Free Republic

THE success of PhD papers by Oxford University students is usually gauged by the amount of dust they gather on library shelves. But there is one that is so influential that General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, is said to carry it with him everywhere. Most of his staff have been ordered to read it and he pressed a copy into the hands of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he visited Baghdad in December. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (a title taken from TE Lawrence - himself no slouch in guerilla warfare) is a study...