Books we're reading this month

From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A history of the software industry, by Martin Campbell-Kelly (MIT Press, 2004)

Most of our world could not run without the computer software that enables it. From a strictly business-level perspective, Campbell-Kelly tells the story of how this came to be. His book reveals some remarkable facts amongst the reams of statistics, charts, and graphs that are otherwise as complicated as, well, most computer software. For example, did you know that Microsoft has never had even a 10% share of the software market? While we're all familiar with Windows, so-called "invisible" software is where the real action is. IBM's CICS teleprocessing program administers 20 billion transactions every day—three for every person on the planet. CICS and other corporate software packages power our traffic signals, our banking transactions, our airline reservations, and possibly even the next American election.

Campbell-Kelly's book also reveals other interesting tidbits: The US software industry's worldwide dominance is largely due to substantial government intervention and assistance, not a free market. Computer games were most households' initial reason for buying a personal computer. The internet bust of a few years ago was foreshadowed by a similar software recession caused by mass investor overconfidence in the 1970s.

And finally, the book confirms that computer programmers really do think that naming their products with the most obtuse acronyms and unwieldy decimals is a good idea—they even name their companies that way! Amazing that a group of people so out of touch with the rest of the population can consolidate so much power. Matching programmers with politicians is beginning to make more sense.

- Chris LaVigne <clavigne@republic-news.org>

Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East and the making of the US-Israeli alliance, by Warren Bass (Oxford University Press, 2004)

It's taken for granted that Israel enjoys special protection from the US, from UN Security Council vetoes of resolutions condemning Israeli actions to huge multibillion-dollar grants and arms transfers. It wasn't always so. At one time, especially during the Eisenhower era, Israel needed to negotiate its way in the world like every other country. Then, during the Kennedy years, Israeli Prime Minister David ben Gurion manipulated tensions between Egypt, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and America to tie Israel directly to US interests—and in search of a base in the volatile and up-for-grabs Cold War theatre of the Middle East, Kennedy was happy to tie America to Israeli interests as well.

Maintaining this one alliance has cost America just about every other alliance it had at one time or another enjoyed. And for Israel, the alliance has been even more damaging by enabling its hawks to proceed without the usual cautions any country in any volatile region might take. Israel also suffers a paucity of other alliances because of its one with America, and as a result, relations in the Middle East are not healthy.

- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

The Iraq War, by John Keegan (Key Porter Books, 2004)

A tad early, don't you think, for history books dealing with the Iraq war to already be hitting the store shelves? You'd think Keegan, billed as the best military historian in the English language, would be familiar with the war equivalent of the fat lady singing. This was written just prior to eruption of the nationalist response to the American occupation, and the appearance of soldiers and equipment on the other side. It is amazing how fast books can date: this one was old before it was new. In several chapters, Keegan leaves it as a mystery whatever happened to the much vaunted Iraqi military. Well, surprise surprise. There they are (see William Kay's article). New book needed.

- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>