ACC Book Club Returns (Expired)

Date & Time:
Location:San Francisco Room

The ACC Book and Discussion Club will resume meeting on Thursday, February 10, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the San Francisco Room. 

Members are welcome to participate whether or not they have read the principal book under discussion.  We focus on the topics of the book and related writings as well as on the book itself.

The featured book this month is 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis.  No reader can deny that Taiwan, as a perennial cause of US-China tensions, plays a role in this story where a Chinese cyber attack on US Navy ships in the South China Sea sparks a spiral of escalation into full scale war.  While the book posits a world war to come in little more than a decade, much more has been written by scholars and journalists on the future of Taiwan.  Expect to share your views in a lively discussion about Taiwan’s future and its relationships with China and the United States.

This meeting will also select a topic and a book (or books) for discussion at the next meeting.  If time permits, expect to start on a list of favorite books from which we can choose future topics and reading for discussion.

One copy of the book will be available by the end of January for check out in the library or you may be interested to purchase on your own through the following e- bookstore ( Books.com.tw / Eslite Bookstore ) in Taiwan.

For further information and to register your interest, contact fellow Member Syd Goldsmith at syd.goldsmith@gmail.com or register at the Library.

Review

“It is hard to write in great detail about what ensues in this novel without giving away the drama of its denouement. Suffice it to say that there is conflict and catastrophe on a large scale, and it unfolds, as major conflicts tend to, with surprising twists and turns . . . The strengths of the novel are anything but incidental to the background of one of its authors, Adm. Stavridis, a former destroyer and carrier strike group commander who retired from the Navy in 2013 as NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. . . . Adm. Stavridis not only understands how naval fleets work; he has clearly given a great deal of thought to America’s biggest strategic risks, and at the top of the list is war with China, which, as this book seems designed to point out, could occur quite by accident and at almost any time . .. One of the messages of this book is that war is utterly unpredictable and that opportunist adversaries of the U.S. are likely to play important roles in any widening confrontation . . . 2034 is nonetheless full of warnings. Foremost is that war with China would be folly, with no foreseeable outcome and disaster for all. This is not a pessimistic book about America’s potential, but the picture of the world it paints before the central conflict will be a difficult one for many to accept, albeit one well supported by facts. ” —Wall Street Journal
Click here to read more reviews listed on Amazon.