Warren Books

* Coverage of topics in aircraft design is exhaustive. From balancing lift and weight for steady flight, on through off axis forces and moments from running propellers, to 6-dof formulas for aircraft dynamic modes, to how propeller location affects aircraft stability, and on and on. Great for both the beginner and the authority in aircraft.

* Often a completely thorough analysis including the minutest effects is presented along with a linearized or simplified method. The simplified analysis is so useful for rapid conceptual design and study of fundamentals, while the detailed analysis gives a complete grasp of the physics and phenomena involved. Plus, in simplifying a complex derivation, the reader is shown which parameters may be safely neglected and which require careful scrutiny, and what is engineering if not intelligently ignoring smaller effects to come up with a reasonable solution to a problem?

* The figures! Well thought out and consistent, the figures clearly illustrate the material.

* Actual aircraft data is used in the example and homework problems. I have a feel for the performance of several classes of aircraft simply from using this book.

* Phillips derives everything, and I mean everything using the fundamental laws of physics as the starting point. A student would be very well served to go through these derivations themselves. Phillips basically shows the student how to learn and how to think mathematically. No shortcuts here. I wish I had learned these things very early on in my own schooling.

* Phillips has included experimental data along with rigorous analytical derivation and computer numerical analysis. I believe that all three are necessary for a true understanding of fluid dynamics.

The bottom line: Buy and use this book! While it is true that the material is focused on subsonic flight, I work for a large airframer of supersonic aircraft and I find the principles and fundamentals to be extremely useful in my work. Whether you are a student or a professional, if you have an interest in aerodynamics this is THE book to use.

The formulations for aircraft performance are very robust and provide the reader/student with the formulation of each equation from basic priciples in an easy to understand style.

A highlight of the book are the chapters on flight simulation and dynamic stability. The methods presented for 6-dof dynamic stability and quaternion based flight simulation are clearly explained and the examples provided walk the reader through the process of implementing them. These methods are also faster and more accurate than similar methods I have seen used here at NAVAIR, and implement them every time I can into older codes.

This book covers every aspect of flight mechanics that the beginning and intermediate student needs to know and does not confuse the reader!!

Frankly, I was shocked by how quickly my lawn improved. You have to understand that my lawn was basically dead and full of weeds. It seemed like it was mostly weeds. But getting the lawn mowed properly, with some good fertilizer and weed control and sufficient water creates amazing results.

This book helped me understand different grass types, weed varieties and how to treat them, how to select fertilizers and how much to apply based upon grass type, how much work you want to put into your lawn, and soil types. Your lawn can take as much work as you want to put into it, but the minimum amount can be pretty low. I probably picked a medium amount because of all the recovery I had to accomplish. My neighbors routinely complimented the lawn and by the end of the season it wasn't much work at all.

This book is concise, well illustrated, and very informative. It sure helped me and I believe that if you are a beginner like me, it can be of great help to you.

It is amazing how some people look at Japan and see what is not there. For instance, one reviewer on this book said how most "Japanese players never had much real education, as high schools were more like minor leagues, so the player mostly read mangas (comic strips) on bus rides."

Mangas are much more than comic strips. They are books, written by adults largely for an adult audience. Business people with degrees read mangas.

In fact, the ignorance of Japanese culture reflects in many unfortunate incidences between Japanese citizens and American citizens. Mr. Cromartie's slugging of a pitcher more than illustates this point.

Baseball in Japan is brutal. They burn out their pitchers, for instance, rather than rotate them. In this book you'll see that Warren Cromartie started out his first season first as the hero that was going to save his team, then as the first half of the season wore on he was viewed by the press as a bum who wasn't worth the money they paid for him (Japanese players were, and maybe still are, paid very low salaries for the receipts they bring in for their owners). He then became a hero who batted very well on the second half of the season. Did Mr. Cromartie improve his batting? Perhaps. But more than likely by the second half the season the pitchers in Japan had worn out their arms, and could no longer throw as well.

Get this to learn Japanese culture, Japanese baseball, and one man's confusion and eventual acceptance of both.

Cromartie came back to the States and played his last season with the Royals as a pinch hitter/1B and finished the season with a .307 average as a part time player.

Get this book. It's worth it.

Cromartie came back to the States and played his last season with the Royals as a pinch hitter/1B and finished the season with a .307 average as a part time player.

Get this book. It's worth it.

I grew up watching Warren Cromartie play for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants during the late `80s. Cromartie was one of very few gaijin players who left a great impact, not only by the way he played the game, but also by his cocky attitude and behavior. For the Japanese media who love to stereotype American players as brashly self-arrogant, lazy, and powerful, Cromartie was such a perfect fit. Of course, they would not report on his side of story, this biography may be of a greater interest for those who viewed him as a gaijin those days. To me, the reader may miss the most interesting points if she just reads this book just as an account of "bizarre" experiences that an American went through in one of the most exotic places in the world.

With the presence of such colorful personalities as the manager Sadaharu Oh (whose career homerun record of 868 surpasses the American counterpart), his teammates, and old-fashioned traditionalists who would be labeled downright racists in many other civilized nations, the story never seems to bore the reader.

Unlike many other player biographies ghost written by mediocre sport writers, this is surprisingly an engaging book. Robert Whiting does a great job of incorporating his own views on cultural disparities between Japan and America into Cromartie's endeavor as a gaijin player. Many opinions expressed in the book overlap Whiting's other works on baseball, such as "You Gotta Have Wa" and "The Chrysanthemum and the Bad," but "Slugging It Out in Japan" is probably the most emotionally involved pieces of all.

Like his brother, C.S., Warren Lewis has that stereotyped but still very real and precious commodity of English commonsense. His good-humored rationality flavors the book but not to the detriment of the subject. Lewis was, afterall, writing about Louis XIV's France, not 20th century England. As with all the best historians, Lewis has the ability to see the world from outside the ideologies and pressures of the present. More than once, he cautions the reader against applying current century thinking to a 17th century problem or event.

But tone is where Lewis excels. Personable without being chatty, humorous without being sarcastic, A Splendid Century is amazingly relaxing to read, especially allowing for the subject matter and Lewis' fact-filled prose.

Recommendation: Buy it.

However, this book covers much more than Versilles. You get to see what the majority of France was like during the period outside the court. Why the country was loathed by all courtiers, the real definition of a stinking Paris. How to get caught out at dinner for wrong ettiqute. Why you *didn't* want to end up on the Galleys and what your chances of education would have been like.

The author makes it clear that it is hard to make generalisations about this period in France, but he does his best to give us examples of the confusion and differences people experienced during the period.

If you think our taxes are bad today. Read this book and thank your lucky stars you aren't living in 17th cent France.

All in all this is a very enlightening read and highly recommended to anybody who wants a real glimpse of what the *real* France was like under Louis 14th.

As the author points out in the introduction, the book might have been better titled "Some Aspects of Life in the Reign of Louis XIV;" rather than present a sequential narrative, Lewis chose to structure the book as a series of essays on particular aspects. There are chapters on the king and his court, the religious situation, the organisation of the army and the state of the peasantry. Among the unexpected pleasures of the book are the chapters on sea voyages, the world of the galleys and the education of women. A surprising omission, however, is a discussion of Colbert and his attempts at administrative reform. Nevertheless, this is a fine work of history that can be strongly recommended.

By not limiting himself to Versailles Mr.Lewis creates honesty. But he does not stop there, he remains true to the popular understanding. The Sun King's world brought to life.

Nothing stands out more in my study of 20th Century China, than the frustration of so many situations where there were simply no good choices. Of course, I am not Chinese, so I suppose I am able, because of that, to view the period with some measure of detachment. But I was born in Tokyo, and grew up in the north of Japan, so, while I am always viewed as a foreigner in Asia, I am, in fact, a child of Asia, and keenly interested in what factors contributed to the painful history China has lived since the revolution of 1911.

One of the most interesting comparisons in this book is between Joseph Stilwell, and Claire Chennault. Barbara Tuchman clearly favors Stilwell, to the point where I would say that if this book were your only source of information about Chennault, and who he was, you probably would not have a very high opinion of him. But even Tuchman must admit that Claire Chennault had much better rapport with Chiang Kai-Shek than Stilwell.

Let me try to phrase the matter in very basic terms: Joseph Stilwell was a brilliant general whoýs relational skills, and more importantly his relationship sense was seriously wanting. Throughout the book, I am struck, not by a deficiency of intelligence, or determination, or persistence, but by a lack of basic humanity. This deficiency hangs over Stilwell like a cloud, polluting his relationships with those with whom it was most important for him to get along.

For starters, he was one of the ungodliest officers in the history of the U.S. Army. To his daughter, he wrote about the "criminal instincts I picked up by being forced to go to Church and Sunday School, and seeing how little real good religion does anybody, I advise passing them all up and using common sense instead." This cynical godlessness expressed itself in many ways. Stilwell was generally contemptuous and disrespectful toward those with whom he disagreed (mostly Chiang Kai-Shek). This was a source of irritation to FDR, who felt that Chiang Kai-Shek was a head of state, and ought to be accorded the level of respect due one in that position. Stilwell did not see it that way. He constantly referred to Chiang in his diary as "Peanut," or "Hickory Head." Several times he referred to FDR himself as "Rubber Legs." The Japanese he called "buck-toothed bastards."

Both Churchill and MacArthur possessed a spiritual dimension that was completely foreign to Stilwell. Churchill used to say, "In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill. Stilwell probably should be given credit for understanding the first point, and perhaps the second in some measure. But for the rest of it, he was clueless. No, I mean really, completely clueless. When MacArthur ruled Japan as a virtual dictator after World War II, he issued a request for 10,000 missionaries. He also contacted the Gideons and requested as many bibles as they could supply. Whatever one may say about MacArthurýs personal spiritual life, he did understand that the essential problem of post-war Japan was a spiritual crisis. Stilwell had no such insight. Following a tour of the gutted and burned out districts of Yokohama after World War II, he said, "We gloated over the destruction and came in feeling fine."

At one point, after he had been removed from China, he allowed himself to believe that he would be chosen over MacArthur for command of forces in the Pacific. By Godýs mercy, he was not chosen, and the Japanese people experienced the big-heartedness of MacArthur.

This book is old. It came out in 1971. In spite of that, this is a very useful book. Barbara Tuchman was a war correspondent who personally witnessed much of the Sino-Japanese war during the 30s. She is very thorough, detailed and organized. She also possesses a level of objectivity which is refreshing in this day and age when so much written history is editorial in nature.

I have been pretty hard on Stilwell. Perhaps I have been so turned off by his acerbic nature that I have tended not to appreciate his brilliance as an officer. Marshall, who was always Stilwellýs strongest supporter, said that Stilwell was "his own worst enemy." The point, here, I guess, is that many good qualities can be obscured by a little bit of folly. Nonetheless, this, as I said, is a very useful book. It isnýt all about Stilwell. It is about a very important point in Chinaýs history, and the way personality affected policy. Understanding the American experience in China is critical to comprehending how events developed toward the culmination of the conflict, in 1949.

Mrs. Tuchman weaves a study of an era in China's history around the biography of General Stilwell. The period spans approximately one hundred years, beginning with the Opium Wars of the mid 19th century. The history concludes with the Chinese Communists' assumption of power in 1949. Barbara Tuchman's research and analysis of the events and people who lived during this period provide a partial explanation for the success of the Communist revolution. She accomplishes this through her intriguing character studies of the main protagonists, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung, and President Franklin Roosevelt. The character studies suggest the motivation for their decisions.

Mrs. Tuchman also effectively exposes the vastly different management styles of the Allied military and political leaders. They include Churchill, Mountbatten, Roosevelt, Marshall, Eisenhower, Chiang Kai-shek, and Stilwell. She reveals how these men attempted to exert influence over each other in deciding the conduct of the war. She identifies which men prevailed in these negotiations. This book would serve as an excellent reference on management for either civilian or military leaders.

Mrs. Tuchman also provides interesting insights into the personalities of Major General Claire Chennault of the Flying Tigers and General George Marshall, who also authored the plan that restored Europe's economy after the war. She helps us understand the basis for their fame and determine whether they were worthy of the recognition they received.

Finally, this is a compelling biography of a man who played a significant role in World War II, but received little recognition during his lifetime. She details the reasons why General Stilwell is not as famous or held in the same regard as the other great military leaders of WWII. Even so, Mrs. Tuchman's analysis forces the reader to conclude that General Stilwell's devotion to this country and the people of China was unsurpassed.

I would like to see this book released again, so that more people can learn about General Stilwell and America's relationship with China during World War II.