Edward G. Lengel

"Washington's gift of courage coincided with remarkable luck... No better example exists of the old maxim that to be good, a commander only has to be better than his opponent."

Even that may be overstating Washington's military abilities: he fought Howe, Clinton and Cornwallis to something less than a stalemate in New Jersey, Howe having complacently both failed to round up the Americans on Manhattan and left Burgoyne to his fate in upstate New York instead of combining their forces to cut the US in two. He kept the Continental Army in being while seeking to proactively attack, and through harsh winter camps, long enough for French supplies, troops and ships to come through. With a little luck for de Grasse's fleet off the Chesapeake, that was enough to win the victory at Yorktown which ruined Parliament's confidence in the war. Washington's early experiences of war only really schooled him in what not to do, he learnt on the job and from books instead of in a smoothly functional army, and Trenton was his own success in spite of the failure of several elements of his plans. His reputation survived attack while others' heads rolled, not entirely fairly, but in the end his best was just about good enough.… (més)

This discourse about the Manhattan Project and how the United States came to develop nuclear weapons and use them to systematically terrorize the Japanese people during WWII is certainly not a light read. Lengel presents the history of the Project more in traditional non-fiction than he does lecture-format, so it's easy to be drawn in by the controversy and ultimate tragedy of the situation. He starts early - speaking first of those who discovered different pieces of the puzzle and turning finally to the team who carried out the work.

One thing I appreciated about this course was how well the human and scientific elements tied together. It's incredibly easy to see war as either all good or all bad and it was interesting to know that many scientists on the team deeply regretted their involvement in the pain and suffering that evolved from the development of nuclear weapons. Of course, there were many others that insist it was the right thing to do to end the war. I don't feel well equipped to argue the truth of the other side, but I do think that the fallout of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is horrifying. :/

An interesting read, especially for people like me who don't know much about the Project or how things escalated the way they did.… (més)