Creating a language-learning program may not sound like the kind of material to set the readers' pulse racing, but author Roger Dingman has a unique and compelling story to tell.
In this book about war and language, the author wisely focuses on one particular group, the Navy Language School at the University of Colorado, and its affiliated Oklahoma A&M College at Stillwater.
Dingman provides the background to the onset of World War II, analyzing the emotional discourse, as well as the voices of reason associated with people like the very prescient but barely heeded Albert Hindmarsh, who, after visiting Tokyo in 1937, became a firm advocate of "designing and erecting peace- preserving machinery," before the warmongers got the upper hand.