Rogue Heroes

     Ben MacIntyre has a talent for taking well-worn stories and injecting new life into them; he did this previously with Operation Mincemeat, Double Cross, and A Spy Among Friends. His latest book, Rogue Heroes, tackles the story of the SAS during World War Two, retold often but never with such verve or insight.

     Rogue Heroes brings fresh perspective from unpublished material and the authors own insight into human nature than enables him to build character portraits, deconstruct the wooden legends and replace it with an equally legendary but flesh-and-blood version. This separates Rogue Heroes from many contemporary histories of the war as the story is ultimately carried along by the vivid characterizations with which the SAS players, great and small, are brought to life. yet everything was documented-  (In one endearing scene, David Stirling and Paddy Mayne clash and reunite by revealing how they really wanted to be an artist and a writer, respectively). The action is described with thrilling, Alister McClean-style derring-do, although it is equally unflinching in describing the reality of war.

    Rogue Heroes has important lessons for Special Warfare today, in looking at its origins. 

I received a free copy of this from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

"Red Teaming" by Bryce Hoffman- Not Just for Business

 

 Don't ignore this book just because it has a business-y sounding title and description.

In a nutshell, "Red Teaming" is a strategic art of forming a team to think like your opponents, and preparing yourself for how to act accordingly in the real world. It involves research, role-play, and strategy- entertaining in practice and productive in terms of business. Red Teams must be free of bias, hierarchy (which stifles creativity), and constantly question what they know and how they know it so as to create a truly complete picture of the enemy free of human error.

But the book is about much more than that as the author delves into competitive strategy and critical thinking skills. He shows how the lessons apply to any field of competition, whether military, corporate, sport, or personal life and uses abundant real-world examples, along with detailed breakdown of logic to prove his points. And although the focus is on "teams" the methods are just as applicable for individuals. (I felt I learned more useful information regarding winning arguements from this than. The recently-rereleased "Thank You For Arguing").

  I do not have a highly competitive job and am already familiar with all the "know your enemy..." Maxims, but still feel better prepared for having read this book.


I received a free copy of this book from "Blogging for Books" in exchange for my honest review.