Turn Around And Run Like Hell - Amazing Stories Of Unconventional Military Strategies That Worked

The title alone was enough to entice me to pull this book from a stack a friend keeps in his living room and to ask if I might borrow this book. "Turn Around and Run Like Hell" by Joseph Cummins features 25 chapters, each typically about 8 pages long with two sidebars, maps, and illustrations, either photos (of persons, events, or perhaps artifacts), paintings, or etchings depending upon what materials are available. These chapters are further subdivided into four sections that serve to organize the book and provide a fair overview of what lies within: Part One--Marshalling Forces: Brilliant Deployments by Master Strategists; Part Two--Who Dares Wins: Courage, Boldness, and the Element of Surprise; Part Three--If at First You Don't Succeed: Persistence, Resistance, and the Art of Siegecraft; Part 4--Smoke and Mirrors: Intelligence, Deception, and Subterfuge. Characterizing the book as featuring "amazing deceptions, unprecedented tactics, and cunning generals succeeding against all odds" sounds like a carnival barker's exhortation, but it's a pretty accurate statement. Mr. Cummins portrays sometimes brilliant, sometimes lucky, and often desperate military leaders who devise--or resort to--unconventional, creative, and sometimes perilous tactics to subdue a stubborn adversary, repel invading forces, even the odds when badly outnumbered, or gain the decisive hand in battle. The body count from these various engagements is staggering, and Mr. Cummins affords both villains and heroes their due, celebrating strategic brilliance and gut-checking stratagems starting with Hannibal's classic double envelopment at Cannae spanning to a more modern account of subterfuge and spying via a tunnel under East Berlin during the cold war. History seems a more malleable and fluid medium than ever before, so I wonder if my recollection that the US lost one carrier, the Lexington during the Battle of the Coral Sea has been updated per the author's note that two were lost. I always thought a few Romans had escaped the slaughter unleashed by Arminius during the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, but this author's account of total annihilation certainly makes for a more compelling and horrifying rendition. I suppose one could pick nits in other spots, but I am not a serious historian and enjoyed the style and pace of the author's presentation. I do wish the maps were a bit more user friendly as I struggled with some, trying to overlay their static rendering of events with the actual workings and motions of the various sieges and campaigns. Regardless, I thought this book a worthwhile way to pass some chilly winter afternoons and be glad I was not on the front lines facing a swarming hoard of enemy combatants.

The title alone was enough to entice me to pull this book from a stack a friend keeps in his living room and to ask if I might borrow this book. "Turn Around and Run Like Hell" by Joseph Cummins features 25 chapters, each typically about 8 pages long with two sidebars, maps, and illustrations, either photos (of persons, events, or perhaps artifacts), paintings, or etchings depending upon what materials are available. These chapters are further subdivided into four sections that serve to organize the book and provide a fair overview of what lies within: Part One--Marshalling Forces: Brilliant Deployments by Master Strategists; Part Two--Who Dares Wins: Courage, Boldness, and the Element of Surprise; Part Three--If at First You Don't Succeed: Persistence, Resistance, and the Art of Siegecraft; Part 4--Smoke and Mirrors: Intelligence, Deception, and Subterfuge. Characterizing the book as featuring "amazing deceptions, unprecedented tactics, and cunning generals succeeding against all odds" sounds like a carnival barker's exhortation, but it's a pretty accurate statement. Mr. Cummins portrays sometimes brilliant, sometimes lucky, and often desperate military leaders who devise--or resort to--unconventional, creative, and sometimes perilous tactics to subdue a stubborn adversary, repel invading forces, even the odds when badly outnumbered, or gain the decisive hand in battle. The body count from these various engagements is staggering, and Mr. Cummins affords both villains and heroes their due, celebrating strategic brilliance and gut-checking stratagems starting with Hannibal's classic double envelopment at Cannae spanning to a more modern account of subterfuge and spying via a tunnel under East Berlin during the cold war. History seems a more malleable and fluid medium than ever before, so I wonder if my recollection that the US lost one carrier, the Lexington during the Battle of the Coral Sea has been updated per the author's note that two were lost. I always thought a few Romans had escaped the slaughter unleashed by Arminius during the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, but this author's account of total annihilation certainly makes for a more compelling and horrifying rendition. I suppose one could pick nits in other spots, but I am not a serious historian and enjoyed the style and pace of the author's presentation. I do wish the maps were a bit more user friendly as I struggled with some, trying to overlay their static rendering of events with the actual workings and motions of the various sieges and campaigns. Regardless, I thought this book a worthwhile way to pass some chilly winter afternoons and be glad I was not on the front lines facing a swarming hoard of enemy combatants.

Want a quick read through interesting history? Then Joseph Cummins book TURN AROUND AND RUN LIKE HELL offers up some unconventional military strategies that just might float your boat. From Hannibal's double envelopment at Cannae, through Mongol suicide squads at the Battle of Liegnitz to Timur the Lame to the tunnel beneath Berlin, Cummins provides some brief looks through military history that will retroduce you to history. Let's face it, for most of us much of we know came from high school or college courses we didn't really understand or appreciate at the time so history fell by the wayside while we were busy working through our own. Also, most of us will never become history scholars either but some of us will learn to appreciate what so many teachers and professors had tried to do way back when thanks to books like this. Want to know the best part? You're bound to find something in the book that will rekindle your interest and get you reaching for more. So will we get any depth? Well, that depends what we go on to afterwards. Still, we can't swim until we're comfortable getting our feet wet!