Customer Reviews

Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

If you expect a book talking about tank development from a technical standpoint read no further - DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. If you want to read about sorcery, witchcraft and how it is realted to tank development - read on! All the looneys are out in full force here - a bevy of British black priests, and other musings totally "out there." I suffered through most of it, skimming constantly and slowing down when encountering the witches and stuff (for amusement). I guess if you want to know "everything" about tanks and how they "fit in" with the "grand scheme of things" then read the book.

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

Cultural studies academics often end up throwing a lot of ideas out at the reader, hoping that some will stick. Wright's book reads more like a collection of essays than a coherent study of the social image of the tank. Some of the chapters are good (the mysticism of J.F.C. Fuller, the tank in Poland) while others show weak research (the modern U.S. Army and the tank.) In some places, especially as the book closes in on contemporary issues, one can easily detect the modern academics sniffy disdain for anyone who wears a uniform. Especially an American uniform. And where is any discussion of the image of victorious panzers in Nationalist Socialist propaganda? Nonetheless, this is book worth reading, less so for the tank buff than for a reader who is interested more in the impact of war upon society. Recommended for college and university collections.

This is a very difficult book to get through; it is full of frustrating dead ends, miscellaneous ramblings and just plain silliness. I am still trying to figure out exactly what the author's point of view really was, because he seems to write in a very sarcastic and obnoxious style that makes this more of a personal political and social commentary than any sort of military history. I mean, a dozen pages on Fuller's early fascination with mysticism? And this translates into exactly what about the history of the tank??

I can certainly give the author some leeway in his initial contention that the tank itself has had some kind of social history all unto itself... but I find his proof rather thin. Just saying that the British displayed tanks in an effort to raise money for the Great War is interesting, but this is hardly proof of anything other than people's fascination with big scary machines. Big dump trucks and trains attract just as much attention, when is their book coming out?

In short, I did not find many convincing arguments in this work. Even if we forget the painful writing style, I just don't find much here to recommend. As one other reviewer wrote, isn't the tank just a tool of war? If it truly is a metaphor for totalitarianism (as the author claims in his VERY lengthy treatise on Tianaman Square), then can't it also be seen as a great liberator? (like in Kuwait in 1991?). One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, and to attach ANY sort of social description to an object like a tank is just pointless. Is this an interesting book? Sure, if you can stomach the style and forget about learning anything new. Students of history can use this to learn how NOT to write about a subject.

This book is a mixture of tank development and use and an odd viewpoint of what is after all just a tool of war. It reminds me of what book critics claim to have been in an author's mind, greatly surprising the author when he reads their words. The development of the tank and tank tactics is good; the author's psychological views of tanks and tank crews is off the wall.
Still, it's worth buying for one's military library.
-USAF fighter pilot, retired

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.

Wright has an unusual writing style in that his sentences are very long. Up to 9 or ten lines in many places. The book covers mundane topics such as public opinion of tanks, cartoonists and writers perceptions of the tank and so on. The book drags like an anchor in many places.
The book is full of snipits of trivia and information that you won't find elsewhere concerning the development of the tank from WWI to the present day. The book does a good job discussing Russian and German tank warfare on the eastern front. He also does a fine job describing the six day war and the Yom Kippur wars in the middle east. However, he does not discuss the U.S very much. He hardly mentions the M-60, and the M-48 tanks and devotes a thin chapter to the M-1. My advice is to skip this one and buy Tom Clancy's Armored Cav.

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.

This is a very strange book. It is most definitely not a comprehensible history of the tank as a military machine. Rather it is a hodgepodge of fragments of the past, present and future of the tank; its alleged role in crushing civil dissent; its symbolic value and a host of other things. In short, it is a confusing mess.

Unfortunately it is not well written or edited. Spelling errors abound. Paragraphs average between 15 - 20 sentences.The sentence construction is complex and often confusing.

I cannot classify this book. The dustjack claims it is a chronicle of the creation and evolution of the tank. It is, but not a very thorough one and clearly not intended for the military history buff. The dustjacket goes on to claim that Wright cocnentrates on images and impressions of the tank and its impact on the general public, "the symbolic life of a machine." In my opinion, the author fails with both objectives.

The idea sounds good, but this author doesn't pull it off.

Jerry