2 comments about With Chennault in China: A Flying Tiger's Diary (Schiffer Military/Aviation History).

1. Robert Smith gives you the lowdown from the air field on what it took to get the Flying Tigers in the air and to the Japanese bombers before they could strike their Chinese targets. Here is the truly brilliant saga of how Chennault's revolutionary combination of ground observation, central data gathering and fighter scramble turned aerial warfare from hunt and peck to dispatch and destroy.

   We take these technologies for granted now, but when Chennault first proposed them he was laughed at by the fledgling air forces that stumbled along between the two world wars with no vision. Chennault had the vision of what modern air warfare would become. He proved it with the Flying Tigers by taking an under-manned, under-equipped, and under-funded unit and making it into the bane of the enemy.

   Robert Smith puts you there in the radio room, nursing the equipment, listening through static, sifting the reports and making the critical decisions to scramble the planes. The pilots got the glory. Smith told them where the glory was to be gotten.

   This is a little known page in the history of aerial warfare that is told clearly, up front and personal, by a man who was right there in the thick of it.

   I heartily recommend With Chennault in China to anyone interested in The Flying Tigers and/or air combat history.




2. This is a somewhat edited version of Robert M. Smith's diary that he kept during his year with the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers). Smith attended college before joining the Army, rather unusual for the time. He joined the AVG for adventure, like most of the pilots and technicians. And he kept a diary, as many of them did.

   Smith's diary is especially insightful, and I used it a lot when I was writing my history of the Flying Tigers. He has a good eye for geography; I especially liked his account of driving up the Burma Road to the AVG's home base in Kunming.

   I own the paperback; it was chock-a-block with photos, which I assume are included in the Schiffer edition. Good reading for all Flying Tigers buffs.

No comments about With mystics and magicians in Tibet (Penguin books).

No comments about Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West.

No comments about Mobil Hong Kong/ Macau City Guide (Mobil Travel Guides) (Mobil Travel Guides).

2 comments about The Other China: Journeys Around Taiwan.

1. For various reasons, there exists a general lack of travel guides describing Taiwan. This beautiful island, with its indefinite political situation, its extensive inroads travel opportunities, and abundant possibilities for expatriate employment is underrated and underrepresented by publishers of travel literature. Seeing Fetherling's book, "The Other China," I was excited to see another book written about this island I had not read. With so few options available for the traveler, it is unfortunately that the deficiencies of Fetherling's 1995 work far outweigh any of the positive attributes of the book.

   "The Other China" is certainly not a travel guide in the fashion of Robert Storey's "Lonely Planet: Taiwan," and Fetherling does not pretend it is. However, with so few opportunities for readers to view first hand accounts of Westerners traveling in Taiwan, Fetherling has a duty, I believe, to inform beyond what his book seems to be: a purposeless and brief tract. Within its hundred pages, the book takes on many voices, though none are particularly clear. Primarily but only partly, the book is a collection of personal reflections on the minutia of his two visits to Taiwan. Fetherling wastes space on out-of-place attacks on the US' role in world culture and makes several China-is-to-Taiwan-what-the-US-is-to-Canada references. Also, the two-part book (based on a 1991 and a 1995 visit) seems to attempt to depict some sort of change in Taiwan between these two visits. Fetherling's all-too-apparent animosity toward the US and Americans generally convey a sense that this book is merely a vehicle for him to voice these sentiments to the reader. The above mentioned errors combine with several quips throughout the book such as "...I find my first brush with a Statue of Liberty in Taiwan about as distasteful as my initial encounter with dog meat in a food stall in Beijing" and "[t]he Taiwanese can't compete against the Americans when it comes to visual trash" to detract from his observations about Taiwan (page 54 & 44). I was surprised by Arsenal Pulp Press' willingness to publish a book containing glaring factual errors though hardly surprised by the clichéd anti-Americanisms.

   Fetherling purports his book to be a travel narrative that benefits from the author's "personal experience and observation," or alternatively, a "confidential" report that "unmasks the secret life of Taiwan." This reviewer spent more than a year living in Taiwan and found nothing in the book above the level of trite travel observation. Whatever secrets Fetherling unearth in his scant amount of time either do not appear as secret or could be picked up by any visitor within a fortnight. Additionally, a handful of glaring factual errors detract from the book. It is hard to determine if the source of the error is poor research, a level of Canadacentrism that should embarrass Canadians, or an antipathy toward Richard Nixon, but Fetherling incorrectly attributes the formal 1979 embassy switch between Taipei and Beijing to Richard Nixon (page 12 & 33). Though Nixon's travels certainly opened the way for Carter's later decision, Watergate if nothing else precluded Nixon's ability to conduct foreign policy after 1974.

   In light of these deficiencies, it is hard to imagine any value in this book. Ask yourself: are you traveling to Taiwan or do you have some interest in its politics or history? Look to another of the relatively few volumes written on Taiwan. Looking for an incomplete travelogue based on two short trips as a hollow premise to trash another nation and culture? Click "order" now before suppliers run out.




2. Douglas Fetherling, offers up a stale wonton in The
   Other China: Journeys Around Taiwan.
   His account of two visits to Taiwan, in 1991 and 1995, is
   lacking in original information, insight or analysis. He also
   stumbles badly in several references to that turning point in
   modern Sino-U.S. relations, Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China.
   At least four times Fetherling says Nixon "recognized" the
   Beijing government, and in one case he says this recognition
   came in 1979. How Nixon could recognize Beijing in 1979 when he
   resigned is 1974 is not explained. An oriental mystery?
   In fact, after Nixon's 1972 visit, the United States did not
   break relations with Taiwan and did not send an ambassador to
   Beijing until 1979, when Jimmy Carter, not Nixon, formally
   established diplomatic relations.
   The main weakness of the book, however, is not its factual
   errors but its strangely distant tone. Given China's strong
   personality, something titled The Other China should tell us what that
   otherness is. But Fetherling fails to say what makes Taiwan
   different from the mainland, or explain why the Kuomintang has
   been able to preside over such prosperity on Taiwan after ruling
   so disastrously in China.
   Instead, we get a brisk lesson in current events, a little
   history and superficial descriptions of buildings, cities and
   the countryside, often viewed from the inside of a car. His most
   profound insight is to describe the Taiwanese as being like

   1950s-style "Buick-driving country club Republicans."
   Fetherling is an established Toronto writer who has written
   well on a wide variety of subjects. This book, however, smacks
   of a rush job, produced quickly from what he himself calls his
   "rough notes." It's rather like fast food - it goes down
   quickly but you wonder what was in it.

5 comments about Lonely Planet Trans-siberian Railway (Lonely Planet Travel Guides).

1. What you'd expect from Lonely Planet--useful but not comprehensive. I would recommend getting both this and the Trans-Siberian Handbook. It can be a little difficult to find (especially if you don't want to wait 6 weeks).



2. The guidebook is just fine for sightseeing, hotels, restaurants, but for train information, there is almost nothing. Really, almost nothing at all. To take the Trans Siberian, it is very difficult to make stopovers, and get reservations for future trains. And you can't simply board the train in a city or town other than Moscow or Vladavostok, or Beijing. None of this is addressed in the book. So, it's great to have tons of pages of sightseeing information, but for places almost no one will get to, due to the difficulty of reserving future trains.
   
   There is almost virtually no information on how to book the train, or recommendations on how to book it, or where to book it, or the wide range in prices. Hardly anything about the different classes. Hardly anything about the cabins, onboard food, how to buy food at the stations, is there an electrical outlet, train etiquette, etc.
   
   I was very disappoined in the lack of practical information needed. The Trans Siberian is NOT as easy to book as a train from say London to Paris, and the book doesn't address that.



3. As the title says, I found the book a very useful guide. Since I currently live in China, I was mostly just using the portions for Mongolia, and Russia.
   
   My only complaint is the switching around of currency used. Sometime in the Russian portion prices would be listed in US dollars, other times Rubles, and sometimes in Euros. It would have been much better to pick one currency and stick with it. A minor complaint.



4. I was overall disappointed.
   The guide was useful to plan the trip, but much less once on the spot. Quite a bit of information is erronous or outdated (e.g. restaurants/hotels do not exist or are priced over double of what stated, museums have been closed or moved), which especially in Moscow and Yekaterinenburg led to cross-city walks and travels at the end of which we found nothing. This is especially for what concerns the Moscow to Yekaterinenburg part; pages on St. Petersburg, China, Mongolia and the Irkutsk area were much more useful.
   Train and bus info: there is quite a lot of information if you are heading in the St. Petersburg to Beijing direction, but no special indications for if you are taking the opposite direction.
   Last point: guide suggestions are generally targeted to a welthier-than-backpacker budget (though Galina in Moscow was great!).



5. This gives a very comprehensive account of the various routes on the trans siberian, i'v chosen vladivostok to st petersburg! will have my guidebook close at hand during my trip!

1 comments about Insight City Guide Beijing (Insight City Guides (Book & Restaruant Guide)).

1. Normally, I strictly stick to Lonely Planet guidebooks when buying for my travels, but for my recent trip to Beijing, I made an impulse decision to buy this Insight Guide to accompany the LP City guide I had already purchased. I was pleasantly surprised at just how good the Insight guide was.
   
   Illustrated in full colour throughout, the book gives the usual history of the capital of China, as well as sight details of all the major sights in Beijing and the surrounding vicinity, including of course the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. However, I don't think the book lists quite as much activities and sights as the LP book, but for short term visitors I don't think this would be much of a problem. Usually when travelling I struggle to do even a quarter of the activities and sights that are listed in guidebooks. I note that the maps are quite good, a little better for detail than the maps found in the LP book.
   
   In a neat touch, it also includes a seperate map of resturants in a little pocket on the inside back cover. Structurally, the book is very sound, with a good tough binding to cope with the usual rough treatment that travel accords guidebooks. It even has a piece of cardboard designed to fit around the pocket holding the resturant map on the inside back cover.
   
   This guide is recommended as an alternative to the Lonely Planet book - it helps that this edition of the Insight guide is 6 months newer, and a little cheaper, than the equivalent LP edition for those you note such things. But guidebooks are out of date the moment they get printed, particularly for a city such as Beijing which is rapidly developing for the Olympics in 2008.
   
   If you are planning to visit Beijing in the next few months, be aware that a lot of the major sights such as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven are under restoration (for the Olympics), with scaffolding to be found in abundance. Some portions of the Forbidden City were closed off when I visited in July.

No comments about Beyond Beijing: The Next Step for Women : A Personal Journal.

No comments about The Classical Gardens of Suzhou.

1 comments about Frank Kingdon Ward's Riddle Of The Tsangpo Gorges.

1. The story of Frank Kingdon Ward and his exploration of this remote unexplored part of Tibet is marvelous. His writing flows, he takes hardship and danger placidly, and his descriptions are wonderful. The photos and maps make you feel as if you are there with him, knowing his porters, the village people and friends. This is a great book to add to your collection of favorites.