Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha,” by Jeff Matthews

“Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha,” by Jeff Matthews, (New York: McGraw Hill; 2009), 298 pages.

Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha is hedge fund manager Jeff Matthews’s account of his trip to the 2007 and 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. The book is an expansion and revision of Matthews’s reports previous made on his blog, “Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up.” Matthews’s book expands on more than just the Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting. He also writes about his difficulty in getting to Omaha, his impressions of the city, events in Omaha secondary to Annual General Meeting, the comparatively unexciting procedural matters of the Annual General Meeting, and what everyone was in Omaha for, the famous five hour question and answer session presided over by Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Warren Buffett, and his friend and business partner Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. Much of Matthews’s book is Matthews provides a detailed reconstruction of the question and answer session, where Buffett and Munger answer questions from shareholders, unscripted, and without assistance from lawyers, public relations people, or other types of people you normally see at annual general meeting who seem to have the job of filtering out uncomfortable or embarrassing questions for management. Matthews not only reconstructs the question and answer sessions, but adds considerable background, analysis and commentary based on his extensive knowledge of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett and Munger, and the various Berkshire Hathaway businesses that he has come to know and study during his three decades as a professional investor. The every-curious Matthews also includes many of his own findings and observations of Berkshire Hathaway gained during conversations with managers, discussions with shareholders, and a visit to one of Berkshire Hathaway’s famous subsidiaries, the Nebraska Furniture Mart. Matthews also includes some difficult and uncomfortable questions that came to him during his 2 visits to Omaha, questions about the entire “Woodstock for Capitalists” experience (a euphemism coined for the Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting) such as the divergence between Buffett’s speeches and sayings and his actions, and the performance of various business units within Berkshire Hathaway and what this says about Buffett’s way of doing business.

Matthews’s great strength in Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha, and what sets it apart from nearly all other books is that he hasn’t bought into the cult of personality that surrounds Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett and Charles Munger. Many books on Buffett tell the story of Buffett’s success (i.e. how to invest like Buffett, how Buffett made his fortune), but few, if any, take a rational and clear eyed view at the subject. Don’t be mistaken in thinking that Matthews’s book is an attack on Buffett: it isn’t. Matthews is full of professional praise for Buffett’s success in achieving unparalleled investment returns, the unique way in which he and Munger handle annual general meetings, and their willingness to identify irrational and foolish conduct in the business community. Nonetheless, Matthews raises some questions of his own that other shareholders failed to ask (in fact, Matthews is somewhat curious that some shareholders ask Buffett and Munger questions unrelated to the performance of the Berkshire Hathaway Businesses (such as “what should I do with my life”). Matthews’s questions include the following.

• Has Buffett’s tight-fisted or thriftiness impeded the growth of the businesses he owns? How come Nebraska Furniture Mart, a company Buffett purchased about the same time that a one-store Minnesota company changed its name to Best Buy, and since then, Best Buy has grown to 1000 stores with $40 billion in sales whereas Nebraska Furniture Mart has 3 stores and $1 billion in sales?

• Buffett, who is critical of board executive compensation committees, has been on many boards, but no executive compensation committees. Why hasn’t he asked? What company would risk the publicity of refusing to have Buffett on their executive compensation committee?

• How has Buffett managed to escape any collateral damage from scandals that occurred on his watch (i.e. the “gallon pushing” accounting anomalies while serving on the board at Coca Cola in the 1990’s, and the criminal prosecution of managers he praised at Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary General Re?

• How does Buffett, the very rational conservative investor, explain his well-known social progressiveness/liberalness to his predominantly lily-white shareholder audience of ageing baby-boomers?

• Will Berkshire Hathaway survive in its current form when Buffett passes away?

• Is Buffett a hypocrite by outwardly praising meritocracies, and opposing inherited dynastic wealth, yet when he buys family businesses he retains family business managers? Did Nebraska Furniture Mart fail to become a national business because it is family run?

• How can Buffett call derivative financial instruments “financial weapons of mass destruction,” yet he has purchased numerous derivative contracts and claims he will make money on every contract?

• Buffett likes businesses that aren’t capital intensive, so why has he recently purchased capital-intensive companies such as power utilities and railroads?

Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha is an essential book for the student of Buffett and any person interested in the unique company that is Berkshire Hathaway. Matthews is both full of praise for Buffet and Berkshire, yet does not shy away from raising some difficult and legitimate questions that while acknowledge Buffett as an exceptional or even unique investor, recognize that he too is prone to human foibles, frailty and error. Few books on this subject have done this, and for this reason alone is a reason to buy this book.

West of the West, by Mark Arax

West of the West, by Mark Arax, (New York: Public Affairs Books; 2009), 347 pages.

West of the West is a collection of essays written by former Los Angeles Times journalist Mark Arax about the lives of some of the Golden State’s least known residents. Arax doesn’t write about the lives of the glamorous or the famous, but the lives of some of the forgotten or overlooked peoples of the vast population patchwork that is California. Arax combines journalism, essay, and memoir to capture the lives of Asian immigrants seeking to make a better life for their families in the United States, and in particular, one family in Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley. He also writes on the varied lives of people in California: the life of the United States’s largest pomegranite grower; the lives of hippies (both old and young) using their entrepreneurial skills in the marijuana capital of the United States; a somewhat disturbing F.B.I. investigation and prosecution of a terrorist suspect in Northern California; and, among other stories, the deeply personal epilogue to the murder of his father in California’s Central Valley more than 30 years ago.

This book is the first book in some time that I’ve failed to finish. The stories are well written, and at times tend to emphasise the bleak, troubling and disturbing sides of life. This may be the author’s intention, to alert the reader that like anywhere, life in the Golden State is not all glamor and glitz, or peaches and cream. My choice not to finish this book is not a reflection of Arax’s skills as a writer and the quality of this book. Rather, its a reflection on me and the fact that at the moment, I’d rather read something a bit lighter. Plus, I have a large pile of other books to read, and I have to get this one back to the library to avoid the overdue charges.

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, (New York: Little, Brown and Company; 2008), 309 pages.

Outliers is an explanation of why statistically different or statistically significant observations and results occur, in particular, super or exceptional successes. Gladwell identified some common features of successful people:

• They have about 10,000 hours of practice or experience in their chosen field that raised their skills so that they would be universally recognized as being at the top of their field.

• The successful are not the brightest or most gifted, but are those who were given opportunities, took them, and practiced (and practiced, and practice some more).

• The successful were placed in close proximity to, or in, an environment conducive to success.

Gladwell illustrates his points through case studies. Soccer and Canadian ice hockey players have a better chance at becoming all-stars if they are born in January. The Beatle’s success was, in part, due to their time working in Hamburg where they played music for at least 10 hours per day. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, said his success had a lot to do with being born in the 1950’s and having almost unlimited free after-hours to a university’s programmable computer, and later the gift of a computer terminal while in junior high school. Attorney Joe Flom was born at a time when people from his background were excluded by the establishment law firms from practicing commercial law. He practiced the kind of law that establishment firms tended to avoid and after 20 years dominated his field of takeover law. Conversely, Korean Air turned around its poor safety record (i.e. a polite way of saying too many crashes) by giving its pilots the opportunity to escape its cultural legacy which included subservience and deference.

This book’s strength is the case studies on what it takes to be a success. These are what make the book worth reading. None of Gladwell’s work is new or earth-shattering. While at times long winded (I found myself skimming paragraphs, and later sections and chapters), Outliers is, overall, an entertaining selection of case studies. Look at other books if you are seeking specific help on how to change your life: this book does not provide specific or personal advice. It provides great case studies on success and the common features that contribute to attaining success: commitment, opportunity, and proximity to an environment conducive to success. If we remember these things, it’s probably worth laboring through the 309 pages.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell, (New York: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown & Company;  2000),  301 pages.

Gladwell best summarizes this book in the introduction.

"The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is very simple. It is that the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.”

Gladwell uses examples to convince us of the validity of his theory. Key to his argument is his 3-part explanation of how viruses or epidemics spread: the Law of the Few; the Stickiness Factor; and the Power of Context. The Law of the Few is that epidemics/viruses are driven by a handful of exceptional people who find about the “new thing/trend” and through energy, enthusiasm, and personality spread the word. They are like apostles or missionaries who have heard The Good News and enthusiastically win converts.

The Stickiness Factor is what makes a message memorable – think a slogan, jingle or image. The Power of Context says that people are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem. These 3 laws apparently explain how various  changes occurred: how Hush Puppies became cool, and the fall in New York crime rates.

The Tipping Point presents a fairly convincing argument for Gladwell’s theories. He supports his theories with appropriate facts and does his best to convince his reader. While entertaining, for a while, I wonder whether Gladwell is trying to apply theoretical and scientific methods to things best explained through commonsense. Do we need laws and rules to explain how things spread? Do we need to give pseudo-scientific names to commonsense and ordinary things? This giving complex names to simple things is all pervasive: what used to be called soap is now a “cleaning system,” a simple fence is now called a “fencing system.” Gladwell’s explanation of how things changed is very enjoyable; it’s compulsive reading. But we all know that ideas spread, fashions change and people evangelize others to new ideas using clever marketing techniques. Do we really need a pseudo-scientific theory and explanation for something as commonsensical as that?

No Bull: From the Bush to the Baggy Green, by Andy Bichel

No Bull: From the Bush to the Baggy Green, by Andy Bichel,

(Sydney, Australia: ABC Books; 2009), 246 pages.

No Bull is a light and breezy account of Andy Bichel’s life as a cricket player. The book is a recollection of the author’s rise from school boy player in the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane Australia, through various State and national representative teams. The author recalls his struggles, as well as the help he received from kind souls along the way, and, once he reached the highest levels of the game, the difficulties he faced in staying competitive at that level.

Bichel’s book is an easy-going read, accessible to young and old alike, but, on balance, perhaps unlikely to hold much interest for people not interested in cricket, especially Australian cricket in the 1990’s and 2000’s. The most engaging aspect of Bichel’s book is his demonstration that success can come from persistence. Bichel was regularly disappointed when left out of the starting and touring line-ups of various teams. On the occasions when he was unexpectedly brought into the team due to another player suffering an injury, Bichel often had stand-out and match-winning performances. Bichel was persistent and patient so that when an opportunity came along, he made the most of it. This perhaps is the most compelling aspect of Bichel’s book: persistence, patience and opportunity, when combined, can produce outstanding, spectacular and often career-best results.

Sydney, Cipher and Search: Solving the Last Great Naval Mystery of the Second World War by Captain Peter Hore

Sydney, Cipher and Search: Solving the Last Great Naval Mystery of the Second World War, by Captain Peter Hore, (Naval Institute Press: 2009), 320 pages.

Captain Peter Hore has written, arguably, the definitive book on the “mystery” of the sinking of the Australian cruiser H.M.A.S. Sydney by the German raider Kormoran in November 1941 with the loss of all 645 hands. It has long been acknowledged that the Australian light cruiser H.M.A.S. Sydney was sunk by the German raider Kormoran off the coast of Western Australia. Survivors of the Kormoran (disabled in battle and subsequently scuttled) captured and interred in Australia reported individually to investigators that they engaged H.M.A.S. Sydney at a range of about half a mile, causing great destruction that eventually caused her to sink. The “mystery” referred to in the title is how the Kormoran, a converted freighter with guns and torpedo armaments equivalent to that of a cruiser, could cause the loss of the pride of the Australian navy with the loss of its entire crew. To his credit, Captain Hore presents all of the facts from primary sources, including some that he discovered, to explain what happened. Captain Hore's sources include re-constructed and newly translated (by the author) battle logs written in code in a German-English dictionary by the Kormoran’s captain; Australian, German and British naval archive material; the author's interviews of surviving Kormoran crew members in Germany and Chile; and photographic evidence of the wreck of H.M.A.S. Sydney, located for the first time in 2008.

Captain Hore’s book is neither emotional, nor accusatory; he neither evangelizes his reader to a particular explanation or theory, nor attributes either praise or blame to the crews of H.M.A.S. Sydney nor the Kormoran. Rather, he simply collects evidence from all sources to explain what happened and lets the facts speak for themselves. The facts are that H.M.A.S. Sydney failed to follow established naval wartime procedures for identifying suspicious freighters, and brought herself broadside to the Kormoran at a range of approximately half a mile. When H.M.A.S. Sydney (which was not at battle stations) challenged the Kormoran, the captain of the Kormoran removed her disguise, ran up her German flag and commenced firing on H.M.A.S. Sydney with all of her guns and torpedoes causing catastrophic damage that caused her loss, and the loss of all crew. H.M.A.S. Sydney’s counter fire disabled Kormoran, which her crew subsequently abandoned and scuttled. These facts were found to be consistent with photographs of the wreck of H.M.A.S. Sydney. Captain Hore’s book presents all of the known facts, which leaves this reader with the opinion that the Kormoran should be solemnly recognized as having achieved something quite extra-ordinary: this was a major success for the Kormoran – something never before achieved where a raider (a converted freighter with significant weaponry) sank a cruiser with the loss of all hands. Conversely, for H.M.A.S. Sydney, it was a complete and total disaster. What is not known, nor will ever likely to be known, is why H.M.A.S. Sydney’s captain disregarded established wartime naval procedures and placed his ship and the lives of all of the crew in such a vulnerable position.

Captain Hore has written a fine book that explains all of the facts on the loss of H.M.A.S. Sydney. The book reads like a novel: it is interesting and fast-paced mixing discovery, de-ciphering and code breaking, travel, and first person interviews on multiple continents. The final product is an excellent story accessible to both experienced armchair naval experts interested in relatively obscure naval battles, and civilians who simply enjoy a good story well written. At the same time, this book could rightly be considered the definitive or authoritative book on this subject, which in itself is quite an achievement.

Boomsday: A Novel by Christopher Buckley

Boomsday: A Novel, satirist Christopher Buckley, (New York: Hachette Book Group; 2007), 318 pages.

In Boomsday: A Novel, satirist Christopher Buckley turns his attention to the excesses of the baby boomer generation, and their negligent handling of the looming insolvency of Social Security and Medicare. Buckley’s book imagines an inter-generational public policy war between profligate, entitled, self-indulgent baby boomers and the younger generations that will be stuck with the bill for funding the ponzi schemes known as Social Security and Medicare. The major character in the novel is the aptly named Cassandra Devine, an exceptional student that gained admission to Yale, only to find out after her admission that her father had spent her tuition money on a business start-up, and that she would be forced to pay for college through joining the army. After a brief time in the army, and 10 years in Washington D.C. as a public relations specialist, Cassandra spends her nights as a blogger who campaigns against the excesses of the baby boomers. One night she suggests that baby boomers be given financial incentives to kill themselves by age 75 so as to save their country from the financial burden of caring for them. The idea catches on among the younger voters stuck will the bill for funding baby boomer Social Security and Medicare, and becomes a major public policy issue during a Presidential election.

Buckley’s well written satire again exposes the ridiculousness and comical ways in which Washington D.C. operates. Nonetheless, as entertaining as Buckley’s book is, we should ask ourselves what becomes of the chaos that the main character causes? What does she achieve by proposing such an outrageous policy that becomes the focus of an election campaign? Apart from creating chaos and humorous satire, Buckley seems to say that very little is resolved. Sure, there are interesting and outrageous political debates, and many conflicts and arguments, but in the end, the only thing that has improved is the career prospects of the participants while the issue of the solvency of the major entitlement programs is “kicked down the road.” Most of the characters have better jobs in the end. Perhaps the greatest irony is what happens to Cassandra: in the great tradition of solving political problems, she is appointed to the position of Commissioner for Social Security and thereby made responsible for the running of the system she vociferously opposed. The chief critic is made responsible for administering the system she criticized.

Buckley’s gift is his ability to shine a light on the looming financial calamity facing the U.S.A. in a quick-witted, humorous, and outrageous manner. He’s again written an enjoyable book that mocks American political institutions in a manner that only an insider can, while making “Cassandra-like” warnings of a potential fiscal calamity.

Final Impact by John Birmingham

Final Impact by John Birmingham, (New York: Random House; 2008), 413 pages.

Final Impact by John Birmingham is the third book in the series of three novels in the so-called “axis of time” series. The premise of the series could be summarized in the form of a question: “What do you get when a 2021 military experiment transports an American-led multinational naval armada `back through time to 1942, and relocates the armada to the middle of the U.S. naval task force heading towards Midway Island and the battle of Midway?” John Birmingham answers this question over the course of the three novels.

In Final Impact, the axis and allies make use of their acquired knowledge of the future to prosecute World War II to its conclusion. The impact is both significant and devastating. Each side develops more devastating weapons, such as the jet aircraft and a form of cruise missile, with the intent of using them to defeat their opponents. New military campaigns emerge in this new and alternative history: the Japanese are defeated at Hawaii and in other Pacific naval battles; and, the allies liberate Europe by an invasion started at Calais rather than Normandy. These changes from the history we know, while novel, do not change the result of the war with both Germany and Japan suffering crushing defeats at the hands of the allies; same result, but slightly different means.

Birmingham's clever and innovative series of novels is extremely engaging, fast paced and entertaining for all lovers of fiction, not just war buffs and technology and science fiction geeks. The major entertainment comes from what was once called "culture shock" of each of the peoples, in this case, the shock experienced by people from 2021 having to live and work during the Second World War, and the shock experienced by people from 1942 having to deal with the "more enlightened," "liberated," de-segregated, and “broad-minded” military personnel from the future. To each, the other appears barbaric and crude, but nonetheless hey put these differences aside for the purpose of achieving their goal of winning the war.

Final Impact is a fitting conclusion to the axis of time series. It's a more tightly written book when compared with its predecessors, with a greater emphasis on the tightness of the story with fewer detours down interesting subplots. Its a fine conclusion to the series and will inevitably leave the reader wanting more. One suspects that Birmingham will revive these characters some time in the future because they are simply too good to only be the protagonists in three books. We should all look forward to future installments.

Designated Targets by John Birmingham

Designated Targets by John Birmingham, (New York: Random House; 2005), 429 pages.

Designated Targets by John Birmingham is the second book in the series of three novels in the so-called “axis of time” series. The premise of the series could be summarized in the form of a question: “What do you get when a 2021 military experiment transports an American-led multinational naval armada `back through time to 1942, and relocates the armada to the middle of the U.S. naval task force heading towards Midway Island and the battle of Midway?” John Birmingham answers this question over the course of the three novels. The first novel covers the immediate impact of the emergence of the 2021 naval armada in 1942, and the race by allied and axis powers to apply the knowledge of the future, and “fast track new technologies.”

In this second volume the impact of the emergence of the technology and history from 2021 begins to change the course and prosecution of the war, and affect daily life. And why wouldn’t it: if you were engaged in a war and suddenly came into possession of weapons from the future and the history books from the future, wouldn’t you use these resources to your advantage? Much of this book focuses on this issue.

Armed with knowledge of weapons and technologies of the future, the axis and allies attempt to develop those weapons to ensure victory (in the case of the allies) and change the result (in the case of the axis).The race is then on the develop these new technologies before their time, weapons as varies such as the AK-47 through to the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb. Savvy businessmen indentify sign up as then unknown musicians and actors that will in the future become stars. On the military and tactical level, we see a new history develop. It is new in that knowledge of future and its technologies changes the present. For example, we know from Weapons of Choice that the Battle of Midway die not occur. In Designated Targets, new campaigns emerge, like the Japanese invasion of Australia and later Hawaii, plus the important role of a ship from the future in protecting Great Britain from Axis invasion.

As this alternative history emerges, the reader must surely be asking, how this is all going to work out. Surely, he won’t let the axis nations get the atomic bomb before the allies? Things are now different: events that we know to occur have not occurred in this alternate history, and events in the alternate history only occurred there, not in reality, if you know what I mean. It also must raise in the reader’s mind the logical contradictions in alternative histories and time travel stories. Fortunately, Birmingham’s storytelling is so engaging, fast paced and action packed that we ignore the logical chasm over which be has built his story because it is such an interesting and fascinating story. Nonetheless we are left wondering that surely the allies must win? To his credit, Birmingham doesn’t let us know. The book is so engaging that we put aside all these concerns because we want to how the Second World War ends now that Birmingham has shaken everything up. Birmingham story creates a lot of interest in just how these events are going to play out, but to find out the answer, we have to read Birmingham’s conclusion to the series, Final Impact.

Schultz and Peanuts: A Biography, by David Michaelis

Schultz and Peanuts: A Biography, by David Michaelis (New York: Harper Collins; 2007), 655 pages.

David Michaelis’s Schultz and Peanuts: A Biography tells the story of the life of Charles Schultz, the cartoonist responsible for “Peanuts.” Like all biographers, Michaelis chronologically pieces together the life of Schultz, and appears to include all major milestones in his varied and successful life. Michaelis gives an extremely detailed account of his childhood, growing up as the son of a successful and respected barber in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Schultz spent most of his childhood in those cities, apart from a brief period when as a young child his family moved to Needles, California. He attended elementary and high school in Minneapolis, served in the United Stated Army in World War Two in the European theatre, attended art school and ultimately achieved his ambition to be a cartoonist through the newspaper syndication of “Peanuts,” an achievement that brought him considerable notoriety and financial success. Michaelis also provides us with detailed accounts of Schultz’s single and adult life in Minneapolis, Colorado, and later California. Michaelis gives very detailed accounts of his personal life including the death of his mother, his relationship with his father, his courtships, marriages, divorce, children, his illness and death. All such accounts are expected in biographies, however, Michaelis provides extraordinary detail and considerable insight to the reader as to what the influence of these events on Schultz and how they made them the man he was.

Michaelis achieves this on a number of levels. For example, he reveals how Schultz knew from a young age of his gift for drawing, and of his decision at a young age to establish a career as a cartoonist. What is notable is Schultz’s single-minded determination to achieve this goal, and, to continue in his chosen vocation throughout his life only to stop drawing prior to his death. Michaelis portrays Schultz as a single-minded, competitive and determined man.

Michaelis also reveals that Schultz’s life needed not be the subject of a biography because all of Schultz’s life had been revealed through the characters in “Peanuts.” Schultz’s loves, phobias, obsessions, fears, friends, relatives, and even his spouses are revealed through the characters in his cartoon strip. To demonstrate this point, Michaelis liberally sprinkles “Peanuts” cartoon strips through the book to demonstrate the point that Schultz used the experience of his life to form the characters of “Peanuts” and to establish their personalities and relationships. “Peanuts” is almost a metaphor of Schultz’s life. It is an effective and convincing effect that adds considerably to Michaelis’s narrative.

A third of many elements that Michaelis reveals about Schultz is his exceptional cartooning skill, including innovations that were instrumental in establishing him and propelling him to great success and accomplishment. An example of his innovation was his minimalist drawing style that focused just on the characters and their immediate surrounding, whereas his contemporaries used detailed shading with detailed backgrounds. Schultz other great innovation was to give adult personas and problems to his characters – small children. He later took this further by giving those attributes to the animal characters Snoopy and Woodstock.

A notable feature of Michaelis’s book it’s almost universally great and comprehensive detailed account of Schultz’s life, warts and all. Michaelis provides astonishingly exhaustive details of Schultz’s life from childhood through midlife. By comparison, the last 20 years of Schultz’s like are covered in much less detail; it’s almost a rushed-through light weight coverage of these latter years when compared with the rest of the book. This observable fact, perhaps pedantic, does not make the book flawed. Perhaps it’s a reflection that the most interesting part of a person’s life is the struggle to attain success, rather than continuing to do practice your success. Nonetheless, Michaelis has done a fine job in telling the story of a great American success. It’s a story of how a man from humble origins recognized his gift and through ambition and hard work became arguable the most successful and influential practitioner of is craft in his lifetime. In telling the story of Schultz’s remarkable life, Michaelis has written a remarkable book that for many years will be the definitive biography of Charles Schultz. That, too, is something quite remarkable.

Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham

Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham is the first in a series of three novels in the so-called “axis of time” series. The premise of the series could be summarized in the form of a question: “What do you get when a 2021 military experiment transports an American-led multinational naval armada `back through time to 1942, and relocates the armada to the middle of the U.S. naval task force heading towards Midway Island and the battle of Midway?” John Birmingham answers this question over the course of the three novels. In this first volume the story develops on a number of levels.

On the strategic level, the emergence in 1942 of a 2021 battle armada has the potential to vastly influence the conduct and result of World War II. The allies’ access to 2021 technology and 2021 history books enables the 1942 generation to learn from history by not making the mistakes that are yet to occur, so to speak, thereby changing the course of history. The same occurs with Germany, Japan, and (a temporarily neutral) Russia, who also obtain future technology and knowledge of the future. Birmingham’s book cleverly teases out the premise of the affect of knowledge of the future on current events. For example, the Battel of Midway does not occur. Germany and Russia make a peace (temporarily) to mutually explore the application of the new technology to their 1942 weapons programs. New military campaigns are pursued to achieve new military and political objectives that become apparent with the so called knowledge of history and new technologies.

Birmingham also develops the sub-plot of the political implications of the new technology and historical records. Hitler and Stalin, armed with knowledge of future treacheries, eliminate their rivals. In the United Sates, when faced with new technologies being used by a liberated and de-segregated population, the Government responds by establishing a special zone in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles to use future laws, customs and technologies to enhance the 1942 war effort by bringing forward the development and adoption of new technologies.

The book also develops the sub-plot of the numerous cultural, social, and legal differences between the people from 2021 and 1942. For example, we experience the clashes between the 1942 politicians with a military from the future, and the clashes between military men and women from different eras, in particular, their viewing (in private) of each other as somewhat barbaric. In an era of segregation in the United States, a country fighting a war against a foe that believes in the wholesale extermination of so-called “inferior races,” the appearance of warrior from the future becomes disturbing to both sides when some of 2021 era commanding officers are African American, and women. This culture shock and culture clash is a recurring theme and source of tension throughout the story.

Weapons of Choice is the produce of John Birmingham’s very fertile imagination. He has written a fine novel that mixes historical fiction, science fiction/futurism and socially conscious storytelling. This fine novel should appeal to fans of military history and science fiction lovers, as well as any person that enjoys good and imaginative writing. It’s noticeable that Birmingham creates in the reader an appetite for more. After seeing these improbable events occur, you end up wondering how things are going to work out. We and up wanting to know how things are going to work out in this strange new past that reflects the future. It is fairly safe to say that if you end up reading Weapons of Choice, you’ll also want to read the other two volumes because it’s simply that good and that engaging.