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Title: Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation
ISBN: 0471444154
Author:
Joshua E. London
Publicate Date: 2005-09-09
Publish: 2005-09-09
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $13.25
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $13.05
Amazon Merchant Price: $19.46
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Merchant Mariner Review
Excellent book, despite being about the Navy growing and protecting the Merchant Marine. Mariners have paid them back by shipping rum and beer for the last 200 years for them.
The book starts out by grabbing your attention with a specific event of Americans changing the rules again and now following Europe's appeasement philosophy. Mr. London points out very well that Americans want to live life to the fullest and it requires some sacrifice. Consuls Eaton, O'Brien and Cathcart prove this country was founded on principles. They fought a tough fight when everyone was looking to other parts of the world and.
It is well worth the time to read and see just what an incredible country we live in. My thanks to Mr. London.
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2: History always repeats itself...
A well written, exciting book full of things that I had forgotten, yet needed to be reminded of. It is timely and concise.
I highly recommend it.
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3: A good history of how little has changed in 200 years
Josh London has written a pretty good book about the challenges that the newly formed United States of America faced when it decided to move out from the wing of its mother country and strike out on its own. One of those challenges being the band of criminals who essentially controlled access to the Mediterranean Sea along the Barbary Coast.
While he is not a writer who knows how to turn a very interesting piece of history into a page-turner as Wright does with his book The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage) it is fine when compared to many other rather dull writers of history. At least he seems to get his facts straight and does not have some political agenda get in the way of an interesting story.
The most interesting part of the book is actually not something in it, but the fact that little has changed in two hundred years. Pirates still threaten the seas all over the world, politicians debate and deflect about serious issues concerning national security and national interests, and the consequences of being on the wrong side of history are soon forgotten as a new generation of voters and politicians who are ignorant of history get a chance to relive it again at great expense.
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4: Neo-Con Rubbish
I actually enjoyed the history portion of the book. Unfortunately, London's conclusion -- Arabs are greedy, untrustworthy and only understand force so America was right to invade Iraq and we must stay the course -- is horse poop.
According to London -- who's written articles on his book's relevance to Iraq at the National Review and the Heritage Foundation -- Jefferson (the father of the Democratic Party) was a vacillating appeaser and was wrong to end the war with Tripoli without toppling the Pasha and grinding the city beneath the heels of American military might.
This ignores, of course, the fact that America had no subsequent serious problems with Tripoli.
London conflates James Madison's war against Algeria -- a decade later -- with the war against Tripoli and credits the "strong and resolute" Madison (a conservative, of course) with leading the charge against the North African Muslim evil-doers which culminated in France and Italy's colonial occupation and subjugation of the region. Mission accomplished. Hah!
It's easy to convince yourself that the simple-minded direct action and occupation of annoying nations that London advocates in this book is the best course of action in any situation -- diplomacy and negotiation really is hard and complex -- until you remember that France was brutally forced out of Algiers and our own occupation in Iraq has left America worse off in the region than before.
This book is nothing but a shameless plug for the neo-conservative notion that America must use its military might to reshape the world in our own image. We now see how far that got us.
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5: Great read
Compared to other books on the subject of the Tripolitan War published around the same time Victory in Tripoli is a superior read. The author strikes a great balance between providing penetrating detail and keeping the story moving along. In other words, it's engaging, insightful, and detailed but, not boring.
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