Posted on 12/30/2009 5:51:26 PM PST by Captain Kirk
The end of a year or a decade tempts many of us to make up lists of the best or the worst of thingsevents, movies, songs, booksduring the interval that is coming to a close. Having consumed many such lists, I now undertake to produce one of my own, with a twist.
The twist is that I cannot in good conscience represent my list as one that contains the best books of the past decade. My reading is much too limited for me to make up such a list, and I have no doubt that many excellent books were published that I did not read. However, I have read some excellent books that were published between 2000 and 2008, and I list them here with brief notations in order to bring them to the attention of readers who may not have read them. I present them not with an endorsement of everything they assume, affirm, or argue, but as the works of intelligent, thoughtful, and careful authors. Most of these books are works of exceptionally deep scholarship.
I list them chronologically, but I do not order or rank them here in any other way.
1. Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: Free Press, 2000). Stinnett carried out an extraordinarily dogged search, involving many interviews with people directly involved and many years of digging in archives, formerly classified documents, and other sources, for answers to the two great questions: who knew what, and when did they know? Members of the Establishment will not like his answers, but they cannot accuse Stinnett of bias against Roosevelt: even after finding compelling evidence that U.S. leaders knew the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941, was coming, he continues to believe that the president
(Excerpt) Read more at hnn.us ...
A successful attack on Pearl Harbor would have knocked us out of the war before we even got started. The Japanese had targeted the oil depots, carriers, navy repair yard and submarine pens as crucial targets. They'd even designed and built bombs specifically for the oil depots. Turn Pearl into a smoking ruin that the US can not use and we're screwed. As it happened, the Japanese didn't take out the targets they were most interested in.
In the initial planning the Japanese toyed with the idea of a landing party to take and hold Pearl. The idea was dismissed but in the US consideration of a Japanese attack the possibility of of such a landing would have to be thought out.
I've no doubt FDR wanted use to get involved in the war but not at the cost of Pearl Harbor.
PING
I appreciate your consistency but....please give my regards to your allies on this point in the phone booth. You remind me of a friend of mine who always corrected me when I didn't pronounce El Salvador in the proper Spanish accent.
If you want to keep saying it the wrong way, that’s your call. But I thought you would like to be informed of what’s correct. And this isn’t a matter of opinion. There can be only one correct way of counting.
I don’t know how old you are but the most “outstanding” book of the 20th century is “Witness”
I liked Witness, though he was a tad ponderous at times. I’m a youngster here, like younger than Elisabeth Hasselbeck and older than...hmm...Ivanka Trump! :)
I looked at the complete list and - as expected - there is definitely a bias in his choices and in his praise for certain titles..........a leftward bias. Surprise, surprise.
Higgs is one of the leading laissez free market economists. By comparison, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that issue-by-issue you are a raving pro-big government socialist by comparison.
Ping back atcha.
One of the best books of the decade. Men who put their lives on the line for your freedom--no other book compares
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