October 03, 2007

Hard-to-find books I'm looking for

Just in case anyone's wondering what to buy me for Christmas this year (you know who you are), I'm going to keep this post updated as my current hard-to-find book shopping list:

Guy Murchie, Song of the Sky (1954)
T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935)
Garnet Wolseley, Soldier's Pocket-book for Field Service (1869)
Hans Delbruck, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte (History of the Art of War), vols 2 through 4 (1920; trans. by Walter Renfroe jr., 1990)

As a total aside, on the list of historical fathers I really respect, old Hans Delbruck must rank high. A Rankeian, iconoclastic revisionist who turned German military history in the interwar period upside down, he still had time to raise one Nobel laureate (Max), and two leading members of the tragic and futile anti-Nazi resistance movement within Germany (Justus and his sister Emmi, later Emmi Bonhoeffer). Would we could all do so well.

Posted by BruceR at 03:12 PM

Okay, they've convinced me

Okay, okay, Andrew Coyne, you've beaten me down. Please stop with the Mixed-Member Proportional columns. I'll vote for it.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Conservative climbdown on religious school funding (which I don't necessarily oppose, as I understand it is an appeal to fairness: I just think it's a step in the wrong historical direction) has, in fact, made me somewhat more inclined to voting for them. It's not that the McGuinty Liberals have done a horrible job, and they've certainly done far better for Ontario in their term than the Conservative government they replaced would have done, but I really find their non-position on the whole Caledonia land claims issue unsupportable. Still, if the Tory Tories lose (and they probably will now) it's not an epic disaster for the province by any stretch.

UPDATE: Re the MMP referendum, the Globe makes a pretty good argument on the Con side in its editorial today.

Posted by BruceR at 10:39 AM