Pacific University Books

Since my father flew the EB-66 electronic warfare aircraft from Feb 1968 to Feb 1969 (out of Takhli AFB) I often have searched for information about this aspect of the Vietnam War. It has been a very frustrating search since I could find no books or magazine articles about these missions until I happened upon Gilles Van Nederveen's book "Sparks Over Vietnam". It is an excellant book explaining why the obsolete B-66 was chosen for use as an electronic warfare platform and by text and diagrams outlining the various types of missions flown and the many difficulties they encountered. For instance, I did not know that because of it's TAC history the EB-66 could only refuel from a KC-135 fitted with a drogue refueling fixture. This meant that a KC-135 could be fitted out to refuel an EB-66 or it could be fitted out to refuel F-105's and other AF aircraft requiring the standard fuel probe but not both on the same refueling mission, something my Dad had never mentioned to me. After reading this book I have a much better understanding of EB-66 operations during this period and it really brings home what my father went through during his 155 combat combat missions. There are many good photographs but they suffer from being printed along with the text on common paperstock rather than on slick photographic paper. I especially liked all the diagrams and maps and the appendix listing all EB-66 aircraft lost (including the April 2, 1972 shoot down on which the Bat*21 movie starring Gene Hackman was based) and also listing the present location of EB-66 aircraft now on display in musuems. My only complaint is that the book is rather short (just over 100 pages) and tends to focus on tactics and strategy leaving little room for personal stories from the aircrews. But overall, it is a fascinating book and since it is the only book (that I know of) on this subject I feel very grateful to the the author for this almost forgotten story of the EB-66 and its brave air crews during the Vietnam War.

Dr. Kline has done in 72 pages what most books cannot do in 300 pages. He has given all speakers from the novice level to the professionals some very valuable tools and techniques for public speaking. While the title of this book may lead you to think that it is only for "Air Force" speakers, I can assure you that any speaker can use it, and they indeed should. I have been a reader of this book for five years and I have read it several times. I even use it to teach my 450 Air Force students per year. This book is simply the most concise, informational and easy to apply tool that any person can have. Thank you Dr. Kline for your wisdom.

Many art historians have written about the great modern earthworks of the American West and Southwest, but this is the first travel book to do so. What sets this book apart from others of its kind is the quality of the writing and the personality of the author, Erin Hogan. Hogan, an avowed urbanista from Chicago, writes with real comedic flair about the road trip she took in her trusty VW Jetta to visit the legendary Spiral Jetty, Lightning Field, Double Negative, Rodencrater, and Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation in Marfa (almost all of them funded by the Dia Foundation). Writing in a picaresque mode, along the way she encounters some pretty hairy and scary characters straight out of the old Wild West, but gone wrong, terribly wron. While her discussions of the formidable works of Judd, Smithson et al are excellent and accessible for general readers, the account of her accidental discovery of a folk-art site known as Hole 'n' the Rock is absolutely transcendent, right up there on a par with Perelman, Benchley, Woody Allen. A fabulous read. I hope we'll be seeing more from this talented writer--and soon.

With several editions of this book available, this review refers to the original 1920 publication. The book is an enjoyable and delightful account of Jedediah Smith and the men in his immediate circle who, over a period of eight years, explored and trapped the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific during the years 1823-1831. Although I did come across a few historical inaccuracies, this can be attributed to the fact that some documentation, letters, journals, etc. did not surface till later dates. For instance, James Clyman was with Smith during many of these exploits, and his "Journal of a Mountain Man" wasn't published until 1928. Dale Morgan's "Jedediah Smith And The Opening Of The West" which was published in 1953, gives the reader a more in depth study (with more historical documentation available at the time) into the character, achievements and defeats of this remarkable man. Neihardt's writing style is to be commended though, as he is very descriptive and expressive.

Great book for anyone interested in basket making. Covers all facets of Haida and Tlingit spruce root baskets, including their origins, uses, how they are made and even their care and appreciation of them. Numerous excellent pictures and illustrations compliment the text.

This is a "big picture" view of the European air war. It is not a collection of personal stories or battle accounts, but rather an analysis of how decisions at the highest levels about material and resources dictated the outcome in what became a titanic war of attrition. This book will contribute substantially to anyone's understanding of the war.

Murray makes a strong case, reinforced throughout the book, that German decisions about aircraft production made in 1940 essentially spelled the doom of the Luftwaffe in later years. Failure to mobilize their industry to maximize aircraft production early on, he argues, meant that the Germans never were able to meet the logistical challenges posed by the Allied air forces.

In his narrative of the war, Murray points out numerous cases where the senior German leadership made the wrong decision about production and allocation of resources. Not only did they fail to produce enough aircraft but they also failed to produce the right kinds of planes. In addition, Luftwaffe forces were wasted in many efforts that did not contribute substantially to the vital missions of the war.

The book also contains summaries of the same aspects of the British and American air forces, and thus is an excellent summary of the essential elements of the technological war of attrition, that, Murray argues, played a large role in the overall outcome of the conflict.

The reader should already have a good general knowledge of World War II in Europe to fully appreciate the insights in this work. Murray's book definitely will enhance your understanding of all aspects of the great European air war. One comes away from this book with the feeling, also supported by other works, that Hitler, Goering and other high Nazi officials probably never fully comprehended that they had begun a world war that would pit them against economies that Germany never could match.

On the voyage of the Beagle--before he had ever seen a coral reef--Darwin had deduced an explanation of the geological processes that created them by applying Charles Lyell's explanation of uplift and subsidence. Accordingly, he posited that the Chilean coast had been rising while the ocean floor was subsiding. When he finally explored some barrier reefs, he knew that since the polyps could not live deeper than 120 feet, and all the coral below that was dead, the confirmation of the reefs' great depth was evidence of subsidence--a theory that has stood the test of time. This is an attractive and affordable edition of Darwin's treatise.

I like Schopenhauer although his philosophy and metaphysics, which is called absolute voluntaristic idealism, hasn't faired that well in the last 100 years, although when I was in college 30 years ago he seemed to be popular among the students I knew who enjoyed reading philosophy.

There are several reasons why Schopenhauer's thought is still important. An idealist like Kant, he kept Kant's distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal, between the mental and external representations of reality. Kant's defense of idealism, that some ideas or at least mental processes are innate, is still relevant in modern brain science and neurobiology and in Chomsky's theories in linguistics, especially in regard to Chomsky's ideas about language learning and acquisition, in which there is support from brain science for a built-in facility in humans for language, and possibly an innate syntactical generator component to language ability.

Although innate ideas probably don't exist in the way that Kant envisioned them, modern brain science has supported his theory that the mind or brain is actively involved in the organizing and structuring of the data from the senses, and that we couldn't make sense of reality if we didn't have inborn aptitudes and capabilities to do that.

Schopenhauer emphasized the importance of Eastern philosophy and the validity of its introspective methods, while maintaining his overall empirical approach. His moral and ethical philosophy is based on compassion rather than on practical and reasonable considerations like Kant's. He was probably the first important western philosopher to give credit to Zen and Buddhist thought, while remaining faithful to the empirical principles of science.

Outside of philosophy his thoughts have had a major impact on psychology and the arts. He was the most important influence on both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, and he also had a great influence on Freud and Jung, and on writers and composers from Wagner to Tolstoy. During the 20th century, Schopenhauer's reputation faded and the importance of his work has been to a great extent overlooked, but recent books show that his importance is being rediscovered and reappraised.

I have a personal anecdote to recount. My college roommates and I used to read Schopenhauer at night to each other over a couple of beers, and we found his acerbic, trenchant style and sharp wit a delight to read, and this book is perhaps the best example of his prose in that regard. One Schopenhauer quote I still remember after 30 years is: "Intellect comes from the mother; character from the father," which might say a lot about his family life and how he grew up.

Schopenhauer is also famous for quotes such as:

"The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom."
(from his Essays, Personality; or What a Man Is).

"I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as pretty fair measure of it."

"To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties."

I have to include my favorite quote on marriage here, although it isn't Schopenhauer's, and I don't know where it came from, although it echoes his sentiments: "Marriage is the institution where the woman loses her the name and the man his solvency."

His dyspeptic view of life might have been fostered by his delicate digestive system. He would spend many minutes and even hours poring over the menu before ordering his food in the cafes where he usually dined, because a wrong choice "could send his nerves ringing for days," according to one comment I read about him. Whatever the source of his pessimism, Schopenhauer seemed almost embarrassed and ashamed to be in a human body, because he did not seem to find much good in humans or human society. No doubt he would have preferred to be a higher, more intelligent species than humans, if such exists somewhere else in the universe. But Schopenhauer didn't seem to think that intelligent life existed here. :-)

Whatever the current fate of his reputation, Schopenhauer was a uniquely gloomy intellect who contributed much to several areas of philosophy. And not the least of his virtues is that he was a true cynic and pessimist--surely the most accurate view of life, after all. :-)

..the most sublime aspirations... the subtlest intuitions...
the darkest forebodings...the audacities of passion...the
freedom of the senses... put on personality... and
assume a robe of carnal beauty.
-- John Addington Symonds, "The Genius of Greek Art."
* * * * * * * * *
The joy here is that this second volume is available in
this excellent reprint from the University Press of the
Pacific (Honolulu). The sadness is that, so far, Volume
I is not offered here.
Never having read anything by Symonds, I took a chance
based on my own love of Greek art and literature, and
several allusions to this work in studies on Victorian
aestheticism, and decided to order this volume. I am
glad that I did.
Symonds is a critic and a writer -- with a fine sense
of sight, and a poetic/artistic gift for expressing what
he sees in words. Almost every paragraph offers the
sort of lines or phrases that ring with a stirring sense
of beauty and aptness. I find myself underlining and
starring wondrous phrases and sentences.
This Volume 2 starts with Chapter XIV -- which means that
Volume 1 contains Chapters I-XIII. Also from Symonds'
introductory words, Volume I deals with the poet dramatists
Aeschylus and Sophocles. One has to remember that the Greek
dramatists were considered primarily POETS; the dramatic
form was the vehicle through which their poetry was
expressed.
The chapter titles of this Volume 2 tell us what
Symonds covers -- and it is both amazing and excellent,
in quality of focus and quality of expression. The
chapter titles going from Chapter XIV through Chapter
XXV are: Greek Tragedy and Euripides; The [Dramatic]
Fragments of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; The
Fragments of the Lost Tragic Poets; Ancient and Modern
Tragedy; Aristophanes; The Comic Fragments; Herondas;
The Idyllists [poets who wrote idylls: Theocritus, Bion,
Moschus]; The [Greek]Anthology; Hero and Leander; The
Genius of Greek Art; Conclusion. Of course, all of
these chapters must be read -- but the chapter which
glows with light and poetry is "The Genius of Greek
Art."
Unfortunately, the considerate hosts for these reviews
only offer the option of a maximum of 20 words which
can be quoted. The temptation with Symonds' wonderful
insights expressed in poetic prose, is to quote, and
quote, and quote. But as Symonds says of the Greeks:
"License was reckoned barbarous.... Hellenes, born to
be free men, took pride in temperance." He goes on to
say that their "sophrosyne" or self-restraint was
co-extensive as a protective virtue with their "to
kalon" (ideal of form) -- and this was the essence of
their Greek-ness, the quality beloved by Phoebus [Apollo]
in whom there was no dark place or any flaw. Interestingly,
Symonds makes the case that we cannot perfectly understand
the Greek mindset completely, even if we look at similar
scenery (in Greece today) in similar light -- for they
were looking at it with Greek eyes and Greek minds. And
they lived with a different sense of themselves and of
the world -- not burdened by our cultural baggage
from doctrinaire prohibitions and moralistic damnings.
One of the excellent additonal features of this volume
is that the excerpts from the works which Symonds cites
in Greek are then translated, either in the text itself
or in footnotes. One of the most entrancing sections of
"The Genius of Greek Art" is that in which Symonds talks
of the olive tree -- Athene's gift to Hellas -- and he
describes its beauty against the landscape, in the light,
and against the color of the sea and sky. Then he relates
the qualities of that tree and its definition to the
Greek artistic values.
As he says, the Genius of the Greeks appears before
us like a young man newly come from the wrestling ground,
anointed, chapleted, and very calm...
* * * * * * * * *

Remember President Ford going on television and bravely rolling up his sleeve to get his vaccination? We wonder what inducements prompted Ford and Congress to let themselves be talked into financing the vaccine and paying the ensuing damage costs. Death and disasters were reported, many were hushed up by the vaccine promoters. Is history repeating itself? Everyone whould be adding this to their bookshelves.