Stopped

Mark Kornbluh was my history professor at Washington University in St. Louis and is the best teacher I've ever had. You'd be hard pressed to find an academic working today who is as good as Kornbluh at tying historical to current events and making historical subjects relevant and meaningful to today's audiences. With candidates gearing up for the 2000 election cycle and the Internet rapidly changing the way we interact with each other and participate in our democracy, Kornbluh does a great service in helping us see how things got to be the way they are.

--Aaron Naparstek

I like reading real-life experiences used to illustrate a technical point rather than a dry dissertation. Like 1 of the other reviewers - I feel that this title should be reprinted but it should be updated and revised in light of changes in the software/hardware/systems world since the time it was published. AND it needs to have both an index and pointers to sources (i.e. footnotes, bibliography, etc.) The lack of the latter 2 items diminished the usefulness of the book for me as I could not follow up/get more in-depth information and I could not easily find a particular fact or passage I wanted to find in the book.

I wrote this for the other entry at Amazon.com with the same title, same author, different subtitle. This book should be reprinted. With the upcoming Y2K bug as well as other incidents of software creating problems for people's lives, this book is necessary reading. It contains actual real life information about the extent of the problem and how a society that relies on computers as much as ours does is vunerable.

This book is filled with true stories of the deadly and costly consequences of computer systems gone haywire. It is not technical and does not contain alot of techo-babble. Instead it deals with subjects such as surgical procedures gone wrong, airplane crashes, military mistakes, cases of mistaken identity and more...all caused by the misuse of computers or the misguded ideas of humans who use them. The author is a TV news reporter who presents this like an investigative reporter. However, he offers solutions and expert opinions on how to prevent each of these diasters from happening again. The question is: Is anybody listening ?

If you ever wanted to know more about efforts to save endangered animals, this is the book to start with. It is easy to read, but does not shy away from discussing relevant aspects of genetics. Chapter 4, "The Theory of Conservation Breeding," is especially good in detailing the practical goals conservation breeders hope to achieve and also the many problems they face

In addition to providing an excellent overview of the role of modern zoos and of captive breeding programs, Tudge also begins the book with an overview of the ethics of conservation. Unfortunately, I did not find in that discussion an ethos that really worked for me, but the presentation did give me much food for thought - which after all is what I look for in a good book.

This book showed amazing depth in its amount of pages. The author's ideas simply made sense. Conservation is presented from every angle, never simply glossed over. The topic is made interesting and easy to understand, with explanations simple yet in-depth. All perspectives are shown. While the author makes his views known, he gives you enough room to let you form your own opinion. This book is great!

I think that "Stopped By Time" is a very emotional drama, that has alot of action and has very touching moments. I enjoyed the book beause i feel that it was good from the beginning of it till the end. I think Don Festge did a really good job writing the book without having no prior experience. Hopefully he has another work in progress because i enjoyed this one! Also, Big Up To Him And The Goleman Gators Wrestling Team!

Don Festge is a remarkable writer, being that his novel "Stopped By Time" is a great book. The novel has three main characters, Thomas, a fire fighter, Jade, a young teen, and Mac, a police officer at a reservation. All three of the characters experience rough times through thier lives and end up in a place that will have a remarkable changes for them.

Many of the events in the novel may confuse you because the writer uses foreshadowing in it but you will figure out what is happening. Although there are a bit of mistakes in it, it is a entertaning novel. Don't take my word about the novel, just find the book and read it to see what you think about it and maybe you will see what i am talkink about*****

I read Don's book every day while it was in the works. he'd pull it off the printer, and I'd have it in my hands. The book was compelling from the very beginning, to the very end. (Especially when he decided to use my name for the "beautiful" character). I started reading his new book, but I moved before he finished it. I've kept in touch since I moved, so that I can read it when he finishes it. The story was great, though, and I cant wait to get ahold of it. I'd recommend his books to anyone!

Not having been in the military, I was glad to have this insider's view of the gay scene in the military. I thought it remarkable how at ease Mr. Kennedy was with his straignt buddies in many parties and other free time activities that his straignt friends enjoyed, and how effective he was at covering his gay tendencies. I was also impressed with how effectively he could diffuse cases against gays. He is a remarkable man.

I very much loved Sean Kennedy's account of his psychic journey,
and am very sad that in the end he would find the need to fade away,
hopefully he'll be back one of these days with more amazing stories
to tell us.

this is a very good coming out stor

As someone who's witnessed the day-to-day lives of Israelis firsthand and observed the ongoing rift between the secular and religious camps, I was extremely interested in hearing what the author had to say about the situation. This book confirmed my own observations and fears: that the split between the religious and the secular in Israel is becoming a problem that may eventually outweigh the Palestinian crisis in terms of practical consequences. Is there any hope for reconciliation? Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that way.

Minus one star for atrocious punctuation.

Well, I think this is a terrific book if you're interested
in the topic. It's full of insight, beautifully written,
and offers a novel perspective.

Also, it was written by Mother.

Hi Mom!

I almost never pick up a 'devotional' book. But Latayne Scott's book had a significant impact on my faith and my understanding of God's love. It is clear after reading her extremely personal look at Rahab the harlot that God's intention toward each of us is love. He loves us now, always has and always will. That's what I walked away with after reading this. The Red Cord of Hope is a challenge to reconsider how we view ourselves given our own shady histories. It teaches us how to view our past failings in the light of God's love. There are study exercises at the back which make this perfect for a small group bible study.

Scott has written a fantastic book on the faith of Rahab. This book is highly recommended!

I was looking for something like David Irving's Seminal work Hitler's war but from Stalis perspective.

This book does give some good info from the Soviet perspective but does'nt answer many key questions.

How Did the Soviets go from a broken country in 1918 to having a state of the Art defense industry by 1942. Did Stalin have an inkling of Hitler when he started the massive industrialization from 1928 on. How was a communist system which despised open thinking and free thought yet still be able to industrialize and design stuff like the T-34.

In tactical terms Glantz does not explain the soviets defense system from 1943 on where the Soviets had some 25+ bridgeheads and could not be ejected from a single bridgehead. Whereas against the west the Nazi's almost broke their back in the Battle of the Bulge. What was the soviet techniques such that Nazi armored counterstrokes against infantry held bridgeheads were unsucessful.

This incredible book belongs on the shelf of any student of World War II. It is easy to read, concise, and scholarly. If you don't know much about the Soviet-German conflict, this is an ideal place to start. If you have read widely on the subject, be sure to add this to your collection. It is excellent for both those looking for a quick read or for those who want a starting point for further research. The notes at the end of the book list an impressive number of sources.

So many Americans, even those who are avid readers of military history, are very uninformed about the Russian Front. Anti-Soviet attitudes and the preponderance of books written from the German point of view have combined to present an often false and distorted version of history. In the minds of many, the Red Army was completely dependent on American military aid and survived only because of its "inexhaustable" manpower. The Soviets could only win by throwing more men into battle than the Germans had bullets to shoot them with, and were just barely holding their own prior to D-Day. According to popular imagination, the Russian winter is what really stopped the Nazis. As bad as these misperceptions are, even worse are the schools of thought which suggest that the Soviet Union was as guilty as Germany for the start of the war or that Hitler's invasion was a defensive move against an impending Soviet attack on Germany.

Col. Glantz has proven himself to be the preeminent Western author on the Soviet military in general and its pivotal role in the Second World War in particular. Against all the myths, he presents the facts. Tenacious Soviet resistance, combined with overextended German supply lines, halted the Blitzkrieg at Moscow and Leningrad. Long before D-Day, the Red Army had made Hitler's defeat inevitable by gutting the Wehrmacht in the decisive battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. During the same time as the Normandy fighting, the Soviets' "Bagration" offensive inflicted 500,000 casualties on the Axis and drove the last of the invaders from their territory. From 1941 until mid-1943, the Red Army confronted 80-90% of Germany's total armed forces. At no time in the whole war did it ever face less than 60%, not even during the heaviest fighting on the Western Front (Normandy, Arnhem, or the "Battle of the Bulge"). Germany's Axis partners on the Russian Front included not only the Italians but the whole armed forces of Romania, Hungary, and Finland, as well as contingents of pro-fascist volunteers from all over Europe.

Proper credit is finally given to the Soviet military leadership, as well. Red Army commanders often displayed outstanding generalship after the harsh lessons of '41 and '42, mastering the art of strategic deception and mechanized warfare on a level matching, even exceeding, that of their best German or Allied counterparts. Names like Zhukov, Vasilievsky, Rokossovsky, Konev, and Vatutin deserve a place alongside Rommel, Guderian, von Manstein, and Patton.

Glantz does not claim that the Soviet Union defeated Germany on its own. American Lend-Lease supplies and the Allied bombing campaign were important, though not decisively so, to the Soviet war effort and are given their just due here. However, 80% of Germany's combat losses were sustained on the Russian front, inflicted by Soviet forces equipped almost entirely with Soviet-made weapons. Had Germany honored the 1939 Non-Aggression Pact, or had the Red Army been defeated, the Anglo-American forces would have faced an enemy that was 4 times, that is 400%, stronger than it was historically. How many more Americans would have died under these circumstances? How many atomic bombs would need to be dropped on Hitler's Europe in order bring about victory. As we honor our own veterans with movies and memorials, let us not forget the 11 million Soviet soldiers and the at least 15 million Soviet civilians that died in World War II.

David M. Glantz's "When Titans Clashed" is a comprehensive but not overlong operational history covering the entire Russo-German conflict from 1941-45, plus an interesting chapter on the Soviet operations in Manchuria against the Japanese Army. It's exhaustive, it's readable, it's filled with maps, it does include all the recent archival material worth being included, it's balanced even taking in account the focus on the Russian point of view. What could you ask for more? Well, a couple of things, but more of this later.

"When Titans Clashed" is a book that has already been dissected in every possible way, and is, if not a clear-cut best seller, definitely a popular. So I'll just underline the three main reasons why it a mandatory text for anyone even remotely interested in the subject, the first being that colonel Glantz does his own job, and not someone else's. In other words, he's a military expert, and this is an operational, and not political, social or human dissection of the conflict. Richard Overy's "Russia's War" aimed at being all that, and failed. Sticking to his guns, Glantz gives to this (not too big) book a greater level of detail,. Of course, we still need a good political, human and social history of the war - while Robert Thurston's "The People's War : Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union" is a fine social study of wartime Russia, it may be a bit too difficult for the casual reader. But Glantz's focus was on military operation, and this book is just that - a military history.

Second. Glantz comes from old guard: i.e., he works mainly on primary/archival sources, and he knows how to separate gold from garbage. WWII history is a tricky business, and Eastern History (given the political sensitivity of the campaign's outcome) is even more so. Again, a comparison with Overy (who ended up giving credit to such debatable authors as Sokolov and gave readers sensation they could have spent much better your money on the secondary resources he continuously cited) may be useful. Glantz attitude towards the material is level headed and inspired by old fashioned positivism (there's a very useful appendices dealing with comparison of forces and losses). And he never assumes, giving even more authority to the basic thesis of this book - it was Russia who won the war, and not Germany that lost it, and Russia won because it learned how to outfight, outmanoeuvre and outsmart the Nazi army, in a long and (extremely!) bloody process, ending in 1945 with the Red Army being a even better military machine than the Wehrmacht was in 1941. Glantz gives you a lot of food for thought to support his view, especially on the "numbers" issue. More controversially but not polemically, colonel Glantz maintains also that while the Red Army broke Hitler's back, what the Allied did in the West was important - but basically more aimed at containing Russia's success rather than at speeding up Nazism's demise.

The third reason why you should buy "When Titans Clashed" is that it may be the first divulgative book on the Great Patriotic War (of course, I don't include Erickson's "Roads" in the "divulgative" department) giving the second part of the war - the one after the Red Army began to win - its due. On this respect, the post-Kursk operational history is given a extensive treatment, and some of the bits - like those on the Vistula-Oder operation - are absolutely compelling. Also, much coverage is given to the massive Bagration/Ukraine twin offensives, and, last but not least, we've finally a clear overview of the Battle For Berlin, a topic that often becomes the focus for some horrendous inaccuracies. Not that "classics" like Moscow, Stalingrad or Kursk aren't properly treated - it's just that they're finally taken into the big picture. All summed up, this approach gives to "When Tytans Clashed" an unprecedented freshness.

However I've two complaints, and the first it's in the editing department: its way better than that of Glantz's books of the early 90's, but it could have been improved; there are still too many repetitions (I've seen the word "aftermath" at least 10.000 times) and some confusing bit. For instance, you get three different tables detailing forces and strength ratios involved in Bagration - and you end up not knowing which of these was final. I'm being picky here, but this book deserved a better post-production job.

My second gripe is that, for being so objective towards the main topic, when it comes to his pet subjects Glantz seems to loose focus and control. For instance - we do know now that Operation Mars was basically a failure but, in the context of the late 1942 strategic situation, was this failure so substantial as he maintains? After all, tying down massive German reserves was pivotal on the German debacle at Stalingrad: Zhukov may have botched operationally here, but as the overall strategic situation goes, it's possible that "Mars" outcome didn't change much.

I repeat here what I wrote elsewhere: "When Titans Clashed" doesn't supersede Erickson's "Road To Stalingrad" and "Road To Berlin" - it complete these two masterpieces, and provides finally a operational history of the Russian Front that his both up-to-date and accessible. Neither it fills the long-empty slot for an up-to-date and accessible - and balanced - operational history on the German side (the last feasible being Earl Ziemke trilogy back in the early 70's). But it's a great book, and you'll do yourself a big favour buying it.

The narrator explains what is written in the book already. The book would be a lot better if there was no narrator.

The best part of the book is the forward written by Walter Cronkite - in itself is of important to journalism and our first amendment rights.

If you're going to by this book for the two audio CDs in order to "Relive the Events That Stopped Our Lives. . .," don't. The audio CDs are mostly a narrative, read a bit over dramatically by Bill Kurtis. The actual news broadcasts and historical audio has been edited down to modern-day 30-second sound bites, as if we're too dumb to listen to anything longer. It would have been far better to provide *at least* five minutes of uninterrupted audio so we could experience some of the tension and awe of the first moon landing, the assassination of a president or the launch of an invasion. I can hear Bill Kurtis just about any day of the week on TV. We are of an age where technology can help us re-present history in significant chunks. Too bad this book and audio CDs don't do so.

This volume is fun to read, but don't look for any groundbreaking analysis or new information. The author does a good job of retelling events surrounding the century's big news events...from the Hindenburg disaster to Lee Harvey Oswald, with all the requisite wars and disasters thrown in. It can be fascinating to listen to on CD, and the text offers good support. At the same time, there is little discussion of how the medium of radio grew throughout the century, or how live media reporting has now changed the way Americans receive information. Read this book for what it is: a fun history lesson, and a nostalgic look back to simpler times in the media.

The strange thing about reading history books written before one was born (in this case 1964) is that that biases are all different. This book laments the collapse of the League of Nations and Woodrow Wilson. Ten years later, no one would dare write about American intervention in the world stage in quite so laudatory tones. Issues that bother modern historians such as the unconstitutional incarceration of Eugene Debs, race riots, Wilson's racism including anti-German hysteria, the Imperialism of the other League Nations as well as the anti-sedition laws get swept under the rug.

Despite the bias, this is an amazingly personal look at a man who tried to sell a great plan to the United States only to be disappointed by Congress and the American people. It discusses his illness, his lack of willingness to compromise, his ineffectiveness as a leader. It also goes into great details about his wife's role in keeping the administration afloat, although it portrays her as a vindictive shrew. There's some interesting information about his daughters (true to WASP fasion, one of his daughters tried on several strange religions before taking off to India and dying of dysentry in the 40s).

While some of the material is lacking (see first paragraph) and while the enemies of America's involvement in the League are portrayed in a rather sinister fashion, this is still an excellent read and introduction to the post-WWI history.

this is a facinating period of history and the story of a man who was very disillusioned at the end of his life. Due to the stroke wilson did not understand what was actually happening to him. it is hard not to weep for him and not to feel admiration for his widow. a very personal piece of world history that was not explained in my college studies. i knew about his stroke and the bitterness he felt, but this book helped me to experience how it felt.

I picked this book up for $1, and would recommend it at thirty times that amount to anyone who loves history or biography. I was vaguely aware of Wilson's life and work, but after reading this book I feel as if I knew the man personally. Well-done, mostly fair, very human -- I cried more than once.