Tank is a work by Patrick Wright, a professor of cultural studies, on the cultural impact of tanks in the 20th Century. At first this seems like a rather select subject to write a book about, but even with the specialized subject matter, Mr. Wright doesn't manage to cover all the ground of the tank in twentieth century warfare.

This book is not a military history, although it includes plenty of details of military history. The book talks about such famous cultural images as the man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square and the Polish Cavalry charging Nazi tanks in World War II. Other than that, the book also talks about the initial conception of the tank was not just a break through in technology, but involved a reconceptualizing of warfare.

Of the books 19 chapters, at least 4 are primarily concerned with General JFC Fuller, the commander of the United Kingdom's tank brigade in the First World War and an important theoretician of blitzkreig in the interwar period. He was also a member of the Ordo Temporalis Orientalis and the British Union of Facists, a point that Professor Wright explores in some detail.

Apart from the intial development of the tank, the next most indepth discussion is the efforts of Israel Tav to develop the Merkava Main Battle Tank for the Israel Defense Force, and some of the attending cultural issues of this development. Scattered around the book are such interesting discussions as the initial artistic depictions of the tank, of the charge of the Polish Cavalry (which according to Professor Wright, never really happened), the Tiananmen Square incident, the painting of a tank pink in Prague, and the like.

This is a very entertaining book, and well written with some interesting points. On the other hand, while there is some interesting points brought up about the general role of economy, society, and the like, this book doesn't really have a central thesis as far as I could tell, so it is not a "serious academic book" as much as just a book of ideas. About tanks. And their cultural imagery.