T. Greenwood Books

This is the definitive account of the campaign in France and Benelux 1940. Thoroughly researched, myth-busting, superb analysis, easy to read in spite of its academic complexity.

First, I have read the French edition so there may be some differences with the English language edition (which I don't yet have).

The Battle of France is one of my favourite battles of study, and one of the most pivotal battles in modern history. From every aspect of technology, doctrine, balance of power, etc. this battle decided what would come for the next half a century. As is well known, the German victory resulted in the defeat of one great power and the marginalization of another in just seven weeks with relatively few casualties on either side (compared to World War 1). The Germans accomplished an operational and strategic breakthrough in three days, when neither side did so over four years of combat in WW1.

A lot of the book is devoted to the tactical battle of the Sedan area, where the Germans concentrated their Panzer and mechanized infantry divisions to break out through the Ardennes. This book goes into detail of bunkers, strong point, bridges, and villages. It recounts the battle of Stonne, a small village that changed hands at least a dozen times in one day. There are also excellent accounts of other battles, such as the Hoth area, Arras, and in Belgium/Holland.

The book starts with a good strategic overview of strategy, organization, and planning without going into too much detail. It emphasizes that Blitzkrieg was first a name given by the British; and second, a concept understood by only a few mid-level Generals. Indeed, the Panzers greatest threat was not the French as much as their own infantry; at the first signs of slowing down, the Panzers were to be reorganized back into infantry armies, corps, and commanders.

In many ways, the German plan was flawed (but no military plan is perfect). The northern thrust in fact consumed considerable German resources and effort; from the Eben Emanuel raid to the sheer numbers of committed soldiers. Why? Because many German generals and Hitler did not understand the strategy and had limited faith in it. One might even say that success in the north would have doomed the overall plan as the Allies would not have been trapped at Dunkirk.

The literature on this battle is relatively poor, usually focusing on broad politics and strategy rather than the actual engagements. Most of the literature is from the British perspective, which entirely omits the battles of the Meuse. This book, as I said, provides excellent detailed narrative at the company level about the drive through the Ardennes and over the Meuse.

This is a brilliant, original study that sets a very high standard for the Battle of France and World War 2.

Oberst Karl-Heinz Frieser, an officer in the Bundeswehr and military historian, delivers a detailed and thought-provoking analysis of the Wehrmacht's 1940 campaign in the west in The Blitzkrieg Legend. Frieser sets out to strip away the hype and wartime-era propaganda about Blitzkrieg in order to establish what the Wehrmacht intended to accomplish and how it achieved one of the greatest operational-level victories in military history. The book's main focus is on Panzer Group Kleist and Guderian's corps during the crossing of the Meuse; German operations in Belgium and Holland, as well as the follow-up "Case Red" offensive into the French heartland are addressed in passing. Overall, Colonel Frieser's analysis of the decisive elements of the German campaign is first-rate, as well as his discussion of the related military theory behind the German success.

The author's main thesis is strategic in nature, namely that the Wehrmacht did not plan Case Yellow as a Blitzkrieg, but expected a long, drawn-out attritional struggle against the Anglo-French powers. While the author cites Hitler's directives before May 1940 to suggest that the campaign merely sought to achieve "a favorable position" in northeast France and Belgium, this is less than convincing. Since the author makes little effort to examine German industrial mobilization other than eschewing the notion of a "Blitzkrieg economy", he does not really examine whether Germany was in fact, preparing for a long war. Based upon German production of tanks, artillery, aircraft and U-Boats, it does not appear that the Third Reich was preparing for an attritional war with the Allies. Although Hitler's deal with Stalin and his invasion of Norway do suggest that Hitler was protecting Germany's access to raw materials, the level of military mobilization in 1940 was far below what Germany was capable of achieving. The author also concludes that the campaign was decided by military factors, not social or ideological factors. He says that French generals later tried to use problems of the Third Republic to conceal their own ineptitude, but the poor morale of French troops in May 1940 was clearly widespread. Thus, the author's strategic-level hypothesis is rather weak.

The author is on much surer ground on his assessment of the operational-level factors behind the campaign. Colonel Freiser cites three developments in operational art that laid the foundations for Blitzkrieg: the overcoming of linear thinking of the First World War and the willingness to embrace risky, non-linear operations; the refinement of the stosstruppen tactics of 1917-18 and their adoption by mechanized forces; and the emphasis on schwerpunkt, breakthrough, encirclement and pursuit. The Blitzkrieg outcome in 1940 was a fortuitous result of the convergence of three factors in Germany's favor: better use of technology (communications and mechanization), air superiority and the superior German Auftragstsktik methods. Three specific factors added to the scale of the German victory: the abysmal state of French command and control deprived them of any chance of seizing the initiative; Gamelin's faulty Dyle-Breda plan wasted the French reserves on an useless effort to link up with the Dutch; and German commanders like Rommel committed unauthorized advances that were unpredictable and hence, led to a catastrophic French collapse.

The campaign narrative on the critical period of 10-25 May 1940 is superb and well supported by 48 color maps. This volume clearly surpasses works like Horne's To Lose a Battle in terms of detail and tactical insight. The description of the assault crossing of the Meuse, Guderian's decision to exploit westward and the subsequent destruction of the French armored reserves is superb. Although the author's viewpoint is German, there is still a great deal of new information presented about French operations. For example, the author notes how the French Air Force was underutilized, with one fighter wing sitting in reserve for virtually the entire campaign. In the final stages of the campaign, the author discusses the panzer halt order at great length, concluding that von Rundstedt and not Hitler, was primarily to blame. Throughout the book, the author notes the clash between the conservatives like Halder, Kluge and von Rundstedt who wanted to slow the panzers and the extremists like Guderian and Rommel, who ignored risks. I think the author's easy dismissal of the "flank psychosis" that caused the panzer halt is a bit retrospective, because it certainly must have been very hard to believe that one million Allied soldiers would simply sit there and allow themselves to be surrounded.

The author also discusses the various factors that led to the German failure to close the trap at Dunkirk, thereby allowing the BEF to escape. He then concludes that the escape of the BEF transformed the success of `sickle cut' into an "ordinary operational victory." He concludes that despite victory in France, Germany could not win against the superior economic resources of the Allies and that, "the panzer operations of the German blitzkrieg were very much like jousting against the windmills of superior industrial potentials." This is a bit much to swallow. I suppose that it is now politically incorrect for a German author to even suggest that the Third Reich might have achieved victory if Hitler had only been able to settle for something less than world domination, but the fact of the matter is that England alone could not possibly have defeated Germany. The quick German victory in the West cut the Allied powers down from 4 to only 1 and while Britain had significant air and sea potential, it had no ability on its own to contest Germany's continental power. Even with US involvement, all that industrial potential could only come ashore in France a few divisions at a time, and as long as Hitler kept the war confined to only England, Germany had hope for a win or draw. It was the invasion of the Soviet Union that changed the equation against Germany.

This is an excellent study of the 1940 blitzkrieg campaign in Western Europe and looks at the struggle of the German High Command to adopt the brilliant "sickle cut plan" when they themselves were expecting a long drawn out war and then looks how the campaign unfolded in depth. The book examines how the German victory came about even though the German forces were outnumbered and also contained in some instances inferior equipment e.g. the panzer divisions contained mainly inferior tanks of panzer pzkpfwIs & pzkpfwIIs.

The German advantages however lay in their ability to co-ordinate all arms in their arsenal e.g. airpower, armour, infantry and the German personnel on the battlefield were able to make quick decisions in the field and were always conscious of time and pushed onto their objectives. The author relates this ability to quickly react to the German training in that the German command gave out objectives and missions, but the way in how these were to be achieved was largely up to the individual officers in the front lines. It was also the unauthorised actions of commanders like Guderian and Rommel by relentlessly pushing forward with their panzers and outstripping the supporting infantry that caught both the German and Allied commands of guard. The French & Allied way was to wait for orders but once received they were generally hopelessly out of date, and time and again opportunities to launch effective counter attacks were wasted. The French Command was slow to react, unable to coordinate all arms and could not organise an effective counter attack at the operational level, they could only achieve this at a tactical level.

The author examines how the Germans came out victorious even though they contained large numbers of inferior tanks. The Germans achieved this by concentrating their armour in panzer divisions adhering to Guderians concept of "punching with the fist and not feeling with the fingers". The French tanks were superior in armour and firepower but lacked radio and had small fuel tanks. The French were constantly stopping to refuel from fuel trucks whereas the Germans tried to alleviate this by carrying fuel in jerry cans with them. The German tanks contained radio that enabled crews to better coordinate their attacks and gave them the edge. When the French did manage to mass their tanks it was in a linear fashion with no depth and the Germans were easily able to penetrate. Once the French lines were penetrated and the Germans raced on and reached the French rear areas, panic ensued and the French front virtually collapsed.

The author points out the French Command incorrectly assessed the Ardennes as impassable by armour, neglected the Sedan sector through lack of mines & incomplete bunkers and ignored reconnaissance reports of German movements and of course were far too slow to react. Also, the French airforce was not very effective because a long drawn out war was expected and therefore only a portion of available aircraft were committed.

This is indeed an interesting and well researched book and highly recommended.

This book is both an analysis of whether the campaign in France in 1940 was planned as a "blitzkrieg" and a rather good account of the campaign itself.

The author very convincingly demonstrates that the Germans in general (and Hitler in particular) did not plan the French campaign as a blitzkrieg-style attack. While the high command's conservative plans resembled a revamp of WWI plans, a few new-style officers--principally Manstein and Guderian--came up with and convinced Hitler to authorize the daring plan to attack through Sedan. The campaign would have been an even greater success if Hitler and the senior generals had not lost their nerve and continually reined-in the panzers. In any event, all the German generals were a bit stunned by the quick victory. The author concludes by saying that France was an "unplanned but successful blitzkrieg, while Russia was a planned but unsuccessful blitzkrieg."

The book is also an excellent account of the campaign, and points out many interesting facts, such as:
--the French supreme headquarters was not equipped with a single radio at the outbreak of the war;
--another senior headquarters had a single telephone line, which became inoperable every day betwee 12:00 and 14:00 while the battle was raging because the swithboard girl insisted on her lunch break;
--at the outbreak of the war, the Germans had twelve times more trained radio operators than the French army;
--while the superiority of many French tank models over the German panzers is rather well known, the author recounts an incident in which a panzer commander grew so frustrated that his panzer could not damage a nearby French tank that he dismounted and attacked it (unsuccessfully and with fatal results) with a hammer.

Meticulously sourced, well written, great book. My only quibble is the rather excessive use of the word "astonishing"...

I took a grant writing class in college and this was one of the textbooks used. It's a good resource. It gives samples of different types of proposals, tells you how to write them, and also gives a list of resources. Pretty much a self-teaching book, you don't really need a class to use it.

This book offers specific examples, models, and step-by-step instructions on how to write all kinds of grants, from local and federal government programs to grants from private foundations and corporations. More than 300 Web sites are described, as is the use of search engines to develop better proposals. The authors also present scores of concrete writing examples and time-saving tips from successful grantseekers. (summary by South Texas Library System)
The author, Miner, has an online newsletter (Grantseeker Tips) as well, that I've subscribed to for years. Her advice is very practical and to the point. You can't go wrong with this book to guide you.

The general advice provided in this book is invaluable. After reading it cover to cover, I still revisit the main sections every time before writing an important grant. There are key bits of knowledge provided that will serve you well, and like EB White's "Elements of Style," Miner and Miner can be recommended without hesitation. Finally, this book is much more useful than both the "Dummies" grant writing book and "Foundation Center" guide.

BRAVING THE VOID
Journeys into Healing

Book review
By
Dr. Stephen J. Faulkner
Duncan, B.C.

For physicians and health care workers who are interested in Energy Healing and holistic approaches to health care, this book is a landmark work. Dr. Michael Greenwood's second book "Braving the Void - Journeys into Healing" is a well written, easy to read account of his experiences and insights as a physician and acupuncturist at the Victoria Pain Clinic.

Physicians in primary care reading this book will immediately resonate with some of his ideas on chronic pain and chronic illness. For example, the discussion of the doctor-patient relationship and the increasing trend of modern medicine to practice by protocols and algorithms using "evidence based" treatments is very relevant.

"To suggest one form of treatment is good for all people in all situations seems patently absurd, yet physicians have allowed fear to provoke them to abandon their inner strength and relinquish their authority when dealing with patients"

The concept of the void, which was initially developed in his first book, "Paradox and Healing", co-authored with Dr. Peter Nunn, is one that is best experienced to be appreciated and understood. Having experienced the void myself in therapeutic situations it is something I believe all holistic physicians and healers must experience and enter into periodically to be fully aware of what is happening both for themselves and their patients. Michael Greenwood has embraced this belief and, together with his other staff members, has developed a model for energy healing for conditions as diverse as chronic back pain and chronic fatigue, to breast cancer and multiple personality disorder. Other areas I found extremely interesting were the case histories on phantom limb pain, electrical burns and shamanic possessions.

Dealing with these "energies" can be extremely fatiguing and at times frightening, and Dr. Greenwood has been very modest about his experiences. He should be considered the James Cook of the human psyche, beginning to chart new continents and oceans of human energy, which have been previously "Terra Incognito" to western minds. His medical training is the navigational equipment required to prevent him landing on the rocks and his skills as a humane physician and acupuncturist the gift that provides safety through the gale-force winds and ocean storms.

This kind of work, dealing with chronic pain and the failures of so many other "so called" orthodox treatments also brings up the shadow work that a healthy society must engage in for its survival. As Michael suggests, our health care system is all too ready to focus on the "light" and "positive" aspects of our culture but reluctant to approach the "dark" or "negative" aspects. This is not the kind of work for the faint-hearted. A willingness to explore one's own shadow side and belief system is essential if one is going to navigate the unpalatable places of the client's psyche. Fortunately for us, there are pioneers like Michael Greenwood who are giving us frameworks to work with such as the void from which we can springboard into the unconscious material that lies stored in the body/mind continuum.

I would thoroughly recommend this book to all health care professionals involved in holistic and energy healing.

Braving the void clearly and vividly describes how our memories are not only stored in the brain, but are widely distributed throughout the body. This has important implications for illness, since post-traumatic stress disorders can be deeply stored within this body-mind memory system, and may be expressed as intractable symptoms such as chronic pain. This memory storage system may be viewed as a holographic field or pattern of energy. "Unblocking" the abnormal energy pattern can restore health by releasing the memories. During this process, the patient can enter a space termed the "void", where the abnormal patterns of consciousness are exposed and released.

Dr Greenwood uses various techniques such as acupuncture, forced breathing, kinesiology, and massage to release the memory patterns. He provides fascinating case histories of patients who were suffering from chronic pain, and other manifestations of ill health, being transformed back to wellness through manipulation of the body-mind systemic memory system.

This is an excellent book for healthcare professionals who wish to learn more than they were taught at medical or nursing schools, and for patients with chronic illness and pain secondary to past physical and psychological trauma. I highly recommend it.

This united edition of the correspondence was long overdue. The letters of the Emperor and Empress appear together for the first time, cleansed of the transcription errors which spoiled the first (1923) edition of her correspondence, and of the tactful editing which expunged the more intimate passages from the 1929 version of his. Joseph Fuhrmann's footnotes are helpful, thoroughly researched and not unsympathetic to the writers. For students of Russian history, this book is an extraordinarily important source on the government of Russia immediately before the Revolution; it repays careful and open-minded reading. For those interested in the personal life and the characters of the last Tsar's family, it is arguably better still: here we have Nicholas II, affectionate and gentle, occasional author of rather poetic descriptions of scenery (this is not the Nicholas of the blandly factual diary). Here too his beloved Empress, sharp-tongued and energetic and interested in everything, very different to the tragic-eyed lady of legend. High politics and war jostle for attention with amusing little accounts of the childrens' activities, but there is never any doubt that the letters were written in serious times by people who understood and sought desperately to find a solution to the problems Russia faced. They certainly don't make light reading, but if you have the patience, these letters repay your perseverance.

It's hard to believe these letters and telegrams were exchanged by a ruler and his wife under the immensely stressful conditions of WWI. I'm an aficionado of Imperial Russian History, but the unbelievable banality of this couple, relentlessly exposed in their own words is hard to take. A terrifically thorough book, it's a slow read--which certainly makes you feel you're getting your money's worth. I'm glad I bought it, and have learned more about these Romanovs even though their correspondence reveals shallowness and self-interest. Very good book, pitiful subjects.

I have not finished the book but find the beginning chapters to be an interesting read. I appreciate the clear explanations and logic.

(I did not write the following review of my own book. It was written by Jeffrey Needle of Association for Mormon Letters [AML], and I have placed it here with his approval.)

A recent "B.C." cartoon strip made its way across the internet recently. A worm is spitting out a dust ball and his friend, a pre-historic bird of some sort says, "Yuck! A dust ball! How disgusting." The worm responds, "How can you treat a fellow creature with such disdain?" The bird answers, "I read the Old Testament, buddy."

Indeed, it seems to some readers that the Old Testament is filled with all kinds of loathsome things -- murder, incest, prostitution. Reading through this sacred testament can be something of a roller-coaster ride. Is there any redeeming value to reading the Old Testament? Perhaps the same might be said of the Book of Mormon. It, too, has a lot of warfare, a lot of death, a lot of sadness. But readers can sort through all of this and draw out so many important spiritual lessons.

Part of our appreciation of biblical history is an acknowledgement that along with the good there is the evil. Such things "must needs be." The key to appreciating any sacred writing is in the ability to sort through the honest accounts and find that which is good, cling to it, and then be aware of the consequences of evil.

Over the years, scholars and teachers have come to recognize that studying the story line of the Old Testament is a valuable tool in understanding the work as a whole. One organization, "Walk Through the Bible Ministries," has designed an entire curriculum that allows the reader to skip portions of the Old Testament without missing parts of the overall story. For example, they would have you read Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, and have you skip Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Yes, you miss some of the teaching, but the story continues unabated by reading the books in this manner.

Our present book tries to accomplish this goal -- learn the story of the Old Testament, but supplement this in a way that "Walk Through the Bible Ministries" cannot: integrate the thoughts of LDS scholars over the years, the unique insights of Restoration scriptures, and the wisdom of generations of Mormon thinkers. The subtitle of the book explains it quite nicely: "Stories from the Old Testament and Related Sources for Latter-day Saints." Greenwood has a goal -- he wants you to see the wonderful continuity of the Old Testament story, the blessings of obedience and the challenges of faith. And, in my opinion, he accomplishes this
nicely.

In a series of 229 brief studies, the author takes you through the story. His prose style is exceptionally easy; his grasp of the story solid. One can read each of the studies in just a few minutes. Each study is preceded by the scripture reference covered. Some of the studies are quite focused, covering just a few chapters of the scripture. Others are very broad -- he covers the entire book of Deuteronomy in just one study! But this is as it should be -- Deuteronomy does not move the story forward at all.

A nice selection of basic maps is included. Greenwood also includes a
pronunciation guide to Old Testament words. A brief bibliography and both
name and subject indices, close the volume. A word of caution about the indices: I neglected to read a note at the head of this appendix, notifying me that numeric references were to the studies, and not the page numbers! After looking up a few references incorrectly, I wondered how the author could have gotten it so wrong! Then I read the instruction, and was once again reminded of how important it is to read carefully!

Many of us have enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. We spill the pieces onto the table and then proceed to put them together according to the pattern on the box top. Imagine trying to assemble the pieces without having the picture on the box top! So many try to read the Old Testament piece by piece, without having the benefit of the big picture. This book gives you just that: the big picture.

"How Often Would I Have Gathered You" is not a scholarly tome, neither is it intended to be. Instead, it fills a gap between published Church curriculum and the larger, more detailed studies available to the interested reader. It reads like a novel, but it tells a true story. Readers of all ages will appreciate this resource and enjoy the fine work that Val Greenwood has provided for us.

Jeffrey Needle

BRAVING THE VOID
Journeys into Healing

Book review
By
Dr. Stephen J. Faulkner
Duncan, B.C.

For physicians and health care workers who are interested in Energy Healing and holistic approaches to health care, this book is a landmark work. Dr. Michael Greenwood's second book "Braving the Void - Journeys into Healing" is a well written, easy to read account of his experiences and insights as a physician and acupuncturist at the Victoria Pain Clinic.

Physicians in primary care reading this book will immediately resonate with some of his ideas on chronic pain and chronic illness. For example, the discussion of the doctor-patient relationship and the increasing trend of modern medicine to practice by protocols and algorithms using "evidence based" treatments is very relevant.

"To suggest one form of treatment is good for all people in all situations seems patently absurd, yet physicians have allowed fear to provoke them to abandon their inner strength and relinquish their authority when dealing with patients"

The concept of the void, which was initially developed in his first book, "Paradox and Healing", co-authored with Dr. Peter Nunn, is one that is best experienced to be appreciated and understood. Having experienced the void myself in therapeutic situations it is something I believe all holistic physicians and healers must experience and enter into periodically to be fully aware of what is happening both for themselves and their patients. Michael Greenwood has embraced this belief and, together with his other staff members, has developed a model for energy healing for conditions as diverse as chronic back pain and chronic fatigue, to breast cancer and multiple personality disorder. Other areas I found extremely interesting were the case histories on phantom limb pain, electrical burns and shamanic possessions.

Dealing with these "energies" can be extremely fatiguing and at times frightening, and Dr. Greenwood has been very modest about his experiences. He should be considered the James Cook of the human psyche, beginning to chart new continents and oceans of human energy, which have been previously "Terra Incognito" to western minds. His medical training is the navigational equipment required to prevent him landing on the rocks and his skills as a humane physician and acupuncturist the gift that provides safety through the gale-force winds and ocean storms.

This kind of work, dealing with chronic pain and the failures of so many other "so called" orthodox treatments also brings up the shadow work that a healthy society must engage in for its survival. As Michael suggests, our health care system is all too ready to focus on the "light" and "positive" aspects of our culture but reluctant to approach the "dark" or "negative" aspects. This is not the kind of work for the faint-hearted. A willingness to explore one's own shadow side and belief system is essential if one is going to navigate the unpalatable places of the client's psyche. Fortunately for us, there are pioneers like Michael Greenwood who are giving us frameworks to work with such as the void from which we can springboard into the unconscious material that lies stored in the body/mind continuum.

I would thoroughly recommend this book to all health care professionals involved in holistic and energy healing.

Stephen Faulkner 4/Jan/1998
enkidu@shaw.ca

For anyone in the healing arts who ponders and struggles with patients and their chronic diseases, this is a must read. Both authors re-evaluate the dilemna of chronic illness and pain from a holistic standpoint. Western medicine has fared poorly when it comes to chronic problems which is frustrating for both "healer" and "patient". However, by reframing the approach to sickness, chronic disease can be viewed as a transformational process. Disease and healing, the authors contend, are one in the same. Conventional medicine fails to acknowledge the emotional side of disease because of its "irrationality". We only recognize the "structural" aspects of disease because of its inherent rationality. Unfortunately the most perplexing problems in medicine cannot be adequately dealt with by the rational approach alone. As a society, though, approaching from the irrational standpoint is taboo. By embracing both the rational and irrational, patients can begin the personal transformation necessary to heal themselves. A concept quite foreign to the conventional practitioner. To quote the authors: "Transformation is a profound change of heart made possible by the renewed sense of being which comes from facing the paradoxical nature of our existence." In order to illustrate the concept of transformation, the authors drawn upon myths. Unlike other teaching tools, myths provide a venue for the irrational to interact with the rational. This offers a valuable opportunity to evaluate the functional and structural aspects of illness. For the western trained mind this book can be a revelation but for some it will certainly be considered heretical. This book matches crisp insight with a fervent mission to challenge even the most "holy" of western medical beliefs.

Greenwood has an excellent grasp of the holistic and energetic nature of the human condition. His insights help to understand why health and healing is more than a physical phenomena.

This book presents a nice examination of the mind-body-spirit feedback system that is the nature of our life and existence, providing insights and many case studies to show how this model can help facilitate healing processes. Meditation, chakras, chi, 5 elements, archetypes, and other aspects of this system of consciousness-energy informing the perceived reality of form are addressed. While there is a strong Chinese medicine component to this text there is a broader look at insights from intuitive sources and modern research in physics, consciousness, and subtle energy fields. The author is thoughtful and expresses concepts clearly, presenting a paradigm for healing which supports the path toward wholeness and integration which is inherent in the essence of Consciousness/Awareness from which all things and realities arise. This is a very worthy contribution to the mind-body healing field and related areas of exploration.

I really enjoyed this book and working the problems in it. It has some truly unique features. To me this book is an attempt by the author to remedy some of the deficiencies in his earlier book Classical Dynamics. There is still no discussion of motion in a central force field or of vibrations but everything else is here. The sections on maintaining holonomic constraints during simulation and the sections on numerical methods are among the better I have seen on those subjects. There is also a rather through treatment of the basic vector mechanics that forms the basis of modern mechanics. Greenwood is not shy about attempting to level the playing field before starting out on the more modern subjects and provides the student with a ready compendium of examples, techniques, and results.

Patterson takes what could easily be a dry subject - the struggle between FDR and his attempts to remake the U.S. in his New Deal image and a cadre of conservative minded Senators and congressmen, the most prominent of them his fellow Democrats, just as determined to stop him - and turns it into a memorable study of power, principle, loyalty, and politics.

Patterson has an almost novelistic penchant for characterization. Such men as Carter Glass of VA, Josiah Bailey of NC, Burton Wheeler of Montana, Millard Tydings of Maryland, and Ellison "Cotton Ed" Smith of South Carolina attain a Dickensian expansion under Patterson's presentation. Glass, for instance, was so conservative that when the Washington hotel where he lived changed its wallpaper pattern, he would into a rage and moved out.

Patterson gives us detailed descriptions of this coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans as they attempt to stop FDR's court-packing plan as well as some of his economic reforms. A highlight is the section where, in 1938, FDR went on the road South to try to defeat in the Democratic primaries some of the his chief legislative foes like Walter George of GA and the venerable Sen. Smith. The South's adoration of the President notwithstanding, the effort was largely unsuccessful.

This sounds like deadly dull stuff fit only for GINT majors, but Patterson makes it interesting, entertaining, and at times almost suspenseful.

If your school or public library receives questions on sports issues and problems this is a great book for your collection. It also is good for the general reader interested in sports. There are 16 issues analyzed. The articles and books collected at the end of each chapter are a great source for further reference. Buy this book if you are a sports fan. It is a good investment.