Donated to BXing by my partner.

To be released at mini meet with Australian visitors.

Caught at the May meetup

Finally got around to reading it. It's very interesting and puts meaning behind some of the songs I knew when I was young, like "The grand old duke of York."

It has a grim finish, but then it is about war.

I've actually had this for ages but I just realised I never journaled it!

Hmmm. Not sure what to make of this. The premise was really interesting, but the author never delivered on the implication that one single detail caused a wildly different outcome in most of the chapters.

How does a new, superior weapon qualify for the subtitle "how change and stupidity have changed history"? Yes, with bad weather or an indecicive general I see it, but a lot of the time the author kind of wrote himself into a corner when he admitted for example that Napoleon would have lost another day if he had been victorious at Waterloo (page 98).

Another issue is of course the usual adage that history is written by the victors. So in the chapter The Sorge Enigma, as the footnote on page 308 points out: "Stalin’s critics have not detailed any military errors, but Hitler’s generals have." That just goes to show that Stalin may have made just as many errors in judgement as Hitler, it's just that they are not as well-documented, so we don't truly know what factors really sealed the outcome of the battles in Russia.

There were some other issues, for example the translations of the foreign text were often inaccurate, there were any spelling errors, and the many footnotes were distracting and could easily have been incorporated into the text.

Will bring to the meetup at Filmhouse Cafe.

Picked up at the meetup yesterday, thank you

I agree with teapot's criticisms of this book - the whole Hinge Factor thing felt like a bit of a gimmick. But I did enjoy it on the whole - especially chapters relating to military conflicts that I was fairly familiar with. Chapters 13 and 14, both set in WW2, about the sinking of the Bismarck and importance of the spy Sorge in Stalin's decision to send his troops to the west rather than the east of Russia (therefore contributing to Hitler's defeat there) were both my favourites. But quirky stories such as the three mislaid cigars that led to the battle of Antietam in the US civil war were also very interesting. By contrast, chapters on the Franco-Prussian war dragged a bit.

Overall a worthwhile read, but don't feel bad if you want to skip some bits.

Released at meetup.

If you are new to bookcrossing - welcome and congratulations for finding a book! Please leave a journal entry to let me and any other readers know where it has gone and what you thought of it.