TheStreet.Com Ratings Ultimate Guided Tour of Stock Investing, Spring 2009 Book

Pulled out 'The Shield' recently and re-read some sections - Bobbitt is an interesting character, a constitutional lawyer and historian. I heard him speak at the Stanford Law and Ethics Forum a few weeks ago on 'Terror and Consent' which is also the title of his new book. The 'Shield' is of door-stop dimensions, but it had (for me) great value. He traces the dynamic, evolutionary relationship between the internal, constitutional order of states and the external challenges of strategy and war, beginning in the 15th century He argues that the effectiveness of internal mechanisms of order is proven (or not) in the Darwinian arena of foreign affairs. For example the so called 'long war'- all the conflicts between 1914 and the Peace of Paris in 1990 were (in his terms) an epochal war between the constitutional orders of fascism,communism and democracy. We are now, according to Bobbitt, in the beginning phases of a new epochal war, the war on terror, the first in which it will not require a state to destroy a state and which will force constitutional changes to survive the challenge. Gotta love a big picture guy. But he could use a brevity focused editor. Recommended- but be prepared to skim!