And again, more books...

 I'll cover a couple more here; two very different books -- 

Josephus, The Essential Writings Maier, P.

Josephus' writings about the Roman Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. Josephus is an interesting figure - a former Jewish military leader, turned Roman collaborator - a Jewish Benedict Arnold, if you will. I originally became interested in Josephus because he was one of the few ancient writers who spoke of Jesus Christ, along with Suetonius, Tacitus and a very few others. But to read his histories and personal accounts is also interesting - especially the incident at Jotapata in Galilee, where Josephus is one of two left after a mass suicide of 40 Jewish nobles and leaders hiding in the ruins. Verrrry suspicious; he does some interesting literary tap dancing in an attempt to make himself look good here, but the reader knows that something is fishy. History isn’t kind to Josephus because of this, even though he is well regarded as a historian. This may be because he was writing for a Roman audience for the most part, and his writings were preserved because of this.

In The Jewish War, he speaks of himself in the third person, much like Xenophon did in his writings, and of course comes across very favourably to the reader. Immensely so, actually. So much so that I am suspicious of anything he writes concerning Josephus…

Either way, his record of the Jewish War provides more detail than any other source, due to his personal involvement. And pretty much everything he discusses (beyond his own motivations) is more or less confirmed by other sources. He wrote The Jewish War with Roman readers in mind - the emperors, present and near future, are all spoken well of - even during the battle for Jerusalem. For this episode, he lays the blame on the Jews themselves - actually their splintered leadership in the battle. Especially the leaders of the three rebel factions, keen on engaging and fighting Roman dominance, one being the infamous Zealots. He seems to hold a loathing grudge against these people in The Jewish War which seems to be somewhat (and independently) consistent with the Bible’s New Testament writings. I’m not sure how he is viewed from the Jewish perspective - that would require more research on my part.

The Jewish Antiquities is also very interesting - he basically retells the entire Old Testament from Genesis to the Maccabees. One could say that it is written in a largely secular perspective, although the concept of God, and God’s presence are not at all overlooked. I have wondered why he wrote this, since the books of the Old Testament still existed at this time. I wonder if he felt guilt and what must have seemed like the end of the Jewish people, and his role in it. At that time, Jerusalem was completely destroyed, and the Jews of Jerusalem and the whole Levant were scattered; they were defeated everywhere, and with the destruction of the temple, perhaps he thought that the Jewish religion was in decline, never to recover. In that sense, writing a secularized Greek version of the Old Testament, intended for a Roman audience, was a way to help his religion live on in some way. At least that’s my take on it.

This is a pretty good read, but I can’t say captivating. However, I do recommend it to people interested in a secular-ish look at the highlights of Judaism and early Christianity.

6/10

Thud Ridge

Broughton, J.

This is an account of the air war in Vietnam, as told in the late 1960s by F-105 pilot Colonel Jack Broughton -- it was recommended to me by other online jet airplane enthusiasts. For years I thought that the Republic F-105 Thunderchief was an awesomely cool airplane, so I just had to read this.  The casual observer would say that the F-105 was a bad airplane - so many were shot down - how could be anything but a bad airplane?

Well, it was an amazing airplane that could fly faster than anything at almost ground level - and that was while carrying bombs and extra fuel tanks hanging off its wings! And Broughton explains the craziness that the pilots were up against. Their job was to fly from Thailand into Vietnam, and up to the Hanoi area in the north, and drop bombs on targets protected better than anywhere in the world up to that time. They faced the best surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that the Russians had, the best rapid-fire and radar-controlled anti-aircraft (AA) cannons the Russians and Chinese had, and the best interceptor fighters that the Russians had.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the US Air Force (and government) leaders insisted that they NOT bomb or shoot the MiG-21s on the ground (only if they were in the air). If the AA or SAMs were in designated “safe” areas, you couldn’t touch them. Worse, the leadership insisted that they go back immediately to the same targets to ensure their destruction, taking away the element of surprise - in fact, allowing their adversaries to anticipate their routes. If a pilot bombed one of these “unauthorized targets” he could expect a court martial. Broughton describes all of this in his book, and probably took a lot of heat over it. But you could hardly blame him, as good pilots were being shot at and killed, and good airplanes were being lost at an alarming rate. 

From my perspective, the Air Force leadership was staffed in part by world war 2 veterans whose plan was to overwhelm the enemy with airplanes and bombs - which worked well back then, when there were an infinite number of airplanes and pilots to churn through. But in Korea, and more so in Vietnam, the supply of pilots was not inexhaustible - there were far fewer in the pipeline, and they took much longer to train. And the airplanes were far more complex and expensive than ever before, and they only had so many. It was a lose-lose-lose proposition, especially for the people in harm’s way. (And the sad thing is that the leadership wouldn’t listen to their feedback on what was going wrong!)

Broughton talks us through all this with his prejudices laid bare. For example, he thought high-flying bomber pilots had a tough time burning their fingers reaching for the coffee pot on their missions. He thought that the enemy MiG pilots may not have been their best, as their tactics seemed less than what their airplanes could manage. Not that they weren’t dangerous; they were, but should have been much more effective. He talks about the tremendous talent and bravery of many of his pilot colleagues - but also mentions some who were perhaps a little opposite - but there weren’t many of those. In the end, he loved his airplane, and thought that if the leadership were in tune with the reality on the ground (and in the air), they could have accomplished so much more. 

The book was well written, and filled with all sorts of detail on the pilots, the airplanes, the leadership and above all, the missions they flew. He carried a tape recorder in his airplane to more accurately debrief his missions, and leverage that in the book, which added a captivating amount of detail and energy into his mission descriptions. A great read for a fighter pilot, and for fans of big fast jet airplanes!

8/10