Sixty-one pages to discuss Patton's life and military career? I can imagine Steven J. Zaloga thinking "hold my cup" as he takes up the challenge. Like Patton's indomitable tanks, he rumbles through a literary landscape littered with archaic tid-bits, annihilating some while studying others. And just like his subject matter, he succeeds in delivering a short and effectively sharp rendition as evidence of his success.

This is Patton as never before.

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This is an acceptable sketch of an American icon. I don't think that Patton fits into a series of "the greatest commanders of history". After all, Patton's most distinguishing characteristic was his luck not to be in the tough spot (not in the Kasserine Pass, not on D-Day, not in Bastogne). Other generals had to bear the brunt of war, while Patton strutted around, the quintessential PR and party general. In the early 1930s, Patton was even in charge of improving the US cavalry saber. On the positive side, he showed determination and was personally a tough guy.

As far as this booklet is concerned, the author's main interest seem to be Patton's vehicles. It is probably much easier to talk about them than about Patton's command decisions, because, for most of them, he was executing other generals' orders (nothing wrong with that, just not meeting the criteria of a commander). There are a number of misspellings of German words (e.g. the double p in Panzertruppe is a necessary indicator of the correct pronunciation. A quality conscious editor would have caught such easy mistakes.), ( )