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The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. 4: The Gulf War

Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner
Reviewed by By Eliot A. Cohen
July/August 1996
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Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner
Westview
1996
1022 pp.
$98.00

Fourth in a series that has covered the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1973 through 1989, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Afghan and Falklands wars, this is a crushingly complete and data-filled tome. Drawing on the best available sources, including government reports, journalistic coverage, memoirs, and interviews, the authors have amassed an enormous amount of material on the Persian Gulf War. More a reference volume with a technical focus than a book to be read from beginning to end, it none-the-less contains interesting analytical sections and deals well with issues of high policy and strategy. It is, in short, a comprehensive guide to the war, which should stand for some years to come as a most useful work on the subject.

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