BillP's Book\Miniature\Wargame Blog

In A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald, Errol Morris, author of Thin Blue Line, takes a look at the case against Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, the Green-Beret surgeon convicted of murdering his wife and two children at Ft Bragg, NC in 1970. Morris’ book is extraordinarily well-researched and buried within it are many, cogent and powerful arguments for the incompetence of the MPS and CID who investigated the original crime scene and the corruption of the prosecution which seems to have deliberately misrepresented scientific and technical evidence, tampered with witnesses and denied the defense access to potentially exculpatory evidence. Other sections of the book describe with the deal McDonald made with Joe McGinniss which resulted in Fatal Vision, the book  (and TV mini-series) that has done much to solidify the image of McDonald’s guilt in the public mind.

The primary problem with the book is that it never really develops a coherent narrative flow. It is arranged more or less chronologically, but with frequent discursions and revisiting information presented in previous sections. Additionally, Morris’ writing style can be somewhat opaque and confusing. The final problem is that while Morris has unquestionably mastered all of the material he presents, he never really presents it in an organized and effective way. The book is just very difficult to wade through, and presumes a fair amount of existing knowledge about the facts of the case on the part of the reader.

At the end of the day, while Morris’ evidence doesn’t actually prove that McDonald is innocent, he does create a powerful impression that McDonald never received a fair trial, and at this point, after so much time and the death of so many witnesses, such a trial is probably impossible.  I recommend the book for those who have an interest in this case, but not otherwise.

106 for the year.

Historically, America’s Test Kitchen’s greatest strength has been taking classic dishes and using exhaustive, repetitious, experimentation to absolutely NAIL the recipe and technique needed create the best possible version of that dish. The results have always been, very, very, good recipes that were nearly fool-proof to execute. The down-side was that sometimes their recipes could require multiple “procedures” making them somewhat complicated and time consuming to create. This book, The America’s Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook, totally fixes that issue. Each of the 750 recipes in this book can be made in 45 minutes or less from start to finish, including prep time.

Impressively, the book doesn’t seem to realize the time savings, by “dumbing down” the recipes, but instead by careful selection and judicious use of ingredients. The recipe for Baked Stuffed Mushrooms on page 26 is a perfect example, combining careful selection of the “correct” sized mushrooms (not so small that they’re hard to work with, but not too big to be one-bite appetizers), par-cooking them in the microwave (putting coffee filters under them to absorb excess moisture so they don’t get soggy!), using Boursin Cheese topped with pieces of Prosciutto to eliminate much of the time consuming prep-work of preparing the filling, and final cooking in the oven to heat the filling and crisp the Prosciutto. The result is an excellent appetizer that takes only 40 minutes.

Another excellent feature of the book is the “Getting Started” section, where a fairly comprehensive list of basic kitchen equipment is provided including specific recommendations for brand and model from their “Cooks Illustrated” magazine, which is kind of “Consumer Reports” for kitchen gear. I’ve subscribed to Cooks Illustrated for a couple of years and never been misled by one of their recommendations. I recommend this book very highly to anyone who wants to create good, flavorful, home cooked food, but doesn’t have a lot of time. This would be a particularly fine gift for anyone just starting out on their own.

105 for the year.

Thomas Wolfe’s great novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, encapsulated his belief that attempts to relive one’s youthful memories are always doomed to fail. And I’m afraid that I’m coming to agree with him. I’ve reached this conclusion after having re-read, over the past couple of years, several of the books that I particularly enjoyed a youth and found them sadly wanting. The latest entry in that sequence has been J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

I first read this at age 14, I purchased the boxed set (remember the gold-foil box with the elven symbols of the sides?) after school one Friday and absolutely devoured them over a single long weekend. Basically, I was so enthralled with the story, that I did nothing but read for three days pausing only for brief periods of sleep. I’ve reread the books several times since then and enjoyed them each time, although, obviously not with the same level of intensity, most recently about 12 years ago, “getting ready” for the release of the movies. When I got a Kindle, LOTR was one of the first items I purchased. Recently, hearing the hullabaloo about Peter Jackson’s upcoming production of The Hobbit, I re-read that book, and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to reading LOTR yet again.

Boy was I disappointed. While the basic plot of the story is still compelling, everything else about the book is just disappointing. The characters are almost totally one-dimensional, the dialog is wooden and the writing is tedious. The frequent discursions of poetry and song, which are generally totally unrelated to the plot, are just annoying.  The whole book just rambles on interminably. It was just a horrible disappointment. I’m still trying to figure out how I could have loved this book as much as I did, for a period of more than 30 years! The only thing I can figure is that I am a sucker for the basic plot line; “heroic, seemingly doomed, defenses against overwhelming odds”.

I am bummed that something I once enjoyed so much has lost its savor for me.

104 for the year.

I just finished John Prados’ magisterial Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975 and it as nothing short of magnificent. Prados has done a simply outstanding job of gathering and mastering all of the relevant source materials both the primary archival material and the secondary literature, from all perspectives, including American, French, Chinese, Soviet, North and South Vietnamese sources. Furthermore, his unparalleled mastery of the primary source allows him to write a cogent and compelling narrative of the entire period from 1945 through the American withdrawal in 1972, along with a brief codicil covering the final DRV conquest of the RVN.

The book is almost totally centered on the American perspective of the Vietnam War. The actions of both the DRV, but most especially the RVN are presented thoroughly and factually, but without the subtext and motivational detail Prados furnishes readers for the American actions.  Prados is particularly strong when he describes how the considerations of the Cold War continually defined American options in Vietnam starting with Truman’s decision to support the French reoccupation of Vietnam as a quid pro quo for that country’s support of NATO and the rearmament of Germany.  Another particular strength of the book is putting to rest all of the various “we didn’t really lose” arguments.  Prados methodically and rationally demolishes those theories. For example, Prados uses contemporaneous documents to show the primitive logistics infrastructure in RVN would have prevented any large scale US ground invasion of the DRV. He also provides a wealth of evidence that the anti-war movement in the US was a result of the poor military performance, not a cause of it.

As good as the book was, I’m afraid it was a bit of a missed opportunity. In the first place, the thing has a fair number of very minor factual inaccuracies. There aren’t any real howlers, but they do have a minor impact on the book’s overall credibility. Second, although Prados devotes a great deal of coverage to the anti-war movement, during which he dismisses the idea that the anti-war movement was manipulated by foreign entities, he never provides the sort of detailed analysis on this issue that he provides on other topics. Finally, and to my mind, the largest issues with the book, are Prados’ intermittent lapses into first person narrative (set out in italics) describing his personal involvement in the anti-war movement. I found these, quite frankly bizarre. I honestly couldn’t understand what he hoped to accomplish by including them and I still find them baffling. To his credit, he is very “upfront” about his involvement leaving the reader to come to his own conclusion about what effect Prados’ anti-war experiences have had on his credibility.

So, in short, this book shows an absolutely outstanding mastery of archival and secondary materials on the American involvement, and where it not for the issues I’ve outlined above, could have been, in my opinion, the definitive book on America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. I do want to note, that despite its shortcomings, it was still damn fine book. A tip of the hat to Colin Dunnigan for suggesting it to me!

103 for the year

NOTE: There is an excellent discussion of the book by several noted historians here: http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XI-7.pdf