Last night I made a couple of updates to the reading list. I decided to do a recommended reading list since I saw such a thing on other sites and I thought it was a neat idea for giving a quick flavor of the blog itself. And who knows, maybe someone will actually use it to order a book and I'll earn an Amazon gift certificate some day!

I removed The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, as well as Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq. It's not that both aren't still valuable reads, especially Pollack's "The Threatening Storm" considering the ongoing "How did we get here" and WMD deception canard, but it's just...the war is done...it's time to freshen the list...and there we are.

In their places I have added the book I'm reading now: Paul Johnson's, A History of the Jews - an ambitious volume aimed at covering several thousand years of history. Obviously there are major areas he misses or glosses-over, but so far it's been a very enjoyable read and I recommend it.

I also selected something off my shelf, Donald Kagan's, On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. Kagan examines several wars - the Peloponnesian Wars, the Second Punic, WW1&2 - and one avoided war - the Cuban Missile Crisis - to see how wars start and how they can be prevented. Also highly recommended.