Library Book Reviews

COMMAND by Lawrence Freedman

Command in war is about forging effective strategies and implementing them, making sure that orders are appropriate, wellcommunicated, and then obeyed. But it is also an intensely political process. This is largely because how wars are fought depends to a large extent on how their aims are set. It is also because commanders in one realm must possess the ability to work with other command structures, including those of other branches of the armed forces and allies. In Command, Lawrence Freedman explores the importance of political as well as operational considerations in command with a series of eleven vivid case studies, all taken from the period after 1945.

Since the late 1990s our age has been largely defined by war, beginning with Chechnya and the former Yugoslavia and intensifying with 9/11 and the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The Ukraine war has forced the age-old question – whose finger is really on the trigger? Is it the politicians or the people in uniform in charge?

Freedman summons an extraordinary range of post-1945 commanders from Mike Jackson in Kosovo, Stormin’ Norman Schwartzkopf in Iraq, David Patraeus in Baghdad and Stan McChrystal in Kabul and finds that some basic principals apply – democracies really do fight wars more effectively, and dictators really do make rotten strategists.

Command is the history of our time, told through war. It’s an impressive feat of storytelling, as well as an essential account of how the modern world wars have been fought and how command, in the future, will look in a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on technologies like artificial intelligence.

HORSE by Geraldine Brooks

Don’t let the title fool you; Geraldine Brooks’s Horse is not Black Beauty for grownups. Yes, the title character is one of history’s most famous equine celebrities, a foal named Lexington, who later became revered as the fastest horse in the world. But first and foremost, Horse is a thrilling story about humanity in all its ugliness and beauty.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Brooks started out with a story about a racehorse but, as she began to research the history of thoroughbred racing in America, she realised that this novel could not merely be about a racehorse, it would also need to be about race.

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history. Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner becomes obsessed with a nineteenthcentury equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a NigerianAmerican art historian, find themselves connected through their shared interest in the horse - one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

It is the voices of the different characters that make the novel as delightful to read as it is thought provoking and with her rigorous historical research and polished storytelling, this novel is a page-turner.

WALKING WITH NOMADS by Alice Morrison

Scottish explorer and TV presenter Alice Morrison takes the reader on three remarkable and inspirational journeys across Morocco, from the Sahara to the Atlas mountains, accompanied only by a trio of Muslim men and their camels, in a narrative that is part breathless adventure and part urgent warning about the ravages of climate change.

During her journey along the Draa river, she encountered dinosaur footprints and discovered a lost city, as well as what looked like a map of an ancient spaceship, all the while trying to avoid landmines, quicksand and the deadly horned viper.

Meeting other nomads as they travel, Alice also gets to hear a side of their lives few ever access, as the women would never be allowed to speak to men from outside their community. They explain the challenges of giving birth and raising children in the desert wilderness.

As the journey continues, Alice learns to enjoy goat’s trachea sausages, gets a saliva shower from Hamish the camel as he blows out his sex bubble, and enjoys campfire conversations with her fellow travellers.

Morrison’s lush descriptions of her dramatic surroundings and her quirky observations of nomadic life, transports the reader to another timeless world of desert dunes, and camel trains, but few places better illustrate the reality of climate change and the encroachment of the desert.

Morrison brings to life the challenges faced by the tribes of the desert that are being inflamed by climate change and reveals how the ancient world of the nomad is under threat as never before. Theirs boils down to a life of basic survival – if there will be any water left to boil.

Both an other-worldly adventure through an ancient landscape Walking with Nomads is also a dire warning of the growing challenges faced by our planet.