I picked up this entire series at a used book sale, so there'll be a lot of these reviews. Setting the Stage covers everything from the dawn of history to the end of WW2, and does a great job putting the Vietnam War in the context of Vietnam's centuries-long struggle against foreign domination, both Chinese and French, and the ageless conflicts of the rural peasant over land and taxes. The evils of French colonialism are explored in detail; the topheavy and ineffective French colonial bureaucracy extracted every bit of wealth from the land, while a new class of Vietnamese interpreters and cultural agents made themselves wealthy through corrupt business dealings. However, the rise of the Nationalist and Communist movements in the 1930s only gets a few chapters, along with the biographies of major figures. Perhaps the next book has more detail.

I've been calling myself a futurist for the past five years, and for five years, I've been lying. But no longer, because I've read this book, which is every bit as a thought-provoking as Science Fiction for Prototyping proved disappointing. Peter Schwartz is one of the founders of the Global Business Network consulting firm, and honed his skills designing scenarios for Shell Oil in the 1980s. In The Art of the Long View, he makes a strong case for the utility of scenario planning, explains how to develop a proper futurist mindset, and how to create your own scenarios.

Scenario planning is not predicting the future. Rather, it is about challenging the official future, and the assumptions that underlie it. Scenarios force you to examine your unspoken beliefs and values, the evidence supporting them, and how you might react in the future. An organization that includes scenario planning in its process is better able to react to rapidly changing conditions, and less likely to be rendered slowly obsolete through technological change.

Scenario planning is inherently interdisciplinary. A scenario plan has to include technological, economic, cultural, and political factors, as well as individual psychology. Broad areas of knowledge rather than deep and narrow research is better suited at picking up on trends. The ideas and forces that most powerfully influence the future originate on the margins of society, among the dispossessed, the utopian, or the just plain weird. Finally, Schwartz includes a detailed, 8 stage guide to using scenarios in your own organization, with a good balance of theories and examples. Perhaps the ultimate success of scenario planning is that it creates a shared language to talk about the future.

Scenario planning might not be about predicting the future, but a futurist who makes no predictions isn't very useful. The book was published in 1991, and some parts feel oddly anachronistic, like the Japanophilia, the groping towards a 'digital global teenager', and the absence of the War on Terror. On the other hand, he offers three scenarios for the world in 2005: New Empires focused on regional militarism, Market World with multicultural entrepreneurialism, and Change Without Progress, where the wealthy hollow out states, and fear of losing what little remains prevents successful action. Change Without Progress is strikingly similar to the world today, with our 1%ers and 99%ers, paralyzed multinational bodies, and collapsing infrastructure.

Scenario planning is not a strict methodology that automatically produces valid results, it's an attitude towards the future that is based on broad understandings of historical forces and skepticism about the status quo. The results will vary on the quality of the questions you can ask, the data available, and the conversation you foster. But as far as crystal balls go, scenario planning is one of the best.

Ah, 1968: or the Year that Everything went from SNAFU to FUBAR.

'68 was undoubtably a pivotal year in the war. The Tet offensive shattered the illusion that America was winning, but also decimated the National Liberation Front. From now on, North Vietnamese forces would do much of the fighting in the South. The Anti-war movement went mainstream, the consequences of which still echo in today's politics. LBJ decided not to run for reelection, Martin Lurther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, the Chicago Democratic Convention saw a 'police riot', and Richard Nixon was elected. The Paris Peace Talks began, and spent months arguing about the shape of the table.

But for all the pivotal quality of the events of 1968, this book doesn't do an amazing job explaining what changed after Tet. This series has been at its best with the little details and anecdotes that manage to bring the war alive, and unlike the rest of the series, 1968 is rather thin on the details, preferring broad generalities.

An interesting book, but a weak point in the series, and there are almost certainly better works on the Tet offensive and the American protest movement.

Rain of Fire covers that latter half of the air war in Vietnam: secret raids into Cambodia and Laos, along with Nixon's bombing of North Vietnam. Like the series, this book continues a combination of broad historical overview and personal vignettes that brings the war to life. Did you know that air traffic controllers in Vietnam handled a number of airplanes equivalent to what Chicago O'Hare sees in a year every day? Unlike some of the other books, this one comes right out and passes political judgement. Bombing in Laos and Cambodia was ineffective in blocking or even slowing the flow of supplies down the Ho Chi Minh trail. On the other hand, according to the book, the Linebacker raids did significantly damage North Vietnam, leading to concessions at the negotiating table. After less than a week of B-52 strikes, the North Vietnamese SAM defenses were essentially depleted. Even if their will to fight remained strong, and it did, the entire country was now vulnerable to American air power.

What this book merely hints at, and what I wish it had explored more, was the complex political situation surrounding air power in Vietnam. I don't think anybody was happy with the rules of engagement as they were developed; not the military, not Congressional hawks, not domestic doves, not the administration, the Soviets, or the North Vietnamese. The rules of engagement were a complex compromise between people who wanted to nuke Vietnam back to the stone age and people who wanted to get out of the war, and somehow they failed to satisfy any constituency. There's an important lesson here about political compromise and strategy, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

This book is a collection of essays that together form a commentary on Osinga's Science, Strategy, and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd. Osinga's book is by far the better one, but if you're pressed for time and money, or just need an introduction to Boydian theory, well, this isn't a bad book per se, just not a very necessary one.

Definitely mixed. The best parts of the book are about Sasser growing up in Oaklahoma, and his bureaucratic struggles against the insanity of the 8th Infantry Division during Desert Storm. The actual combat, in Vietnam and Central America, is rather thin and lack-luster by comparison. But hey, if you're looking for a few hundred pages of easy macho bluster, this ain't a bad book.

Some times it seems like everybody who went to Vietnam wrote a book about it; Merritt's book deserves our attention.

His memoir of a tour of duty as an engineer with the 25th Infantry Division in 1968 is brilliantly realized. The book is a series of vignettes punctuated by rock lyrics and headlines, like the memories of a generation blown apart by hate and lust and dope and killing. Merritt writes without bravado or the false perspective of history, speaking in the authentic voice of the grunts as he describes the insanity and the strange beauty of the war.

My copy has a blurb from Tim O'Brien ("The Things They Carried", "Going After Cacciato") on the back, but if you want my opinion, Merritt is the best of them.

Writing about the classified and the denied is always hard. Plaster does his best to produce a systemic account of SOG, the elite crossboarder recon force in the Vietnam War, but at the end of the day, he is a soldier, not a historian. When this book sticks to what Plaster knows, his own war stories and those of his friends, it is very good. When it moves to a different subject, the politics of the war or the broader military impact of SOG, it loses touch.

SOG was composed of courageous men and skilled fighters, and we should be honored that Plaster and his comrades chose to share their stories with us. While this is a good secondary source for the Vietnam War buff, it's not quite literary or insightful enough to recommend to a broader audience.

The Anabasis is one of the Classics, a personal account of a 3000 mile march through Asia Minor by a Greek mercenary company after the king that they're supporting gets killed in battle. Xenophon was a wealthy Athenian and one of the commanders.

This is inherently a fascinating story of personal bravery, endurance, and diplomacy, full of juicy nuggets about how the ancient Greek fought and lived. The translation, however, is not to my liking. While accurate (as far as I can tell), it tends to blur everything into the same tone. A march of 15 leagues by three stages is described just as a battle over a pass or a conference of captains that might end with Xenophon being stoned to death for treason. I can't tell how much of that is in the original and how much is a translator's artifact, but this is not the most accessible book.

TThis is a old school space romance in the finest sense of that meaning. The posthuman Alphas are effectively immortal and indestructible, their few thousands share an entire virgin replica of Earth that the old guard of brilliant scientists are just putting the finishing touches on. But not all is aright; the Prince is away on an odyssey, his old advisers have sunk into isolation and petty grievances, the young are restless and confused, the biosphere is breaking down, the sun collapsing, and the next-generation starship Magellan refuses to turn on.

The writing is lyrical, and while the plot sags a little in the middle, I finished the book in a single sitting. Atkinson sketches a big question, "when everything is possible, what is worthwhile?" without answering it, but for all their power, the Alphans are recognizably people, sunk in nostalgia and their personality flaws. And by romantic, I mean that this is a book that takes the power of personality seriously. Skilled hackers can reprogram machine code in minutes, power comes from sheer genius, villains get their just desserts, and love triumphs over all (especially if it's between a perfect princess and a deserving commoner). This is not a book for those who prefer their SF with grit and moral ambiguity, but it delivers more than its share of joy.

(And for disclosure purposes, I met Bill, and he's a great guy, so take that for what you will.)