A Quick and Dirty Guide to War,...

A Quick and Dirty Guide to War, James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay (Morrow: $9.95). Regional military conflicts--changing with each new attack--and books--usually documents of record--seem an unlikely pair. The job of chronicling recent war developments, thus, has been left to more rapid-fire media: TV and radio news. Yet an information gap remains, for, while broadcast media might capture our interest by dramatically reporting developments in the last 24 hours, they fail to provide the historical focus that can further our understanding of why people are fighting in the first place. One could argue that today’s news media are, in fact, doing us a favor by this act of omission. TV and radio connect us with international developments, imposing on us the onus of understanding a world growing daily in size and complexity. By focusing on events rather than the motivations behind events, the broadcast media take much of this weight off our shoulders.

But insensitivity toward political and cultural realities often leads directly to war, a fact underscored by James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay in this updated edition of a 1985 book. Dunnigan and Bay, military strategists who have worked for the Pentagon and the Army War College, wrote this book to place “present and potential wars” in their proper context. They have succeeded, demonstrating that books can do more than study past wars and provide 20/20 hindsight. Moreover, the authors’ format--concise, even-handed and graphically appealing with a series of charts and rundowns of “key players”--is likely to capture the interest of today’s TV generation. Although the section on the Philippines already is outdated, most of the authors’ observations should remain accurate for years to come.

Here’s Looking at Euclid: The Adventures of Archibald Higgins, Jean-Pierre Petit; translated by Ian Stewart (William Kaufmann Inc., Los Altos, Calif.: $7.95). It’s uncertain whether even the clever title will win readers for this cartoon series, for its apparent target audience--adults interested in reading textbooks--is not overwhelming in size. Archibald Higgins is an earnest fellow struggling to understand the principles behind Euclidean geometry. The author/illustrator, a research scientist living in France, creates cigar-smoking pelicans, menial demons and curvaceous women to help Archibald when he becomes frazzled. But, while fictional characters engage in lively debate in other illustrated educational books for adults, such as Pantheon’s “For Beginners” series, here, the geometric principles are all-too-often overshadowed by comic-book wisecracks.

The Sky Changes: A Novel, Gilbert Sorrentino (North Point: $12.50). Journeying from New York to San Francisco, our narrator, his family and a friend pass through nearly a city per page in this 1966 work, Gilbert Sorrentino’s first novel. Geography is just about the only challenge over which these characters triumph, however, for while the sky does indeed change, all they can see is their own despair and isolation.

This American journey, then, has none of the curiousity and breezy adventurism of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” or the yearning for something better so pervasive in Henry Miller’s “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare.” Yet, while absorbing all of this disillusionment and despair is not easy, readers who do so will discover Sorrentino’s intense concentration and the poignancy of those few moments when redemption seems within reach--the narrator looking at his children, for instance, “chiseled out of sunlight.”

First Across the Roof of the World, Graeme Dingle and Peter Hillary (Salem House: $14.95). The mountaineers’ traditional rejoinder--”Because it’s there”--might explain the motivation behind a single climb, but that reasoning doesn’t do the trick for these authors, who became the first to traverse the Himalayas, ascending and descending a total of 1.5 million feet during their journey. To be the first up was, of course, part of the motivation, but the authors also seem fueled by a desire to travel through “the meeting place of cultures, the birthplace of religions.” Both climbers also are accomplished authors and photographers, and, in this 1982 collaboration, Peter Hillary’s sense of wonder and excitement blends well with Graeme Dingle’s emphasis on strategy.

NOTEWORTHY: Good Enough to Dream, Roger Kahn (Signet: $3.95). Major league rejects--a third baseman who stops everything with his chest, the world’s shortest starting outfield--play baseball with all their hearts on a near-bankrupt minor league team. The Eudaemonic Pie, Thomas A. Bass (Vintage: $5.95). The true story of high-tech enthusiasts from Silicon Valley who hit the road, bound for Las Vegas and--with the aid of a microcomputer using Newtonian mechanics--riches. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams, Donald Spoto (Ballantine: $4.95). Critically praised, dispassionate 1985 biography of the American playwright. Tennessee, Cry of the Heart, Dotson Rader (Plume: $8.95), is flashier than the former: The author became Tennessee Williams’ friend in the 1960s; here, he centers on the playwright’s downward spiral during the last 15 years of his life. James Dean: American Icon, David Dalton (St. Martin’s: $16.95), uses hundreds of pictures and a short narrative to trace how Dean grew from a country boy in the sleepy town of Fairmount, Ind., to a spokesman for America’s younger generation. Discovering the Vernacular Landscape, John Brinckerhoff Jackson (Yale: $6.95), examines culture, urban, suburban and rural design to show how man has shaped--and misshaped--the environment.