The Gathering Storm
Winston Churchill was not only a statesman and leader of historic proportions, he also possessed substantial literary talents. These two factors combine to make The Gathering Storma unique work. The first volume of Churchill's memoirs, this selection is broken into two parts. The first, From War to War,consists of Churchill's critical observations on the settlement of World War I and its place in the causes of the Second World War. The second volume contains letters and memoranda from the British government--of which Churchill was part--as the country plunged unprepared into war. This stands as the best of history: written as it was made, by the man who made it.
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4recommend
12mentions
8people
2007–2023years
42% recommend58% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Art Of War: I LOVE this book, but again, not relevant on a day to day basis for most entrepreneurs.
Eh, that depends on your ability to generalize some of its lessons to the world you live in, which I'm sure it beyond a lot of people at the usual stages in their lives when they're starting up companies, especially giving the distractions of that process. But as the author emphasizes in his his very first point, your core team of people is the single most critical thing, and paraphrasing Paul Graham in one of his essays (which the author generally and perhaps specifically recommends), if you use average "stuff", you're likely to get an average result, and the average result for a startup is FAILURE!
Plenty of interpersonal things can be directly illuminated by The Art of War, lots of that involves threats subtle or more direct, the lesson about "death ground" is vital, etc. But you might as well add the roughly equally short The Prince by Machiavelli and no doubt other books, at least these two are short (and make sure you get a good translation of The Art of War, I wouldn't trust any that weren't done by a military officer, and therefore I recommend Samuel B. Griffiths' version: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195014766/).
More generally, how to you gain the wisdom to comprehend and put into place the lessons the author is teaching, especially if you're a callow youth? Reading (and rereading) "the classics" has long been a method for that, and one that works for me.
Emphasis on the re-reading, never stop learning, e.g. I'm on perhaps my 3rd pass of Churchill's The Gathering Storm, about the post-WWI period, it ends with him being appointed Prime Minister as the Nazi blitzkrieg falls upon the Low countries and France. First pass was in the '80s, 2nd I can't remember, and now I'm re-reading it about to turn 56 and learning even more from it, having, for example, learned a lot more about history, government and war all though the years.
- Probably too late for the very hard mid-December deadline for those losing their insurance, maybe too late for getting enough young healthy people enrolled before adverse selection forces insane 2015 premium filings from insurance companies, which are due by the end of March.
They also have only 4 well functioning states' systems to chose from as I understand it.
The centralized subsidy calculation/verification/etc. process, which the Federal system does for all the exchanges is another issue, although I've only heard that some time ago is was known to produce incorrect results under testing.
Also would require the Federal government to admit a much bigger screwup than they've been willing to so far, in a process entirely driven by politics (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/challenges-have-dogge...) until the last week of last month when CMS was fired and the fix-it czar was appointed.
If you've been in this game long enough you've seen projects and companies destroyed by a failure to take decisive action when it could have made a difference (or read, for example, Churchill's The Gathering Storm, or any shorter version of how WWII could have been so easily averted by preventing German rearmament). The odds are pretty high this is going to be another example of that.
- Unfortunately not; the most recent book I read on the period was Gathering Storm, by W. S. Churchill (not the most unbiased observer, but very engaging reading).
- I've been waiting years for someone to ask this question :)
Wishlited this last night on amazon: Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson
Have read these and enjoyed these:
General Warfare theory: History of Warfare by Keegan
Intel: Intelligence and War by Keegan
Counterinsurgency: "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll. For a really enjoyable experience read "The Great Game" by Hopkirk first.
The Civil War deserves it's own category. Watch the PBS dvds, actually buy them. If you're hungry for more dig into "The Civil War" by Shelby Foote is hefty but it's satisfying.
1776 is a classic.
"Blind mans bluff" is a great book about submarine warfare.
For more current stuff Robert Kagan is probably the most informed pundit on war and military strategy.
WW-II "The Last Lion" books 1 and 2 are about Churchill and they involve lots of military strategy. You should also check out "The gathering storm + the other six books Churchill wrote on WWII.
Man I could go on forever. I have "Panzer General" and "Caesar's Conquest of Gaul" on my nightstand...
Enjoy...
PS: Once you're well versed you'll hear people referring to Clauswitz a lot. When you're sick of hearing his name and you want more than the wikipedia entry go read "On War." Art of War goes w/o saying as well...
- Read "The Gathering Storm" for an argument to topple Saddam made before we went in (but post 9-11) There is a long list of reasons which I won't go into here. 9-11 was the tipping point in terms of domestic politics, no doubt. It also seems to be the tipping point in terms of strategic policy.
There's an interesting discussion about why democratic nations go to war. If there is a mixed number of reasons and a volunteer army, which are the actual reasons we fight? I just read read a blog entry by an Army 1st Lt. killed last year who made the argument that he was joining up to stop oppression. To do something and make a difference. I also hear a lot of folks talk about leaders with supposedly bad intentions who "got us into this." So when a president and congress vote on something, and people volunteer to do it, is it possible to assign any one reason to why it's being done?
Perhaps I'm splitting hairs. Probably get downmodded again for this comment. Have at it, then.
- Oh that's interesting, the last time I checked GPT-4 I got a much worse result.
Yes that answer looks correct to me though it leaves off some later uses in the book series (which is what makes this a slightly tricky question to answer). But in terms of first use it nails it.
Did you add the "Mention the events leading up to it, the book number and name, and the chapter title if one exists." part to the prompt?
I'm wondering if that produces noticeably better results.
Edit:
For reference this is the response I get from Bard:
In A Crown of Swords (Chapter 13) Elayne and Nynaeve first learn about the Bowl of the Winds and begin their search for it.
The Bowl of the Winds is then used in the Wheel of Time series in the following books:
The Path of Daggers (Chapters 5, 24, and 35) - Nynaeve, Talaan, Aviendha, Elayne, Metarra, Garenia, Rainyn, Kirstian, Reanne, Tebreille, Naime, Rysael use the Bowl of the Winds.
Winter's Heart (Chapters 24 and 37) - The Bowl of the Winds is used to stop a massive storm that is threatening to destroy the city of Ebou Dar.
The Gathering Storm (Chapter 34) - The Bowl of the Winds is used to create a powerful windstorm that helps to defeat the Seanchan army at the Battle of Maradon.
A Memory of Light (Chapters 19 and 35) - The Bowl of the Winds is used to fight the weather-controlling abilities of the Dark One's forces during the Last Battle.
