The August 2008 issue of National Defense is running an article about the military’s acquisition and use of unmanned drones that quotes James Hasik, aerospace and defense industry consultant, and author of the forthcoming Arms and Innovation: Entrepreneurship and Alliances in the Twenty-first Century Defense Industry. Read the article “Drones in the Military: Infatuation or True Love” on the National Defense website.
On a related note, earlier this week, the Guardian‘s Dan Kennedy wrote an interesting op-ed piece on the American media’s coverage of the war in Irag, criticizing the U.S. military and government for “preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq war.” But Kennedy also takes note of Ashley Gilbertson’s recent Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer’s Chronicle of the Iraq War praising the book for its authentic portrayal of the war. Read the article at www.guardian.co.uk or see our WTF website featuring a video interview with the author.
The July 30 edition of the New York Sun ran a review of Cyril Connolly’s 1938 Enemies of Promise, which we recently reprinted. Part memoir, part literary criticism, and part writing guide, the Sun‘s Marco Roth praises Connolly for the adaptability of his approach to writing and the continued relevance of his work to writers today.
William Davies King’s new book Collections of Nothing received yet another glowing review by Linda McCullough Moore in the July 28 edition of Chiristianity Today‘s Books & Culture. McCullough writes “As much as this (at times almost surreal) examination catalogues the things that King and other people stockpile and amass, it is more truly an examination of the spaces so in need of something, of the emptinesses a life will try to fill. One strength of this compendium, so stark and strong and honest, is that it does cause us to consider whether the existence of the empty spaces might just posit the existence of something meant to fill them.” Read an excerpt and an essay with the author.
It was posted a few weeks back, but we also shouldn’t neglect to mention an interesting interview with William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever: How to Treat Climate Change on David Houle’s Evolution Shift blog. In the interview Houle and Calvin discuss climate change and the threat it poses, as well as what can be done to mitigate its potentially disastrous effects.
Last but not least, Robert Bruegmann, author of Sprawl: A Compact History wrote an interesting article for Forbes magazine called “Driving Works.” In his article Bruegmann delivers some interesting insight into the future of our automotive culture. Read the article on the Forbes website. Also, read an excerpt from the book.