Month: July 2025

For July’s book club, we read The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History by Erik Durschmied. The book explores how seemingly small, unpredictable events often involving chance, error, or even stupidity, drastically altered the course of major historical events. The book argues that battles and conflicts are not solely decided by the brilliance of generals or the strength of armies, but are also were significantly influenced by what Durschmied calls the “hinge factor”. 

While military history is in no way my typical fare, I enjoyed this book. Each chapter is in a sense standalone with all the pay off at the end when he walks through the what could have been if not for the “hinge factor”. What is probably least enjoyable about it is the lack of a takeaway chapter to chapter and the lack of value for human life.

If there are themes you can draw it is that unexpected factors, such as bad weather, miscommunication, or individual errors are far too often the reason why glory was attained…NOT the skills or lack thereof. Durschmied examines battles from the Trojan War to the Gulf War, showcasing how the hinge factor played a role in each. 

What I enjoyed most was the challenge of traditional military narratives. By emphasizing the impact of chance and error, the book challenges the perception that military victories are solely the result of strategic brilliance. There is no consistent theme from the battles he selects: in some cases indecision saves the day, and in others decisiveness wins. The book is written in an engaging style, each chapter standing on its own, and what it lacks in greater context historically is something I found I wanted to follow up upon (lots of Wikipedia surfing and even a Great Courses set of follow ups to learn more). 

The most interesting examples of battles that were subject to “the Hinge factor” included:

• The Battle of Agincourt: The muddy battlefield, a result of bad weather, hampered the French knights’ mobility, contributing to their defeat by the English archers
• The Battle of Waterloo: Napoleon’s failure to secure victory was partly attributed to the lack of nails for spiking cannons, preventing his artillery from being effective against Wellington’s forces
• The Battle of Balaclava: The disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade was the result of a poorly worded order, highlighting the dangers of miscommunication and stubbornness
• The Battle of Tannenberg: A slap in the face of a Russian officer by a German officer years before the battle indirectly influenced the outcome of the battle
• The Battle of Tanga:  A swarm of angry bees caused the British forces to panic and retreat, demonstrating the impact of unexpected natural events.

I won’t say I’ll become an avid reader of military history, but this was a unique foray into the topic and I enjoyed it.

Frances “Frankie” McGraw is a young woman from a privileged background raised on California’s idyllic Coronado Island. At the tender age of 22 she’s told “women can be heroes too” and that idea changes her life. In the world she inhabits, she’d never considered there could be a different path to life than marriage. Most of what she has been exposed to is women who raise children and spend their spare time in the country club. Her desire to earn the respect of her parents and follow her beloved brother into a warzone leads to her (rashly) signing up to the Army Nursing Corp. It isn’t a decision that is welcomed by her parents. They are horrified–they do not want for her war and bravery. That is for their son to do, not their daughter, but the die has been cast, and it cannot be undone.

Frankie, like many of the troops sent to fight, is little more than a child when she arrives in Vietnam a few short weeks later. While she apparently has a nursing degree, she is inexperienced and totally unprepared for the realities of war–she cannot even start an IV. Frankie is thrown into her first MASCAL (mass casualty incident) pretty much immediately and is soon questioning whether or not she’s cut out for the job. 

Frankie does make it through however mostly by builds strong bonds with the women she’s serving with. Thanks to their support and guidance, Frankie finds her place and becomes resolute in her mission to do some good, to bring comfort to the injured and dying, and to help the Vietnamese people caught in the middle of the conflict.

Kristin Hannah paints vivid images of war. The operating room, the injuries she describes, the villages and atrocities…each are at times horrific. Against the backdrop of war, Hannah manages to depict lighter moments too; the camaraderie between the women, the celebrations when people finished a tour and that unbreakable bond between the people who were there. Those ‘lighter’ moments never felt too jarring, it’s a reality of war and even during those moments of “downtime” the threat of danger was still present.

I found that the story seemed to happen to Frankie while she was in Vietnam–she managed to survive without really growing. And maybe that is inevitable for a character going through a crucible. She was poorly trained and in a desperately risky situation, and yet, she survives and improves as a nurse. She falls in love multiple times, and while tragedies occur, she lives, she loves again, and she continues in some sense to bumble through her experiences making similar mistakes over and over again. It is really only in part two, when Frankie returns home, that she begins to learn the lessons from her time in the war.

Frankie is in no way prepared for the reception awaiting her at home, and maybe it is that rude awakening that finally forces her to confront reality. It’s well documented that those returning from Vietnam were treated as pariahs; they were labelled ‘baby killers’ and were spat at for their service. Many were left with life changing injuries, struggling with PTSD, yet they were shunned and left with little support. The learning for me was that for women like Frankie who served, the military itself gave them nowhere to turn to. “They weren’t there” was the refrain every time Frankie sought support.

Women who served in the war had seen many of the same horrors, they’d lost people they loved, suffered injuries, and been left traumatized, found themselves written out of history, their service erased. For women like Frankie, there was nowhere to turn to, and no place where they belonged, and in many ways I feel that injustice is what Hannah is attempting to rectify in this novel.

Frankie’s reintegration into ‘normal life’ is in some sense more distressing than her time in Vietnam. It’s like watching someone slowly drown. She makes some bad decisions, can be frustratingly naive, and isn’t always easy to like, but it’s clear how much pain she’s in and how alone she feels. Despite how bad her decision making and luck seem to be, Frankie continues to love, show empathy, and find the ability to forgive others, which occasionally struck me as deeply unlikely.

Despite some of the frustrations with Frankie’s personality and journey, The Women was an enjoyable read. It’s a powerful story about a distressing period in history – Hannah does not shy away from the crimes committed and the uncomfortable truths about what America did. At the heart of the novel is a story of humanity, telling the tale of the heroic women who made huge sacrifices for their country.

Hannah put significant time and research into this book, maybe to the detriment of the character development of her protagonist, but certainly for this history-loving individual, I enjoyed reading an alternate view of the war.