Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly Tanked
Review: ---
This is what happens when a left-wing ex-liberal arts major arrogates to himself the authority to utter a "cultural history of the wartime juggernaut that changed ground warfare forever." The profundity of Mr. Wright's knowledge of armored fighting vehicles and their role in history is to be measured only with the aid of an electron microscope, and his writing style -- particularly when compared to the lucid prose of honest-to-ghod historians like Samuel Eliot Morison or T.R. Fehrenbach -- is infelicitous in the extreme. Mr. Wright's work will draw the attention of the serious student of *materia militaria* only to the extent to which it can make a contribution to the compost pile. When I first picked up this well-camoflaged book (with its cover illustration and impressive heft, it certainly *looked* as if there ought to be something substantive within), I thought that I was about to enter upon an experience equivalent to a reading of John Ellis' THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE MACHINE GUN (ISBN: 0801833582; 1975), but attending upon the next aspect of what Ellis had called "Industrialised War" -- the mechanization of combat operations, conjoining the firepower of automatic weapons and big guns with the armored mobility made possible by improving battlefield transportation technology. What is found in Mr. Wright's word-processed psuedointellectual borborygmi, however, does not in any way rise to the level of Ellis' work, and cannot be considered of lasting value to anyone except perhaps the individual whose knowledge of mechanized warfare is so poor that this heap of half-digested mulch might seem profound. One of the remarkable features of TANK is that it takes the author so much paper and ink to say so bloody little. In the words of Ambrose Bierce, "The covers of this book are too far apart."
Rating: 
Summary:
Wheel Horse Power
Review:
This is not just the usual kind of coffeetable book loaded with one model of tank per two pages. It's more of a history, with plenty of interviewee material.
Even though the tank debuted in WWI, the use of tanks as an armored and swifter and better armed version of cavalry came about in WWII. There's an entire chapter called "Lancers and Panzers" about the Polish cavalry charges against German tanks during the Soviet-German liquidation of Poland in 1939.
A tank costing $10 million (and up) can be destroyed by an infantryman using an anti-tank missile that costs a few thousand dollars. The era of the tank is over, although I doubt that it will be proven again on the battlefield. On page 301, this, regarding the Sinai front of the Yom Kippur War in 1973:
"[I]f the October War was an 'historic encounter' in Shazly's book, that is because it was 'the first combat between the essentially World War Two concept of armor and the infantry weapons of the next generation.'"
After the coming war in Iraq, the vast stockpile of arms accumulated by Saddam Hussein, as well as his neighbors the Saudis, will look a lot less effective, and the first thing onto the scrap heap should be the monstrous numbers of tanks. If we're lucky the various enemies of civilization in the region won't figure that out. It's optimistic to believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will constitute the last war the US will have to fight there.
Despite these criticisms, even the biggest fans of the tank will find this title more than satisfactory, provided they know how to read. As noted, this isn't just a catalog of all the tanks ever made, with photos, drawings, and specs.
Recommended reading:
-:- Kursk: The Greatest Tank Battle by M. K. Barbier, Kathryn Barbier (0760312540)
Rating: 
Summary: A Rambling Cultural History
Review: A rambling cultural history of the tank, this book covers a lot of ground, both figuratively and literally, from the social symbolism of the tank in the labor politics of post WWI Britain to the power politics of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Almost always entertaining and well written, this book never really finds its focus. For those seeking a comprehensive an insightful history of the tank, there are glimpses, but not a complete story. For those seeking to understand the tank's role in any particular sphere (from its significance in post-Soviet East Block military culture to the engineering challenges faced in modifying tanks for survival in an era of potent and inexpensive anti-tank weapons) there are hints, but never enough to really sink one's teeth into. In the end one is left a bit dizzy: much is introduced, but no theme is treated in a structured or thorough enough way to contribute much to the reader's understanding. The feeling is that of having met a one of those fascinating and conversation-monopolizing guests at a party: entertaining, and possibly quite knowledgeable, but in the end JUST entertaining -- and a bit exhausting.
Rating:
Summary: The Tank as Metaphor
Review: Any book titled "Tank" that contains only four references to George S. Patton obviously has a problem. And that, in a nutshell, encompasses White's failure -- he's interested in the tank not as a weapon, a physical object, a historical force, or an engineering achievement, but only as a symbol. While this isn't necessarily a flaw, if you're going to view a real-world object through a symbolic lens, you need to cover it from all other angles as well, so you have some kind of anchor and aren't simply floating around in metaphysical space. This White fails to do, because he's interested only in certain symbolic resonances: the tank as instrument of oppression rather than one of liberation (in North Africa, Northwest Europe, and Korea, as well as Kuwait, pace the reviewer below). Tanks were viewed as almost the equivalent of steeds during the Desert War of 1940-43; we see nothing of this, very little, in fact, of how the tankers view their vehicles in any sense. Instead we get lengthy ruminations about J.F.C. Fuller's personal eccentricities (but nothing concerning Tukachevsky or Guderian), and a Polish expatriate artist's conceptual art piece involving an armored vehicle for use by Manhattan's homeless (by definition an armored car, and not a tank at all).
It's all very interesting in and of itself, and might have worked nicely as stand-alone articles in some art or cultural journal, but spread over nearly 500 pages, it's a bit much. The end result is like a conversation with a humanities undergrad in which every last topic that comes up is run, ad nauseum, through the mill of his own particular academic specialty. And that's too bad.
Rating: 
Summary: An odyssey of tangents
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer, David W. Nicholas, that "Tank" should be judged for what it is: a cultural review of the tank. The direction Mr. Wright chooses is indeed eccentric, but warning is given in the first chapter when the author states: "It is that symbolic drama, rather than just instrumental history of powerpacks, gun tubes and deployments, that I have set out to investigate in this book. It...is approached in a spirit of exorcism rather than celebration." In fact, writing from that angle compelled me to read on. But as I proceeded, I found it remarkable-at times laughable-what Patrick Wright found relevant to the topic of tanks. Part I diverges drastically from military discussion to describe an artist who painted camouflage on WWI tanks. Part II, "Church of Mechanization," starts with a discourse on stained glass depicting military topics, and goes into depth on who installed such windows and description of the ensuing controversy. That same section taught me more than I ever wanted to know about Aleister Crowley (a strange man who apparently had a strong influence on the tank strategist, J.F.C Fuller) as he and J.F.C. Fuller engaged in mystical rituals. In Part IV I found myself reading about archaeology which was somehow connected to tank development. And in part V artists return again, and this time they paint a tank pink. In general, I was comfortable with the verbose writing of the author, especially when relevant to tanks. I enjoyed his observations on French, and Israeli military history. That said, there are some sentences that are excessively wordy. The following describes the work of a Polish artist in New York: "Exuding counterfactual energy, this utopian contrivance challenged the viewer to recognize that the world might be different, and to consider the host of possibilities excluded by the machines to which modern history had granted practical reality." Or the just plain bizarre, like "the rubber Russian" theory stated by a U.S. Colonel I'm still trying to understand: "You took a latex toy Russian soldier, and stretched it out as far as it would go. When it was at breaking point, you would design your own force to meet it and then let the thing go." I'm glad I read "Tank" and would recommend tank buffs give it a try. I found that the themes of each section were effectively conveyed with disparate yet cohesive chapters. "Church of Mechanization" showed tank strategy as a kind of religion to J.F.C Fuller. And Part IV, "The Coming of the Merkava," built up successfully to the development of the Merkava tank. The title and cover of the paperback are deceptive. There should be a subtitle giving some idea of the content. Suggested title: Tanks: Pink and Otherwise
Rating:
Summary: An odyssey of tangents
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer, David W. Nicholas, that "Tank" should be judged for what it is: a cultural review of the tank. The direction Mr. Wright chooses is indeed eccentric, but warning is given in the first chapter when the author states: "It is that symbolic drama, rather than just instrumental history of powerpacks, gun tubes and deployments, that I have set out to investigate in this book. It...is approached in a spirit of exorcism rather than celebration." In fact, writing from that angle compelled me to read on. But as I proceeded, I found it remarkable-at times laughable-what Patrick Wright found relevant to the topic of tanks. Part I diverges drastically from military discussion to describe an artist who painted camouflage on WWI tanks. Part II, "Church of Mechanization," starts with a discourse on stained glass depicting military topics, and goes into depth on who installed such windows and description of the ensuing controversy. That same section taught me more than I ever wanted to know about Aleister Crowley (a strange man who apparently had a strong influence on the tank strategist, J.F.C Fuller) as he and J.F.C. Fuller engaged in mystical rituals. In Part IV I found myself reading about archaeology which was somehow connected to tank development. And in part V artists return again, and this time they paint a tank pink. In general, I was comfortable with the verbose writing of the author, especially when relevant to tanks. I enjoyed his observations on French, and Israeli military history. That said, there are some sentences that are excessively wordy. The following describes the work of a Polish artist in New York: "Exuding counterfactual energy, this utopian contrivance challenged the viewer to recognize that the world might be different, and to consider the host of possibilities excluded by the machines to which modern history had granted practical reality." Or the just plain bizarre, like "the rubber Russian" theory stated by a U.S. Colonel I'm still trying to understand: "You took a latex toy Russian soldier, and stretched it out as far as it would go. When it was at breaking point, you would design your own force to meet it and then let the thing go." I'm glad I read "Tank" and would recommend tank buffs give it a try. I found that the themes of each section were effectively conveyed with disparate yet cohesive chapters. "Church of Mechanization" showed tank strategy as a kind of religion to J.F.C Fuller. And Part IV, "The Coming of the Merkava," built up successfully to the development of the Merkava tank. The title and cover of the paperback are deceptive. There should be a subtitle giving some idea of the content. Suggested title: Tanks: Pink and Otherwise
Rating:
Summary: Cultural, not military history
Review: Take heed of the reviews that warn this is a "Cultural Studies" book and not military history. That would be fine except that the writing is newspaper columnist quality, and poorly researched to boot. For example, this book caught my eye because I am reading D'Este's biography of Patton. I checked the index and found only a handful of pages in "Tank" referencing this critically important figure in the development of the tank. Worse, the references were only from World War I, and merely a batch of amusing anecdotes (Mr. Wright seems to have found it noteworthy that Patton disliked brewed tea). It's obvious that the author's "research" consisted of browsing through a few pages in secondary sources. But then again, that seems to be what passes for research these days in the Cultural Studies field. This is a postmodernist critique of the big bad icon of the mean old warmongering tank from the perspective of the chattering classes. If that's what you're after, you will enjoy it. If not, avoid this at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: Going to take a metaphysical journey
Review: This book is the metaphysical examination of the tank. It is a tedious read with excursions that lend little or nothing to a missing central theme. The few interesting observations cannot be identified as originating with the author or being recounted from the 36 pages of references. If you are playing reading roulette, spin again.
Rating:
Summary: Going to take a metaphysical journey
Review: This book is the metaphysical examination of the tank. It is a tedious read with excursions that lend little or nothing to a missing central theme. The few interesting observations cannot be identified as originating with the author or being recounted from the 36 pages of references. If you are playing reading roulette, spin again.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed Reactions
Review: This book would have benefited from the attention of an editor; it would have become considerably shorter. I found parts quite entertaining and informative - e.g., the photographs - but then had to flip through pages of irrelevant and mindless drivel.
There are many irritating errors. Thus, 'moral' is not an alternative spelling of 'morale' : they have quite different meanings. Within six lines, lieutenant Alexandra Boiko becomes Alexandra Koitos. The Prague pink tank happened in 1990, and not in 1991 as Wright repeatedly asserts.
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