, Correspondence and Other Papers of Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, January to August 1944

(First Paragraph) The stated goal of Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy is to bring together the most important Bernard Montgomery documents for the period 1 January to 20 August 1944, reproduce each of the chosen documents in full and arrange them in a straightforward chronological order (p. x). It is fair to say this volume achieves this goal, even though a batch of Montgomery documents already reproduced in full in other volumes was not included here

The Revolution in Higher Education

Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian born economist and social historian who spent a major part of his academic career at Harvard, was a cogent observer of how societies develop. His Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy is still considered a classic. Schumpeter spoke of perennial gales of creative destruction (often technological) that shock societies and force change. The advent of electricity and the coming of the automobile illustrate technologies that created new power arrangements and destroyed or modified existing institutions. Higher education is now in the midst of a Schumpeterian gale of creative destruction --a revolution, many say. After almost 150 years of reliance upon a model of higher education that was borrowed substantially from the Germans and the British, a fundamentally new model is developing. The old model has been based upon staples such as courses, credit hours, 50 minute lectures, Monday through Friday course schedules, and semesters. In many of its incarnations, it has been supplemented with fraternities, football teams, and a variety of other social activities that occur on a home campus that usually features many youthful students who reside on or near that campus. Traditionally, the colleges and universities operating in this framework have functioned as self-contained small towns in the sense that they provide their own housing, food, entertainment, transportation, and the like. And, the institutions that have become household names for one reason or another such as Harvard, Michigan, Florida State, and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas have largely operated on a non-profit basis such that the attendance of an individual student has been highly subsidized by nonstudents. With respect to academic work per se, the predominant paradigm has been termed the teaching model because it has emphasized students coming to the information by attending approximately 45 lectures delivered by faculty at an appointed time and place on a home campus during a semester. All of this occurs in virtual lockstep and rare is the student who breaks away from the usual cadence. Examinations are given at the end of the semester; two semesters make one academic year; and, four years of such activity translate into a bachelor\u27s degree