John Winston Books

Lukacs is a historian and an academic. Although Lukacs the historian makes this book very insightful and accurate, Lukacs the academic makes the book less gripping. The writing style and the content are not intended for casual readers who intend to learn about Churchill by reading this book alone.

For casual readers, I would suggest other Churchill books like "Winston Churchill" - by John Keegan.

America and the world is fortunate to have a gifted historian such as Lukacs to astutely examine the early World War II times of Sir Winston Churchill.

Churchill is much like Abraham Lincoln. He did not seek greatness, it was thrust upon him and his response was magnificent. Who would Lincoln have been had the Confederacy not dared a war to assert its secession? Who would Churchill have been had Adolf Hitler not dared a war to establish his Thousand Year Reich?

Lukacs is clearly of the "great man" school of history, and this book is an examination of the triumphs and tragedies of Churchill's career that led him to his five days of greatness in May 1940. It sets the foundation for Lukacs's more recent detailed examinations of Churchill's career.

Anyone who wants to understand Churchill and World War II can't do better than to start with this book.

The counter to "great man" history is the "great people" -- for want of a better term -- idea. In the 1930s, Benito Mussolini was a "great man" with similar thoughts and words (but not morality). However, most Italians didn't share Mussolini's visions. Like Lincoln and his understanding of Americans, Churchill had a profound insight to British attitudes.

In response to being called a lion, Churchill replied the British people were the "lion" and he merely gave the roar. Mussolini also roared loud and often, but Italians responded with merely the soft purr of a cuddly kitten.

Neither view of history detracts from Lukacs' work. Without the British stubborness, a mood amply shared by Americans, Churchill would have been only another puffed up Mussolini. Without Churchill, the British might have been betrayed by nervous politicians. Without Lukacs, this era of history would be hard to understand except as a string of dates and heroic events.

Lukacs cites one of Churchill's most interesting quotes, predicting East Europe would be free of communism. Why? Did Churchill foresee the rise of Ronald Reagan, who conservatives credit? Or did he truly understand tyranny will inevitably collapse if left to its follies?

Either Churchill foresaw the coming of a "great" American president who caused communism to collapse, as in the "great man" approach to history favoured by the Reaganites; or he understood the nature of "great people" and relevant leaders in contrast to the weakness of ideologues. Did Churchill shape history or give it a rare eloquence?

It's the eternal debate in history. Lukacs, in this relatively brief biography of Churchill, offers plenty of thought for both views.

This is another of the "short" Churchill books that have become popular over the last several years and are less than full blown biographies but more than just private musings of the author. This author has an engaging style and if you've read any of his previous books on this subject it should come as no surprise that this book is for the most part a positive portrayal. The book covers the several themes stated in the title with a varying degree, (in this reader's opinion), of success. The high points include insight into Churchill's role, (and motivation), as an historian, his role with Stalin and the division of post WWII Europe and the evolution of Churchill's relationship with Eisenhower, (maybe the best chapter in the book). Considering all that has been written on Churchill this reader found some "new" perspectives and food for thought in the above. On the downside, several of the other chapters - the rehashing of Gallipoli, Churchill's "wilderness" years do not provide much detail or insight and the last chapter - a journal entry written contemporaneously describing Churchill's funeral - was little more than filler to this reader. This disparity in the writing is unfortunately one of the salient points I took away from the book. That being said, (written), this book would not be the place to start with Churchill but it is a more than an adequate supplement.

I read this book here in Brazil, last year.It's cheap, concise and easy to understand.There's failures in this book?Yes.
At first, this book is biased.John Lukacs is a Churchill's fan.
To exemple, Mr. Churchill was a deeply eugenist.This book never talks about this.Another exemple is that in 1899, Winston Churchill spoke against Islam something like this:"How dreadfull are the curses which mohammedanism slays on its votaries...No stronger retrograde force exists in the world..."
The core of this book is to show Churchill after 1930.Even this, it fails sometimes.In chapter 4, Lukacs claims that Eisenhower was wrong about than USSR, and Churchill was right.In fact both were right.The american politics for Cold War, was basically the same, for every american president, since Truman,in 1945, to George Bush in 1991.
Churchill also was among the men who created Iraq.Churchill also put the last Iran's Xah in power.All of these Churchill's mistakes aren't in this book.
This is a fan's book, not an unbiased book.

What we have is a series of essays written about Churchill by a man who is both a highly regarded historian and a fan.

The last essay, I found quite moving where he discusses his time at Churchill funeral.

Yet the quality of these essays is not brilliant. In some ways they are repetitive with the same facts repeated again in another essay. Also the writer is also prone to exaggeration eg that the Germans could in June or July 1940 successfully invaded Britain.

I have read much on Churchill and found this book disappointing maybe as from a historian of the quality of John Lukacs, I expected more.

I regard Churchill as one of the alltime overrated figures in history, and certainly enjoy seeing him cut down to size. Charmley provides a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet for Churchill haters, as he recounts in excrutiating detail the extraordinarily flawed personality of Churchill.

After setting the stage by illustrating Churchill's early years as a relentless opportunist and self-promoter, Charmley begins to build his case that Churchill was not the great wartime leader that posterity would have us believe, and in fact did not even have a sound grasp of military operational strategy. The most glaring example is, of course, the Gallipoli Campaign, which was an unmitigated disaster and effectively ended Churchill's political career for more than two decades. Churchill had gotten his shot at the big time (by becoming First Lord of the Admiralty) and had blown it. When he got his second chance, he showed that he had learned effectively nothing in the intervening period about military operations. Throughout World War II, he would attempt to undertake various zany military campaigns, most of which were politely ignored by the Allied commanders.

While demonstrating Churchill's ineptitude in this area, Charmley (clearly a Neville Chamberlain apologist) builds a reasonably convincing case for Chamberlain, arguing that Chamberlain was using appeasement more as a tool for buying time than anything else. Far from being the naive optimist, Chamberlain was quite sure, argues Charmley, that Hitler was not to be trusted in any agreement. While giving Hitler what he wanted, Chamberlain was quietly building up Britain's military strength for the war he was sure to come. Because one cannot create a potent fighting force overnight, Chamberlain knew he had to buy time by whatever means necessary. Churchill, by contrast, was ready to rush into war with Germany in 1937-38, when Britain was in no way prepared to fight a continental war.

Up to this point, Charmley's treatment of Churchill is reasonable from a scholarly standpoint. He can make coherent arguments and back them up with citations and evidence. However, Charmley's main beef with Churchill has never been that he was reckless & impetuous, or that he wasn't the great military mastermind. Charmley's problem with Churchill is that he lost the British Empire. At this point, Charmley's book begins to fall apart.

Charmley is writing from the perspective of someone who thinks the British Empire was a pretty neat thing, and wishes that Britain still had its empire, just like the good old days. In subsequent writings, Charmley has taken his argument even further, casting FDR as an anti-imperial villain who had, as one of his wartime goals, the deliberate destruction of the old colonial empires. In Charmley's opinion, the primary goal of the British High Command during World War II should have been the preservation of the British Empire. The defeat of the Nazis and containment of the Soviet Union? Sure, the British could have tried to do that also, but the preservation of the Empire was the important thing.

In fact, the British High Command was trying to do exactly that, and was continually butting heads with General George Marshall over priorities in strategy. The US wanted as its goal the invasion of Europe proper, and had hoped to launch the Normandy campaign in 1943, a full year before D-Day. The British, by contrast, favored a peripheral approach, sending valuable resources to reclaim portions of British territory that had been seized by Germany & Japan. The British also wanted opportunities for their commanders (such as Montgomery) to win glory on the field. The concessions the US made to Britain, it can be argued, prolonged the war in Europe by up to a year.

So Charmley's argument that Churchill did not do enough militarily to preserve the Empire is not particularly valid. Charmley probably understands this, because he also comes as close he can to stating (without actually doing it) that maybe, just maybe, Churchill might have been well-advised to cut a deal with the Nazis, keep the Empire intact, and focus on the real enemy, which was (in Charmley's conservative viewpoint) the Soviet Union. Charmley does not explicitly say this, because he would then run the risk of being lumped into the same category as the likes of David Irving. However, he makes this argument repeatedly, in as an oblique a fashion as he can muster.

The whole problem is that Charmley bases his argument on the premise that the British Empire could in fact have been saved, and this is where the biggest flaws in this book creep in. Charmley would like to ignore the fact that the British Empire had been slowly coming apart at the seams since the Boer War. Even during Victoria's reign, Britain had been struggling to provide the resources necessary to maintain Imperial control. The attrition of World War I was effectively the final nail in the Imperial coffin; it was only a matter of time before the inevitable occurred. One only has to look at post-war France, which tried to restore its colonial empire by force, to see how things probably would have turned out for Britain.

One can also ask the question, is Charmley's belief that the Empire deserved to be preserved valid? This is definitely a matter of perspective. Did the British Empire ultimately do more harm than good? Conservatives like Charmley and Thomas Sowell may think that the British Empire overall was a good thing, but I do not agree with that at all. When you get right down to it, the Empire was simply the subjugation by Britain of other peoples & cultures by naked military force. I don't recall too many subject people voluntarily entering the British Empire. If FDR wasn't bent on destroying the British Empire, he should have been.

While Charmley does provide some valid criticism of Churchill in this book, overall his most important criticisms are based on some seriously flawed premises. In the end, this calls into question the ultimate scholarly value of the book. While it has certainly been controversial enough, does this book truly contribute much to the scholarly debate over Churchill and the history of the 20th century? I don't believe so.

John Charmley did not do his homework. There are so many things about Churchill he missed. He greatly understates his case that Churchill, by fighting World War II, lost Britain's empire. Far from being a vigorous and foresighted leader, Churchill was incredibly lazy and inept, and Charmley misses this. Churchill failed to prevent the spread of television, failed to stop the invention of the transistor and the integrated circuit, was completely asleep at the switch during the invention of the jet engine and the intercontinental jet airliner. And these are only a few of the things that Churchill didn't stop! Of course, it was these, combined with the continued outward spread of the Enlightenment from Europe, that lost Britain its empire. So, if the lost empire is the "fruit" of Churchill's leadership, at least let's be complete in our condemnation of the man. Otherwise, he might be seen as a leader of bottomless courage, able to inspire an entire nation to rise above itself and distinguish itself for all time, while in the bargain saving Western Civilization. Churchill knew evil when he saw it. Given how difficult it was to launch the D-Day invasion, the mind boggles at what would have happened had Britain gone down.

Charmley, and some his reviewers, have got things wrong. Sure Churchill was an empire man, that is why he got so unpopular between the wars, when he resisted efforts to give India even the most limited self-government.

But Churchill had no war aims, save victory. OK, victory was important, but we would not have had victory on Churchill's watch.

He was terrified of D-Day, believing a re-run of the Battle of the Somme was in the offing.

All his life, he was a side-show man. When troops were needed in Normandy, he pleaded for them to stay in Italy.

In 1939-40 he even floated a notion - you could not call it a plan - to attack Germany via the Caucusus! The small matter of crossing Russia didn't seem to daunt him.

Then there was his little known adventure in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1943: this was an attempt to drag Turkey into the war. It was a dismal and humiliating failure.

Unlike the other two leaders, Churchill lacked post-war aims.

Stalin was quite clear: he wanted to take Communism westwards. He got his way.

Roosevelt had clear war aims: one of which was to break down the system of trade on which the British Empire was based. He got his way, though he did not live to see it. (Globalisation started here.)

Churchill? He basked in glory, a romantic to the end. Was he good for Britain, though?

He got it wrong, very wrong on Europe: one of the biggest lost opportunities in British history was waved away by a nation that ended the war under the killer illusion that it was still a great power.

While Churchill's status as an icon is entirely too uncritical of a brilliant but erratic and flawed statesman, this is hardly a good faith effort to due Churchill justice. Charmley's constant apologies, evasions and outright deception regarding Neville Chamberlain's failed and ongoing efforts at appeasement after Munich & Churchill's opposing efforts clearly stems from an agenda more to rehabilitate Chamberlain's reputation than to do justice to Churchill's actions. Charmley's deception in this area is extreme. His reference more to Chamberlain & Halifax's diaries & letters than to Churchill's for the 3 chapters leading up to Churchill's ascent to Prime Minister doesn't do him much credit nor does his uncritical and adoring acceptance of Chamberlain's evaluations of virtually everything and everyone, including Hitler of all people. To give an example, Charmley, disregards 3 separate accounts of Churchill not rising to applaud Chamberlin's speech in the House of Commons upon his return from Munich as not being either recorded at the time or of being suspect due to malice toward Chamberlain. This same `critical' eye paints Chamberlain as being relentlessly opposed to Hitler after Hitler's entry into Prague in May 1939 in spite of Chamberlin's constant well documented efforts to continue appeasement after that time. He even neglects to mention Chamberlin's efforts to continue appeasement negotiations that continued even after Poland's invasion, not even mentioning something as significant as the Cabinet's revolt and ultimatum to Chamberlain that he must put a deadline on negotiations to Hitler & withdrawal from Poland on the 2nd day after Poland's invasion. All in all this book has some valid debunking of Churchill's myth and questions about the long term costs of Churchill's decisions but it is at times blatantly deceptive and far, far too uncritical of Churchill's rivals, none of whom except Eden are subject to much criticism.

I was sorely disappointed when finishing the book, not because of poor authorship, but, on the contrary, because Charmley's abrupt ending after a laborious examination of Churchill's political career did not seem at all adequate. He begins with a lurid examination of Churchill's early life and transformation into a political maverick, assaying his beginnings as a freshman MP in 1901 to his rise as one of the most powerful statesmen in the world. Among the most engrossing, although not necessarily new, criticisms are the Prime Minister's deference to the Roosevelt administration's foreign policy, which the author believes, with very much justification, was a catalyst that helped to bring about the Cold War and the eventual dismemberment of the British Empire. Charmley also draws parallels with Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in 1938 with that of Churchill's handling of Stalin in 1945, and infers Churchill was hypocritical in his criticism of the Munich Pact, in part because of his later policies with regard to the Soviet Union. But after the chapter on the fall of the Churchill government in 1945, the book wraps itself up with a conclusion of little more than two pages; this is hardly befitting such a monumental undertaking. Charmley does not take interest in documenting Churchill's postwar exploits, and makes almost no reference to his Fulton speech or his return to power in 1951. For those already familiar with the standard "song and dance" given by most Churchill biographers, this work is definitely worth your time, but those expecting a more plenary reference on all of Churchill's political career, not just that until 1945, should look elsewhere.

I am a French teacher. This book is horrible! Where do I begin?

This book focuses too much on culture and SLANG! They don't even teach appropriate French until after they have formed bad language habits in the students! The morsels of grammar that they haphazardly throw in are laughable at best only because of the absurdity in the way they present the material. Once they have presented it, the opportunity to practice what they've learned is pretty useless. Their translations of words are also horrible. Either they are completely wrong (VOILA does not mean HERE; it means THERE. VOICI means HERE.) or their explanations are super weak.

As a fellow French teacher friend of mine told me, this book is designed for French teachers who do not want to teach French.

ALLEZ VIENS HOLT LEVEL 1 FRENCH BOOK TAUGHT ME ALOT AND IT IS BETTER THAN THE FRENCH BOOKS AT SCHOOL!

I first used this book when I started taking French 1 in Middle School. It is a great book! It takes every aspect of learning French, peice by piece. There are 12 chapters, each wich zeros in on one topic. They have things such as Comment dit-on... (how do you say), Vocabulaire (vocabulary), and Grammaire (Grammer). I would recomend this textbook to anyone who wants to learn French!

I am a French teacher and I can say that this is the worst book ever designed for learning French. After the first four chapters, all that students still really know how to say is "j'aime" and "je n'aime pas". It tries to be communicative and teach students catch-phrases so that they can speak in detail, but the problem is that all they know how to say are those phrases. They don't understand how the language works. The grammar explanations in this book are laughable. It doesn't provide nearly enough practice. Plus, it introduces things in the exercises that they've never ever had before! Why throw 'le futur proche' into a grammar exercise when the student has never been exposed to it and can not guess the meaning from context because it is simply a grammar exercise? I just don't understand this book!

They try to be culturally appropriate by making references to French teenagers, but let's face it -- our teenagers don't care what sports French teenagers play.

The coup de grâce is that être, arguably the most important verb in the language, isn't introduced until Chapter 7! All year long my students ask me "When are we going to learn family members and how to describe people?" and they cannot believe that it is until chapter 7.

The layout of this book makes no sense. Two chapters focus on food, and two chapters focus on sports and past-times? Why not combine these into the same chapters? It makes no sense to introduce demonstrative adjectives before the verb être. Using this book makes me despise teaching lower-level French.

What I wouldn't give for even 10 minutes with the writers and publishers of this book to ask them "What the heck were you thinking?!"

Next year, our school system is switching to Discovering French, Nouveau! If you want a real textbook that your students would enjoy, I recommend you check that one out.

When I first saw this book I got excited. I thought what a great concept writing a biography of both of these extremely influential leaders in the same book. It would give the reader an amazing perspective to see how these leaders came about, and what influenced them and led them to be the men they ended up as. I thought that both men would be a study in contrast that would give readers a greater insight into these men and their times. Instead what I found was a lop sided work that was nothing but a study in the author's own biases.

We all know the history of these two men, and so I don't expect a history of Hitler to cast him in a positive light, but what I do expect is some historical perspective and even-handedness by the author. The author from the very beginning suggests that he is somewhat of a fan of Churchill and as such the book may have a slight bent towards Churchill. I thought that would be fine, and I thought it showed great integrity in the author that he was willing to admit this. I also thought since the author himself was aware of his bias that would mean he was aware during his writing, and would thus have worked against his own feelings to give readers a more balanced account. No such luck though, as I found out this work is about as lopsided a book as I have ever come across. Churchill is portrayed as a great hero from the beginning, while the writing on Hitler oozes vitriol from the very beginnings.

The history writer must do their best to set aside personal feelings to attempt to truly capture the objective truth. History must be allowed to speak for itself because when authors let their biases seep in then history becomes subjective, and when history becomes subjective it can also become dangerous. It is a very difficult thing to accomplish (especially with these two figures). Unfortunately this author didn't even give it a try, and this book suffers terribly for it. My disappointment is certainly compounded by my initial excitement.

As I read the author's account of Superman Churchill, passing lightly over Churchillean stumbles such as putting Britain on the gold standard, Gallipoli, holding badly needed troops in northern Norway, etc., I realized I was reading hagiography and not history. The abhorrence of unpleasant stuff extends to Hitler. It's hard to believe that anyone could write a book about the dictator and never even mention the Holocaust, but Strawson did, without explanation or apology. I'm surprised he didn't omit World War II.

this book does a fairly good job in paralleling the lives of hitler and churchill.the authors objectivity,however is clouded by his unbridled admiration for churchill.i was a bit disappointed in this because in order to get the full flavor of a person a balance of negatives and positives must be met.yet i admire the authors military acuman.he tells a good one of the north african campaign how the british rolled up the italian army,capturing no less than 10 divisions only to be repelled by rommels panzer forces.one of the best parts of the book to me was when the author did a comparison of leadership and temperaments between rommel and montgomery.he did a good job in explaining the might of the german army,and how it was developed in the 1930's.indeed one is left with the impression that german leaders like rommel and guderian were among the most innovative of the war.the author illustrates how hitler though a master of stragedy and creating bold concepts,gave in to his megalomania,and eventually lead the wehrmact to disaster.stalingrad is a case in point.overall i enjoyed the book, particularly the battle of britain, and despite the possibility of imminent invasion,churchill was eager to get the british back on the offensive.this book makes clear how important the meditterean was to the british empire.for history buffs this book may be a revisit of old territory.yet for students of military history this book is worth a read because he describes several of the campaigns so well,like the allied landing in anzio, and how general lucas waffled;blowing the allies chance of walking into rome with little german resistance.still this book disappointed me in one respect.the author fails to explain how hitler became the monster who caused the death of millions.there is little description of his childhood.

I am a Churchill admirer and was anxiously to read Strawson's book. I was a bit disappointed once I finished it. I had hoped for a detailed description - by a military man - of the war and Churchill's and Hitler's role leading their nations. Strawson spends almost half of the book "setting up" the war. This may be a good tack for those who might not know much about the background of the two protaganists. But, if you do know anything about Churchill's and Hitler's youth and rise this is needless filler. Also, Strawson seems to draw quite extensively from Isiah Berlin's "Churchill in 1940" and Allan Bullock's "Hitler" as sources. Having read both I am a little disconcerted that Berlin's work (a short but brilliant monograph) figures so prominently. And although Bullock's work is also well done, there are other superb Hitler biographies - like Joachim Fest's. I am additionally disappointed that Strawson's editors did not put full citations in the work - as foot or endnotes. Overall, this book didn't give me all I wanted. But, it is an admirable effort by an aging general who wants to leave his mark on modern military history.

Used Kotz/Treichel for Honors General Chem for Chemical and Environmental Engineers, Chemistry and Biochem majors here at U of Delaware. If you're taking any kind of honors/advanced general chemistry, don't waste your money- the book reads like a children's story. If, however, you're new to general chemistry, it provides a good foundation and is a pretty good place to start.

I disliked this book. It unfortunately comprimises a good learning experience for advanced technology. I am probably a textbook person, and I enjoy hilighting. I did not get much from this CD-Rom

This is a clearly written, historically grounded and wide ranging introduction to documentary. The field of academic study of documentary is not well established and there are only a few notable books in the field - this is one of them! Winston attempts to categorise differnt forms of documentary from the Griersonian to "fly-on-the-wall". His categorisations are by no means universally valid, but they do enable the reader to better comprehend the claims of documentaries. In his final chapters Winston makes his own claim on how documentarians should position themselves. Whilst parts of the book do seem a little messey, this is more to do with the messy state of documentary than with Winston's writing.

Highly recommended.

I was shocked to find that this book, bearing the imprimatur of the BFI, was so poorly researched and so sloppily assembled. One example -- a film that merits an entire chapter is not even mentioned in the index! Winston has done some good work in the past, and has some interesting ideas, but should be ashamed of having this mess released with his name on it.

Did not receive book in time. When I ordered it was supposed to come in 2-3 days but later I go an e-mail from Amazon with estimated date of December 11-14. I was not happy and I ordered from one of your competitors who I could actually talk to on the phone.

An excellent choice for anyone who is interested in transportation. The essays range from issues related to developing countries to those that are pertinent to the US. While this is not exactly a beginner's book it is very easy to read with some background in economics or engineering.

I have a friend who once said to me that if it wasn't for sports, he would never have made it out of high school. My response was that I made it out of high school in spite of sports. I will confess at the outset that sports science fiction is not really my cup of tea. According to Peter Nicholls and Brian Stableford (1995), it is a form of writing that didn't flourish until after World War II. Some of the early practitioners of it were Clifford D. Simak, Malcolm Jameson, and Lester del Rey.

_Rocket Jockey_ (1952) was first published by Winston under the pseudonym of Philip St. John and was accompanied by a splendid cover by Alex Schomburg.The cover depicted two rockets taking off at an angle from the Moon. The novel has since been reprinted in paperback form several times over (with much less splendid covers), indicating that it has retained a certain degree of popularity over the years. I don't know why. It strikes me as very dated and simplistic, though I'll admit that it does have a certain degree of action and zip.

It was prophetic in an accidental kind of a way. The race across the solar system is called the Armstrong Classic in honor of the first man to land on the Moon-- a Major Armstrong. Unlike Neil Armstrong, his first words were not about a giant step for mankind. They were, "Who won the Indianapolis Classic?" I sometimes wish that our historical first words had been as spontaneous. Ah, well.

The story involves a young pilot for Earth who is maneuvered into racing in the Armstrong Classic against Martian contestants. The Martians are noted for winning by the use of dirty tricks. And there are dirty tricks aplenty that are dished out. I personally find other del Rey juveniles such as _Marooned on Mars_ (1952), _Battle on Mercury_ (1953), and _Step to the Stars_ (1954) to be much better written and much more imaginative. But I will freely admit that sports buffs may get more enjoyment out of this book than I did.

I read this book when I was about eight years old (1955).

Its the story of a race in rocket ships (one from each habitable planet/moon - Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Io, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa). Its a somewhat hokey story 52 years later but a nice trip back along memory lane.

Hate to be a spoiler but when DelRay wrote it in 1952, we were 17 years away from the first Moon Landing. But in the book, the author names the race "the Armstrong Classic" after the first man to land on the Moon.

I remembered that in 1969 and every year since. Truthfully, I just bought the book here on Amazon {ROCKET JOCKEY (Del Rey Books)} , to check my memory. But it was a nice trip back to when I was a kid and dreamt of things to come as well.

I bought the book in order to learn faster about the following: (a) How can (should) I use existing CIM schemas in order to develop CIM schema for my company devices. (b) How to represent all these concepts in XML (c) Relation of CIM to network management and DEN.

I expected to find some examples how all that look and work in real life. This, however, is not a book that I needed. It gives you some background in OO modeling that I did not like and actually did not need at all. I also suspect that somebody without previous OO knowledge might be confused. For example, on page 41, Properties, it is written: "A property is a value used to denote a characteristic of a class; it can be thought of as a pair of functions, one to set the property value and one to return the property value." Property access methods are confused with a property itself !

XML part is very short and general so I still have to go somewhere else to figure out how to implement XML part. Almost the same can be said about DEN - CIM relation.

The authors are obviously knowledgeable in the areas of OOA/OOD, Patterns and Enterprise management. I do not like their presentation but it may happen that I am not a part of their 'target group' for which they wrote the book. That is why I gave the book 3 stars. As far as I am concerned, I have to go to DMTF web site to learn hard way from documents. This book did not help me to do my job more efficiently.

This is an interesting view of this madman although the material is getting dated. There are not a lot of other detailed works of his life so this may be your best bet. The book moves ok with some interesting facts but I doubt it will keep you up at night.