I intend reading his other titles because there is a huge need for his kind of history-history that pulls back the curtains that have clouded our vision when history is left only to the "experts"
Rating: 
Summary: somewhat interesting, but not worth it
Review: I was not expecting much from this book and got what I expected...some colorfully written military history with a loose and sometimes stretched theme (for anyone curious, this is a strictly military history). I found the section about the Austro-Prussian War interesting, and also the account of the battle of Tannenburg during WWI, since I knew little about them but now understand they had indeed resounding implications. The writing is vivid and fluid, easy to read. What dissapointed me was that many of the events depicted in the book had little or no major impact on history, the account of Battle for Tanga (in what is now Tanzania) being the most glaring example. During the battle, a swarm of bees managed to rout a British Indian force turning the tide in favor of German-led African forces. Interesting in and of itself but not something that changed the course of human events in the slightest. Germany's colonies in Africa were divided up among the Allies at the conclusion of the war despite the victory.
I was also perplexed as to why the assassination of archduke Ferdinand was not treated in the book. Now this was a seemingly insignificant event which had worldwide reverberations, and given the circumstances of the assassination would have made a much more intriguing story than that of the Tanga battle.
When the Archduke visited Sarajevo, there was an unsuccessful assassanation attempt by Black Hand members that wounded several policemen assigned to guard him. After whatever business he was conducting was finished, Ferdinand along with his wife, wished to visit the policemen who had been wounded in the attack before returning to Vienna. This he informed his driver, who would momentarily pull up to an intersection next to a tobacco shop, on the corner of which stood Galvrio Princip, a pistol-toting would be assassin. With the Archduke just feet from him, Princip gets cold feet and fails to act. The driver turns right around the corner of the tobacco shop, out of view of Princip who is still standing on the corner.
Had the driver gone left instead of right like he should have, history might have turned out much differently. But he didnt...the Archduke informs the driver he should have turned left at the intersection. The driver then stops, backs up to the intersection while presenting Princip, who was surely dissapointed with himself for not having the cahones to shoot Ferdinand the first time, a godsend of a picture as the car backs up and stops in front of him AGAIN. He leaps forward and kills the Archduke. Austria declares war on Serbia a month later...WWI breaks out...rise of Bolshevism made possible by it...rise of Nazism because of WWI...good old WWII...the Cold War..etc., etc.
What if the Ferdinand's driver knew how to get to the hospital? who knows, maybe something better, worse doesnt matter. Youll have to settle for the Battle of Tanga.
Rating: 
Summary: Popularised history
Review: I've got to agree with reviewer Brent Wigen that The Hinge Factor is entertaining, interesting, but rather light. I much prefer Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly, which Durschmied must surely have known, using some of the same examples. Durschmied's work is a much quicker read, with more situations covered in less detail than Tuchman's. Durschmied is not a master of prose; he's readable, but somewhat awkward. Durschmied tries balance a statistical approach--so many men per side, so many tanks or calvalry, etc.--with an attempt to bring his reader to the immediacy of the situation, by reporting bits of first hand accounts of the battles. The result is sometimes too fragmentary to read well, and I felt bogged down with unnecessary details and some outright oddities...why describe the speed of one ship in miles per hour, then in the next sentence compare it with another ship's speed in kilometers per hour? I honestly had trouble following his description of the Gulf War, and I was alive and adult during it--I can't say that I agree with his conclusions about it, especially given the current situation in Iraq. Another annoyance concerns language--sometimes quotations are given in their original language, sometimes not...sometimes translations are given, sometimes not...I know, Americans are coddled and should be multilingual, but really, how many people in the world know Askati? But most problematic is the outright simplification in order to make Durschmied's point that a single factor changed the course of events. To his credit, at the end of chapters he sometimes contradicts that simplification that he seemed to be making, in "What If" and "The Facts" summaries...but then that in itself seems most strange. So...
What If
Erik Durschmied had had a better editor, or been a native English speaker?
The Facts
The book would have read more smoothly, and conveyed more information; perhaps it would have garnered more stars at Amazon and more sales. But as it is, it's still worth reading for casual history buffs. Serious history researchers will be disappointed. See Tuchman's The Zimmerman Telegram for a very in depth study of a real hinge factor.
Rating: 
Summary: An alternative paradigm
Review: In history class we used to talk about what if scenarios all the time. One of our favorites was, what if Cleopatra had a big fat nose. In theory, Caesar wouldn't have fallen in love with her, taken her side in the Egyptian Civil War, or made her his concubine/wife. It was fun, and interesting learning tool, but limited in applications; Cleopatra nose wasn't big and fat.
In the hinge factor a former war correspondent talks about how such seemingly random and bizarre factors have changed history. From a wooden horse before Troy (arguably not a random factor since it was a deliberate plan) to a surprise killer bee attack against an army in the middle of a modern war, chance is sometimes the biggest factor in history. Here, in addition to the stories referenced above, the author discusses how battles from the American Civil War to the Crimean War, WWII, Vietnam and many others were greatly altered by almost random acts.
Telling you all the details of the stories ruins the fun of this book. I will tell you some of the details of only one story, my favorite. It was about how a drunken army actually lost a battle to themselves! Better still, they only were drunk at that time by a chance meeting between themselves and some merchants and whores.
Every story here is very interesting, short, about 15 or 20 pages, clear, and a quick read. You may actually end up believing that chance is the only element of war. To be fair, "fortune favors the bold" as the saying goes. I might add, and the well prepared. Was it Pasteur who discovered one of his great breakthroughs by chance? I just remember that when asked if he was "lucky" he replied that he was only lucky because he was trained enough and educated enough to be ready when this "lucky break" occurred. So it is, even more so, with war. Enjoy the Hinge Factor, a interesting read -until the end.
Rating: 
Summary: The Hinge factor by Eric Durschmied
Review: The author has written another book "From Armagaddon to fall of Rome" In it there is a very serious factual error. On Chapter on Alexander the grea, he has hinted strorngly that one of his generals, four Lysamachus, was responsible for establishing Mauryan dynasty of India. Also that Emperor Asoka was " involved in the foundation"
Both of these assertions are factually incorrect.
Mauryan empire was founded by Chandragupta and in fact he defeated general Selucas deep inside India
in view of such errors, it is difficult to place reliance on other facts provided by the author in his books re happenings in early times.
Rating:
Summary: Laughing at peoples mistakes and misfortune
Review: The Hinge Factor relates some important events in history as entertaining anecdotes. The book does live up to it's subtitle "How chance and stupidity have changed history". Each of the anecdotes shows how chance or someone's stupid decision changed the outcome of an important historical event. A number of unrelated historical events were chosen as examples.
That is actually the biggest problem with the book. While each example stands on its own, there is no attempt to draw the piece together into a coherent whole. No lessons are drawn. The book comes to no conclusion. Perhaps the author intended that the lessons be clear to the reader from the stories he chose. If so I missed it.
In fact I do not believe the author had any lesson in mind. The events described were chosen for their entertainment value, not for any educational purpose. If that is the authors goal, I would say it was a moderate success.
Durschmied is a television corespondent. That witting style is reflected in The Hinge Factor. Each of the seventeen short vignettes is filled with action and keeps a fast pace. The author never gets boughed down in details or pesky facts. Since each story stands on its own, it is easy to pick the book up and read any one at random. The helps the book server as an occasional diversion.
Rating:
Summary: Laughing at peoples mistakes and misfortune
Review: The Hinge Factor relates some important events in history as entertaining anecdotes. The book does live up to it's subtitle "How chance and stupidity have changed history". Each of the anecdotes shows how chance or someone's stupid decision changed the outcome of an important historical event. A number of unrelated historical events were chosen as examples.
That is actually the biggest problem with the book. While each example stands on its own, there is no attempt to draw the piece together into a coherent whole. No lessons are drawn. The book comes to no conclusion. Perhaps the author intended that the lessons be clear to the reader from the stories he chose. If so I missed it.
In fact I do not believe the author had any lesson in mind. The events described were chosen for their entertainment value, not for any educational purpose. If that is the authors goal, I would say it was a moderate success.
Durschmied is a television corespondent. That witting style is reflected in The Hinge Factor. Each of the seventeen short vignettes is filled with action and keeps a fast pace. The author never gets boughed down in details or pesky facts. Since each story stands on its own, it is easy to pick the book up and read any one at random. The helps the book server as an occasional diversion.
Rating:
Summary: The Hinge factor by Eric Durschmied
Review: The subject of this book intrigued me, as there have been many events in history that historians attribute to the greatness of great men on the winning side, but are more often the result of morons on the losing side.
There were certainly some interesting and even entertaining stories, like the lack of nails at Waterloo, and the barrel of schnapps, but Durschmied too often attributes the events described to a single factor, when it is often a combination of decisions (many of which are sound, given the circumstances) and other factors. Unfortunately, the author is bound by his format to only allow twenty or so pages to events about which volumes have been written.
A couple of times, Durschmied describes the factors which led to a series of events, and claims the "Hinge Factor" was something else entirely. The "Hinge Factor" becomes the spark that ignites an already absurdly inflammatory situation.
This is a pretty light read, and offers a unique perspective, and when taken with a grain of salt, is good reading. Pretty good stuff, but not a lot of substance.
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