Are you bad at math?

Bennett, Jeffrey.  Math for Life: Crucial Ideas You Didn't Learn in School.  Updated Edition.  
        Boulder, CO: Big Kid Science, 2013.  ISBN: 978-1-937548-36-0

Do you consider yourself "bad" at math?  Did you do well in math while in school?  Well, it does not matter what answer you give to those questions as Jeffrey Bennett demonstrates in Math for Life.  You are using math in your daily life whether you realize it or not, although it is generally not algebraic equations.  Dividing a pie evenly, cutting a pizza to fit the number of folks around the table, baking with its use of proportions, etc. all these tasks have you using math unconsciously. 

What Jeffrey Bennett does is have you think about math outside the classroom.  The best chapters are the early ones ("Thinking with Numbers" and "Statistical Thinking")  which concentrate on your interaction with numbers in the real world (not the artificial world of the classroom).  Later chapters focus on money, taxes, deficit spending in the USA, energy, politics and growth.  These later chapters get more esoteric in their focus and reveal authorial bias (conscious and unconscious) in regard to the premise of the question asked or the answers he suggests as correct.

Overall, despite issues with regarding authorial leanings and suggestions in various chapters, Jeffery Bennett does provide sound advice in regard to the importance of math in everyday life and gives generally sound advice on how to improve.  Just remember to ignore advice with which you disagree.

Why Verdun?

Jankowski, Paul.  Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War.  New York: Oxford University
        Press, 2014  ISBN: 978-0-19-931689-2

Many books are written about individual battles in World War I, especially Verdun. For a variety of reasons, Verdun is emblematic  of the fighting on the Western Front in the Great War.  However, Paul Jankowski has not written a normal battle history in Verdun, but rather a meditation  on what many consider the longest battle of World War I.  Rather than a detailed description of the action tracing units involved, personalities, terrain, etc., he opens with a discussion on the place the battle holds in the memories of Frenchmen, Germans and historians.  He explores why the German forces attacked at Verdun, then why the French decided to make a hold-at-all-cost defense there.  He examines the evidence regarding what part the concept of offensive tactics  and rates of attrition played in the battle and how prestige (French and German) controlled the length of the battle.  He looked at what French and German troops thought of the battle and how they viewed each other.  The other major area he covered is why the forces involved continued fighting this battle.

If you are looking for action, consider other titles on Verdun. But if you want a revisionist synthesis on why the battle happened, read on.

One of the Lesser Known Panzer Generals of WWII

Bagdonas, Raymond.  The Devil's General: The Life of Hyazinth Graf von Strachwitz, "The Panzer  
       Graf".  Philadelphia: Casemate, 2013.  ISBN: 978-1-61200-222-4

If you go looking online, you can find tidbits of Hyazinth von Strachwitz's life and career, but not much, so the military history readers will find The Devil's General  a treat.  Raymond Bagdonas provides a life story, not just a World War II tale.  He brings out what details he can uncover of Graf von Strachwitz background and education, early military career, First World War experiences, and the interwar years before concentrating on his Second World War service and finishing with his life after the war. 

Raymond Bagdonas does a credible job of documenting sources when he finds them available.  But as he admits in the introduction,  some things are unknowable since Graf von Strachwitz did not keep a diary that survived, write a memoir or give many interviews after .  This lack of evidence leads to Bagdonas speculating without confirming evidence on why von Strachwitz joined the Nazi Party in the 1932.  He can only argue on what he thinks is the likeliest explanation.  He runs into the same problem in regard to von Strachwitz's joining the plot to overthrow Hitler, lack of documentation.

Overall, the reader of military history, especially those interested in the Eastern Front in the Second World War will appreciate The Devil's General.