In 2011 the National Army Museum conducted a poll to decide who merited the title of 'Britain's Greatest General'. In the end two men shared the honour. One, predictably, was the Duke of Wellington. The other was Bill Slim. Had he been alive, Slim would have been surprised, for he was the most modest of men - a rare quality among generals. Of all the plaudits heaped on him during his life, the one he valued most was the epithet by which he was affectionately known to the troops: 'Uncle Bill'.
Bill' Slim was one of the greatest British generals of World War II. In a career that stretched from 1914 until 1958, Bill Slim's greatest triumphs came in India and Burma in the long war against the Japanese. Thrust into a desperate situation, he orchestrated the longest retreat in British Army history in the withdrawal from Burma. He then turned on the Japanese in India, shattered their army, and pursued them to destruction. Apart from his great military victories, Slim also left a legacy of training and morale building that endures in the British Army to this day. This book examines both Bill Slim's military career and his place in military history by examining some of his greatest battles and the strategy and tactics that set him apart from his contemporaries.
A personal account of military field command during the Second World War as told by Sir William Slim, who led the British forces in Burma. In Mar. 1942 he took command of the Burma Corps and then led the British 14th Army, formed in 1943. They were British, Australians, Canadians, South Africans, Burmese, Chinese, and African soldiers, but mainly drawn from the volunteer Indian Army. For three years Slim's soldiers tied down tens of thousands of Japanese troops in Burma which keep them from fighting in the Pacific. Slim relates the long retreat through Burma and the final hard-fought victory over the Japanese forces, capturing the harsh realities of war. This narrative was first published during his appointment as the 13th Governor General of Australia, granted by the, then new, Queen Elizabeth II, in May, 1953.
Like most members of the professional military freemasonry, Slim came to admire "all the soldiers of different races who have fought with me and most of those who have fought against me." Among the most likable of his enemies were the Wazirs of India's Northwest Frontier. In 1920, Slim took part in a retaliatory raid on an obscure village. It was an unusually easy victory over the canny Wazirs, whom the British took by surprise and escaped from with scant loss. Afterwards, in the casual frontier way, the British sent a message to the Wazirs, expressing surprise at the enemy's unusually poor shooting. The Wazirs replied in courtly fashion that their rifles were Short Magazine Lee-Enfields captured in previous fights with the British and that they had failed to sight the guns to accord with a new stock of ammunition. Now, having calculated the adjustment, they would be delighted to demonstrate their bull's-eye accuracy any time the British wanted. "One cannot help feeling," Slim says, "that the fellows who wrote that ought to be on our side." Slim genuinely enjoyed his virtually blood-free skirmishes with such foes as the Turks, the Wazirs and the Italians in 1940 Ethiopia.
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
There are literary reminiscences that reek of self-congratulation over the authors’ proximity to famous movers and shakers. Andy Bernstein’s California Slim aspires to far more than that—and achieves it. Andy was there, at the onset of the post-’50s revolution that, as a beat poet once put it, roared as it ripped the threadbare fabric of an age. Andy was no distant, casual observer during the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s; he was at the heart of the maelstrom, and writes about it with candor, humor, and originality. The story begins, for God’s sake, with Andy and his then unknown banjo teacher, a young Jerry Garcia, fingerpicking in a back room at Dana Morgan’s Music Studio in Palo Alto in 1962. A skinny six-foot-seven-inch Jewish kid (later known as “California Slim”), Andy divided his time between the usual adolescent interests and music, for which he would go on to provide a capital M by promoting and staging concerts throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. His Palo Alto nightclub, Homer’s Warehouse, across the street from the Stanford University campus, brought revolutionary musicians (among them, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee) to young sensibilities hungry for new driving rhythms and thought-provoking lyrics. The early chapters of this book set the stage for Andy’s eventual hooking-up with Willie Nelson and his Family—which felt, Andy said, “like reading a really good book that I couldn’t put down.” That feeling led directly, if gradually, to California Slim. And you, dear reader, won’t be able to put it down, either. —Tony Compagno
Bill' Slim was one of the greatest British generals of World War II. In a career that stretched from 1914 until 1958, Bill Slim's greatest triumphs came in India and Burma in the long war against the Japanese. Thrust into a desperate situation, he orchestrated the longest retreat in British Army history in the withdrawal from Burma. He then turned on the Japanese in India, shattered their army, and pursued them to destruction. Apart from his great military victories, Slim also left a legacy of training and morale building that endures in the British Army to this day. This book examines both Bill Slim's military career and his place in military history by examining some of his greatest battles and the strategy and tactics that set him apart from his contemporaries.
'Elegantly written and beautifully produced' TLS How 'Uncle Bill' won the war in Burma Defeated and demoralised, British units in the Far East had virtually been ejected from Burma when, in 1943, General W. J. Slim organised, trained and then deployed his famous 'forgotten' 14th Army to devastating effect, defeating the Japanese twice and liberating Burma in the process. One of the most innovative soldiers of his generation, Slim's 'smart' style of soldiering was startling in its modernity - and with it he achieved something no one believed possible. An intelligent, compassionate commander, the unconventional Slim was also a heroic figure to the men he commanded - known affectionately to the ranks as 'Uncle Bill'. This biography tells the fascinating story of how he brought victory out of defeat; Lyman now gives him his rightful place, alongside Patton and Guderian, in the pantheon of eminent and unorthodox Second World War commanders.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RUSI DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY 2022 'This is a superb book.' - James Holland In 1941 and 1942 the British and Indian Armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its newly conquered territories throughout Asia. But change was coming. New commanders were appointed, significant training together with restructuring took place, and new tactics were developed. A War of Empires by acclaimed historian Robert Lyman expertly records these coordinated efforts and describes how a new volunteer Indian Army, rising from the ashes of defeat, would ferociously fight to turn the tide of war. But victory did not come immediately. It wasn't until March 1944, when the Japanese staged their famed 'March on Delhi', that the years of rebuilding paid off and, after bitter fighting, the Japanese were finally defeated at Kohima and Imphal. This was followed by a series of extraordinary victories culminating in Mandalay in May 1945 and the collapse of all Japanese forces in Burma. Until now, the Indian Army's contribution has been consistently forgotten and ignored by many Western historians but Robert Lyman proves how vital this hard-fought campaign was in securing Allied victory in the east. Detailing the defeat of Japanese militarism, he recounts how the map of the region was ultimately redrawn, guaranteeing the rise of an independent India free from the shackles of empire.
Sharks are not evil. But they're single-minded and very, very hungry. On land, they take the form of bosses, businesspeople, colleagues, family, and sociopathic neighbors. In the world of former governor of New Mexico and US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, they have taken the form of the most powerful people in the world. He's engaged in high-stakes, face-to-face negotiations with Castro, Saddam, the Taliban, two generations of North Korean leadership, and many more of the world's most infamous dictators—and done it so well he was known as the "Undersecretary of Thugs" while with the Clinton administration. Now the 5-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee tells these stories—from Washington, DC, to the Middle East to Pyongyang—in all their intense and sometimes absurd glory. How to Sweet-Talk a Shark is a rare, candid, and entertaining glimpse into an insider's world of high-stakes negotiation—showing Richardson's successes and failures in some of the world's least friendly places. Meanwhile, readers get frank lessons in the art of negotiation: how to prepare, how to size up your opponent, how to understand the nature of power in a standoff, how to give up only what is necessary while getting what you want, and many other strategies Richardson has mastered through at-the-table experience—and from working with other master negotiators like Presidents Obama and Clinton, and Nelson Mandela. These are takeaways that anyone can use to negotiate with the power brokers, dealmakers, and, yes, the hungry sharks in their own lives.
