"Collectively, THE NEW YORK TIMES SURVEY SERIES is designed to better inform the American people of what is happening around the world today, what underlies our present problems, and what can and should be done about them. These practical `background' books are especially appropriate for busy people - students, professional and business people - who need to know and understand more about the great, relevant issues of the day."
Dana Adams Schmidt was a correspondent for the New York Times for three decades, covering Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He also worked as a correspondent for the United Press and for the Christian Science Monitor. He authored four books: Anatomy of a Satellite, Journey Among Brave Men, Yemen: The Unknown War, and Armageddon in the Middle East.
A graduate of Pomona College and the Columbia School of Journalism, he won a Pulitzer traveling scholarship from Columbia in 1937 and received the George Polk Award from the Overseas Press Club for his reporting on the Kurdish rebellion.
I think that with this much to successfully way back in the past early 1900's to about little less than 1950's tells us that many people had to sacrifice their lives in order to complete a mission or win the war. Not something I would read, but its okay so that I am aware of what could possibly happen at some point if a large army group of soldiers are either sent out of country to help another country take over enemy sectors or many people in America get recruited to defend it as assault soldiers, medical soldiers, soldiers with more supplies than anyone else in case if someone needs supply, and scout soldiers that keep an eye out for other snipers or even planes so that everyone can take cover in time.
Very informative read. An old book so I'm not sure how out of date some of the statistics and citations might be, but as a layman reader I thought it did a good job of explaining things clearly. Only problem with it was how plain it was, but that's to be expected of any nonfiction book that sets out to give an objective view of anything. All in all it does a great job of going over the solutions to these problems.
Even though it is a bit dated now (the final agreements having not yet been finalized after the 1973 war), it remains a well-balanced review of the challenges of the Middle East, brought to light again by Israel’s violent desire to wipe out Palestinians from the Gaza strip.
It's an interesting time-capsule of the first 25 years of Arab-Israeli conflict since the birth of Israel. Some prescient conjecture alongside a little unnecessary editorializing.