Book Description
The very name of Judas raises among Christians an instinctive reaction of criticism and condemnationThe betrayal of Judas remainsa mystery. Pope Benedict XVI, October 2006 The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot sheds new light on the the mystery of Judasincluding his motives for the betrayal and what happened to him after the crucifixionby retelling the story of Jesus through the eyes of Judas, using the canonical texts as its basic point of reference. Ostensibly written by Judass son, Benjamin, and following the narrative style of the Gospels, this re-creation is provocative, compelling, and controversial. The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot is the result of an intense collaboration between a storyteller and a scholar: Jeffrey Archer and Francis J. Moloney. Their brilliant workbold and simpleis a compelling story for twenty-first-century readers, while maintaining an authenticity that would be credible to a first-century Christian or Jew.
Customer Reviews:
nice effort, unfortunately dull.......2007-09-25
I was waiting for something interesting to happen, some insight... I didn't really come across anything new.
Overall, a bit disappointing, luckily not a big book.
For much more illuminating Biblical historical fiction, I highly recommend the Kingdom & the Crown Series by Gerald Lund (3 books) and the Women of Genesis books by Orson Scott Card.
It actually has nothing to do with 'mysteries' of Judas.......2007-07-06
Oh come on people:
"The unlikely partnership of Jeffrey Archer and Francis J. Moloney was formed after Archer had sought advice from Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini on who should guide him through this demanding project. Among his many past students of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Cardinal Martini singled
out Professor Moloney, a graduate of that institute in 1972, who had completed his doctoral studies at Oxford University in 1975.
The project was as bold as it was simple: Archer would write a story for twenty-first-century readers, while Moloney would ensure that the result would be credible to a first-century Christian or Jew."
And that's EXACTLY the case. An interesting read.
Judas the Ensnared.......2007-06-28
I've been reading Archer since Kane and Abel and when I saw that he was writing a fictionalized account of the life of Judas as told by his son, I thought, wow, this could really be a great read and a little controversial. Neither came true. Basically, it's formatted like the gospels (nothing wrong with that), but just not an exciting read this time around. I was actually kind of bored reading it and the only reason I kept going was because it came in at around ninety pages so I persevered with it. The last chapter or two is when the basis of the story comes out and nothing earth shattering here. Judas was the victim of the religious zealots at the time to get rid of Christ. Maybe, maybe not. Does it change my point of view or my beliefs, probably not. Just something more to ponder about; the Bible, its writers (Did they embellish the truth from generation to generation before writing it down, whether on purpose or by accident. Kind of difficult to keep the same exact story going for tens or even hundreds of years orally without some of it being changed on the next telling), and the facts that surround it that science today continues to try to prove happened. I expected Archer to put this into more story form like all his other works and I think then he could have gone into more depth with this alternate theory and really provoked the reader's imagination. But he chose not to, giving us instead this lackluster rendition of what could have been a great story about Judas Iscariot.
The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot.......2007-06-21
The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
Where Do I begin. Lets start with the title, The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot by Jeffrey Archer, come on!! It should be the fictional story of The Gospel According to Judas by Jeffrey Archer as Benjamin Iscariot.
A Relevant Story:
A friend of mine recently told me of a Pastor who liked to make hot fudge, apparently he used all organic ingredients. One day the Pastor's daughter wanted to see PG parental guidance rated movie, that only had 5%, swearing/drug use or sex scenes. After much insistence the daughter when to see the movie, the next day the Pastor decided to make some hot chocolate fudge the aroma filled the house the Pastor stated that he'd used 5% of a special organic source and kept the matter a secret until all the fudge had been consumed. Then he asked did you notice any difference in the quality/flavour? No.. they replied, well the 5% special ingredient was organic it wont do any REAL harm, it was only dog p##h. lol
If you take a solid truth as the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus and you contaminant 5% to 10% of it with a special 'organic substance' what do you have in the end - dog p##h. I felt the tone and reason for the book was a Jewish backlash hardliner trying to have some justification why Jesus wasn't who he said he was the Son of God. The book was written from the sour grapes attitude, "[Jesus wasn't] ...the long-awaited Messiah."p1, on the betrayal of Christ, Archer says, "...Judas knew that he was innocent of such an accusation, as his only purpose was to save Jesus from an unnecessary death." After Jesus' Death, the sorrowful Judas goes a lives amongst the Essenes then a Masada as a "marked man". And the book concludes with "Judas died as Jesus did. He was crucified by the Romans." It's all a bit desperate!
The whole story Gospel of Judas is unbalanced what about Isaiah 53 The Sin-bearing, Suffering Servant? The Gospel of Judas omits the 30 pieces of silver, and suicide of Judas. The Gospel of Judas is nothing more that fragments of quotation out of context in Holy Bible blended together (very poorly) it just doesn't stick!
Let us set aside a few things, just say by chance that this gospel of Judas was right, and the whole of the New Testament wrong. Ok we've been deceived by the BIGGEST hoaxes since man made fire. We could be waiting for the Messiah to still come as the Gospel of Judas indicated, unhappily Israel still waits, they missed the boat. Not one Holy Prophet has been around for over two thousand years.
Israel is one of the most violent, sad and godless places on earth. There is no peace, the temple has gone, the glory has gone, as a nation they forsook the Lord time and time again and were taken off to captivity. Jesus said in Matt 23:37 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city the kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See your house is left to you, desolate..."
Now let's just say that the Gospel of Judas is false piece of fiction. Look at the people in New Testament who believe and were change by it and gave their lives for it (Peter & Paul), they did not write empty words by words of someone who knew and walked and talked with Jesus. The story of people in Bible give us hope, in a world where we are saturated with Hollywood, sexism, drugs and alcohol, domestic violence (rape/guns) the list keeps on going on. I want freedom from all that this world offers because it like hot sweet chocolate fudge one isn't enough and one piece is too much.
In closing a quote from James 3:13, "Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.
What was Archer really trying to achieve by the release of this book?
Lacks Impact.......2007-05-28
In spite of the clever packaging---this small 100+ page novel appears to be an ancient leather-bound journal complete with built in ribbon bookmark--- Jeffrey Archer's "The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot" fails to deliver the punch needed to smack it into the significance realm of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
I expected some grand revelation---perhaps Judas and Jesus had concocted the whole betrayal bit; Judas gladly takes the hit and for two millennia is thought to be the ultimate 30 pieces of silver traitor. As I read this little gospel formatted tome, I am thinking, Judas's legendary despicable actions were all part of his Master's ultimate plan, right?
Wrong.
Supposedly, in "The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot" Archer and Moloney collaborate to formulate a tale believable to both Biblical scholars and modern laymen readers. The format definitely bespeaks of their desire to create something that resembles a gospel rendering complete with chapter and verse and the Jesus quotations (most of which are familiar from evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) highlighted in a red italicized font. Nevertheless, the story itself disappoints as it is far too similar to the actual gospels from which it is based to excite any degree of controversy. The supposed mystery of the real Judas simply neglects to properly mystify.
Bottom line? Years ago, I had read Frank Yerby's novel, "Judas, My Brother." Believe me as scandalous as the plotline of this older book seemed to me then, it could far more captivate its audience now than this Archer-Moloney collaboration. Sadly, "The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot" attempts to retell the story of Christ's ministry utilizing a fifth evangelist format that simply doesn't work. Why read this when the original four authors of the New Testament gospels have already told the tale and have told it the best way possible? Not recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"
Book Description
The long-awaited final volume of Chalmers Johnson’s bestselling
Blowback trilogy confronts the overreaching of the American empire and the threat it poses to the republic
In his prophetic book Blowback, Chalmers Johnson linked the CIA’s clandestine activities abroad to disaster at home. In The Sorrows of Empire, he explored the ways in which the growth of American militarism and the garrisoning of the planet have jeopardized our stability. Now, in Nemesis, he shows how imperial overstretch is undermining the republic itself, both economically and politically.
Delving into new areas—from plans to militarize outer space to Constitution-breaking presidential activities at home and the devastating corruption of a toothless Congress—Nemesis offers a striking description of the trap into which the dreams of America’s leaders have taken us. Drawing comparisons to empires past, Johnson explores in vivid detail just what the unintended consequences of our dependence on a permanent war economy are likely to be. What does it mean when a nation’s main intelligence organization becomes the president’s secret army? Or when the globe’s sole “hyperpower,” no longer capable of paying for the vaulting ambitions of its leaders, becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all times?
In his stunning conclusion, Johnson suggests that financial bankruptcy could herald the breakdown of constitutional government in America—a crisis that may ultimately prove to be the only path to a renewed nation.
Customer Reviews:
Nemesis, by Chalmers Johnson.......2007-10-17
This is a wonderful and insightful look at our country's foreign and military policy. It is factual and well written. It is a "probably too late" wake-up call that we are creating our own downfall both fiscally and politically on the international stage. This is the kind of information and insights that the mainstream media should be presenting, but is not. I recommend this book to everyone.
We have met the enemy and they is us.......2007-10-15
If "Lawless World" by Phillippe Sands was disturbing (see my review) then "Nemesis" is frightening. If Chalmers Johnson has a proven record for political prophecy, then in this instance I hope he is wrong.
In excruciating detail, Johnson reveals the mistakes and hubris of half a century of leadership that has led us to where we are today, a messy war, a trillion dollar national debt, and a crumbling internal infrastructure, sacrificed to an increasingly expensive empire of military bases all over the world, our "outposts" of empire.
In his book, Johnson demonstrates his contention that by interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states, undermining democratically elected governments that were "not to our liking" and engaging in covert operations often with disasterous results to the countries involved, we often left chaos and discord as well as poverty in our wake. More often, we established a permanent presence in the form of a military base. Why do they hate us?
The question is why wouldn't they. Johnson quotes Harry Browne: "When America is no longer a threat to the world, the world will no longer threaten us."
Johnson makes a good case for the egregious behavior of the current administration being an almost inevitable result of a series of incompetent administrations, abuse of executive power, and concomitant international and domestic crises and events, many of them provoked by us via the CIA. The CIA has become the "president's private army". This has resulted in what Johnson calls the "imperial presidency".
Imperialism (the practice of acquiring economic and political hegemony over other nations) is incompatible with democracy. Johnson makes it patently obvious that the Bush administration has taken abuse of executive power to a new level. Right-wing columnist George Will has termed it a "monarchical doctrine". Left-wing commentator James Ridgeway put it, "a consistent and long-range policy to wreck constitutional government." Given the administration's disregard for both domestic and international law, Bruce Shneier, author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World", sees an ominous development. "The president can define war however he chooses , and remain at war for as long as he chooses. This is indefinite dictatorial power......the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law."
The result is an impotent Congress, a confused electorate and a White House that known no bounds.
To quote Johnson: "All empires it seems, require myths of divine right, racial preeminence, manifest destiny, or a civilizing mission to cover their own barbarous behavior in other people's countries."
One is forced to question just what temerity allows George W. Bush to claim his own brand of divine right. To quote theologian Rheinhold Niebuhr,"the tendency to claim God as our ally for our partisan values is the source of all religious fanaticism." Indeed, one is forced to consider which fundamentalism, Bush's Christian one or the Islamic is the more insidious and pernicious.
This book is a must read for anyone who is seriously interested in why our country seems to be not only hated by so much of the rest of the world, but so divided among ourselves.
Crossing the Rubicon.......2007-09-08
This book answers Michael Moore's question, "Where's my country?" The author's scholarly and carefully reasoned answer is that the constitutional republic we once had has evolved into an empire. Johnson traces the rise of militarism, the hidden and often ill-conceived interventions of the CIA and the devastating "blowback" from them, and the enormous power the United States projects through its hundreds of overseas military bases, as well as our plans to militarize space.
I found that the book explained many events that are extremely puzzling if one continues to believe that the United States is a high-minded democracy, but make perfect sense from the point of view of empire.
Johnson's conlusion, that we are on the cusp of a choice between the path taken by Rome into empire and dictatorship vs. that chosen by Great Britain to dissolve its empire but preserve its democracy, was compelling and sobering.
I would recommend Nemesis to anyone, regardless of political slant, who seriously wants to make sense of the role the United States plays in the world today, and the world's reaction to it.
On the brink of a military dictatorship.......2007-08-12
Chalmers Johnson is deeply pessimistic about the future of the US and its citizens. He sees at the horizon `a collapse of constitutional government, perpetual war, endemic official lying and disinformation and finally bankruptcy. We are at the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire.'
For him, the heart of the matter is `military Keynesianism' (the US economy is mightily based on weapon manufacturing) and the goal of the military-intelligence community (full spectrum dominance over the world and in space).
But this imperial adventure is far too costly. The US spends more on armed forces than all other nations on earth combined, for more than 737 military bases in more than 130 countries. Also, space weapons are pure waste. A space shield doesn't work, because weapons cannot make a distinction between warheads and free floating space debris. `The neoconservative lobbyists are only interested in the staggering sums required.'
The US enormous military budget (of which 40 % is secret) is not paid by US taxpayers, but by foreign investors in US debt.
In the meantime, democracy is undermined. Chalmers Johnson doesn't see `any president or Congress standing up to the powerful vested interests of the Pentagon, the secret intelligence agencies and the military-industrial complex.' The separation of powers is becoming a dead letter. The legislative and the judicial branches have lost their independence.
The author is extremely hard for the current government, calling members of the Administration `desk-murderers'. For him, `putting the ruler above the law is the very definition of dictatorship.' Its TIA (Total Information Awareness) program `is the perfect US computer version of Gestapo and KGB files.' He is extremely angry with the US media, calling them `Pravda-like mouthpieces of the powerful.'
For him, what Congress really should do is abolish the CIA and remove all purely military functions from the Pentagon.
This hard-hitting book is more than a very solid warning. It is a must read for all those interested in the future of mankind.
For a view from the South, I highly recommend `Dilemmas of Domination' by Walden Bello.
Mandatory Foreign Policy Reading.......2007-07-28
If you want to read an unvarnished assessment of America's foreign policy by a scholar and former insider this book will more than suffice. Johnson evaluates the military-industrial complex, foreign policy tactics, and the imperialistic tendencies of contemporary America and how they are all contributing to our very real ongoing downfall. Johnson is not afraid to prove how our own covert and overt policies have contributed to the war and terror that plague our nation.
Book Description
On a hazy November afternoon in Rangoon, 1862, a shrouded corpse was escorted by a small group of British soldiers to an anonymous grave in a prison enclosure. As the British Commissioner in charge insisted, “No vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Moghuls rests.”
Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor, was a mystic, an accomplished poet and a skilled calligrapher. But while his Mughal ancestors had controlled most of India, the aged Zafar was king in name only. Deprived of real political power by the East India Company, he nevertheless succeeded in creating a court of great brilliance, and presided over one of the great cultural renaissances of Indian history.
Then, in 1857, Zafar gave his blessing to a rebellion among the Company’s own Indian troops, thereby transforming an army mutiny into the largest uprising any empire had to face in the entire course of the nineteenth century. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj’s Stalingrad: one of the most horrific events in the history of Empire, in which thousands on both sides died. And when the British took the city—securing their hold on the subcontinent for the next ninety years—tens of thousands more Indians were executed, including all but two of Zafar’s sixteen sons. By the end of the four-month siege, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and Zafar was sentenced to exile in Burma. There he died, the last Mughal ruler in a line that stretched back to the sixteenth century.
Award-winning historian and travel writer William Dalrymple shapes his powerful retelling of this fateful course of events from groundbreaking material: previously unexamined Urdu and Persian manuscripts that include Indian eyewitness accounts and records of the Delhi courts, police and administration during the siege. The Last Mughal is a revelatory work—the first to present the Indian perspective on the fall of Delhi—and has as its heart both the dazzling capital personified by Zafar and the stories of the individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history.
Customer Reviews:
A poisenous book.......2007-09-25
Exquisitely researched and well written, describing past lives and events that appear as real as if the reader had been a material witness, this book's quality of writing reminds me of Dalrymple's "White Mughals", dealing with British servants of the East India Company who "went native" by adopting Muslim customs in the early decades of the Raj. In "The Last Mughal", however, Dalrymple has gone native himself, by trumpeting Muslim culture as superior to all things Western at every turn. Especially irritating are the infrequent but none-too-subtle parallels he draws with the present : it seems America is the new Raj, whose "undisguised imperial arrogance" rose after the fall of the Berlin Wall - a gratuitous opinion lacking any bearing on this book's subject, the end of the Mughal Dynasty in India. Dalrymple rants between the lines, describing the West - then and now - as nothing but a bunch of rapacious pilferers and murderers, who uproot delicately balanced, refined, pacifist, tolerant, and multicultural Muslim societies, composed solely of courtiers, courtesans and poets. This was, to use a British understatement, a trifle at variance with reality, as both Hindu and Muslim ruling classes of the period wallowed in disgusting wealth while their subjects lived miserable lives in abject poverty. The imperialist, but now long gone Raj at least curbed the worst excesses of the Indian princes and laid the foundations of modern India, from the civil service to railroad infrastructure, but not a word of this is whispered here. One virtue of the book is that it shows the true character of the disciples of the Prophet, who managed to turn a Hindu mutiny into a jihad in no time. Also instructive is Dalrymple's enthousiastic, gushing descriptions of sword-wielding jihadis "duly dispatching" helpless British women and children during the "Uprising", in stark contrast with the "brutal killings" by British "psychopaths". No doubt atrocities were committed on both sides, but the double standard in describing them rankles, while references to present "Western arrogance and imperialism" reveals the bias of the author who, by the way, prefers living in the arrogant West over residing in a delicately balanced, refined, pacifist, tolerant, and multicultural Muslim society. This is a poisonous book, unworthy of being termed objective historical writing.
no dry history book.......2007-09-15
A surprisingly readable history of a dark and troubled time in India's history. Britain rode roughshod over thousands of years of civilisation on the sub-Continent seeking to impose Christianity on an unwilling populace. The invaders believed that their way of life was simply superior to that of that of the subjugated masses. History continues to repeat these terrble crimes into the 20th and 21st centuries.
Simply Magnificent.......2007-09-07
Live in the Delhi of 1857. Watch and feel the vibrancy of the sophisticated and cultured life of Delhi. Read the most understandable account of the whats and whys of the Indian Mutiny. Literally watch an entire city of 150,000 people destroyed. Move along the roads and alleys of Delhi as its citizens are slaughtered by the avenging British Army greatly assisted by Indians themselves with a substantial part of the genocide underwritten by Indian moneylenders. You will get a first hand view of the end of the 300 year old Mughal rule on the subcontinent, and understand why religious extremism (represented in this book largely by evangalical christians) has done the world no good for centuries. You will be reminded about how very thin is the veneer of civilization and tolerance and that when it comes to slaughtering their own species there is no parallel to us humans.
A book of great beauty based on immaculate research with great relevance to today's world.
The standard by which all books on this subject will henceforth be judged.
timely.......2007-08-29
a fascinating commentary on british colonialism. dalrymple makes a convincing case for the mutiny being a harbinger of the empire's collapse. there are some clear parallels with the united states' current embroglios in afghanistan and iraq.
this is a must read, and is made much more enjoyable by an abundance of newly presented (and translated) historical documents that provide insight to ongoings of zafar's court and east india company. such documentation sheds light on the diverse religious/social dynamics of both sides of the conflict. i was astounded to hear that 60 % of the soldiers used by the british to control the sepoys were of indian descent (mostly sikhs, if memory serves).
"The light has gone out of India. The land is lampless.".......2007-08-12
A great strength of 'The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857' by William Dalrymple (White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India) is its use not only of more familiar British sources, but also many Indian (Urdu and Persian) sources on one of pivotal events in the history of both India and the British Empire, the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence as it is also sometimes called.
Dalrymple describes his excitement at discovering some 20,000 Persian and Urdu documents in the Indian national Archives. A particularly important source was the 'Dihli Urdu Akhbar' a principal Urdu newspaper that continued to publish during the revolt. These sources allow Dalrymple to give voice to the Indian as well the British point of view.
In 1857 the sepoys of the British Raj's Bengal Army mutinied (the reasons are explored in the book, but were at least partly due to a clash of newly arrived Christian evangelicals and adherents of Islam and Hindu). What began as mutiny became something larger at least in part because the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II endorsed it.
Dalrymple centers his telling of the tale on Zafar, the man destined to become the last Mughal emperor. By 1857 the Mughal Emperor possessed no real tangible power and was nothing more than the King of Delhi as he was derisively called. An aesthete himself, Zafar was singularly well-suited to his role as head of a court that elevated culture, poetry in particular, but wholly unsuited by temperament and age (he was 82 years old) to a role as leader of an armed revolt.
Delhi before 1857 was a remarkably tolerant mix of Hindu and Islam - roughly a 50/50 split - in part because of Zafar's manner of ruling. Zafar's acceptance of a titular leadership in the revolt meant that both Muslims and Hindi rallied to the cause. That symbolic role, however, was about all Zafar brought to the war.
The revolt began to flounder almost immediately due a lack of proper direction and discipline. The Sepoy regiments each acted independently and allowed a much smaller British force (ostensibly come to lay siege to the city) to survive repeated but serial attacks. The early stages of the revolt also saw horrific slaughter of noncombatant and unarmed British residents.
Eventually the British took the city and the revenge they took is described by Dalrymple in bloody detail. The killings were nothing short of mass murder and heartily endorsed by nearly every Britisher with any knowledge of it (William Howard Russell was one exception). Men who had lost family in the initial outbreak were allowed to massacre at will for months - Theo Metcalfe is the most notable example. Those locals not killed were left homeless and starving.
The British executed nearly the entire Mughal royal family and would have done so for Zafar, but for the promise that his life would be spared if he surrendered. It was a promise that the British determined they were bound to keep even though they didn't like it much.
One supposes this example represents Victorian attitudes about rectitude that the British somehow held in their heads at the same time that they authored unspeakable murdering sprees. In a somewhat lighter example, Dalrymple quotes a British soldier's letter written to his mum on the eve of battle in which the youth expresses his fear that engaging in the fight may cause him to swear!
As stated at the outset the rich sources give 'The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857' its strength, but Dalrymple's over-reliance on the raw materials makes the book drag to its conclusion. For the last 100+ pages, Dalrymple sometimes gives over the narrative to his primary sources as page after page consists substantially of quotes from letters, reports, or memoirs. Dalrymple also spends only the briefest time placing the events of 1857 in a larger historical framework.
Nonetheless, the book is a triumph of research and offers that rarity in historical writing, the truly fresh perspective. Dalrymple gives voice to the Indian perspective of the fall of Delhi. As the great court poet Ghalib so poignantly expressed it, "The light has gone out of India. The land is lampless."
Highly recommended.
Book Description
Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on his luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. His arrival in Deva (more commonly known as Chester, England) does little to improve his mood, and after a straight thirty six hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner.
Now he has a new problem: a slave who won’t talk and can’t cook, and drags trouble in her wake. Before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar. A few years earlier, after he rescued Emperor Trajan from an earthquake in Antioch, Ruso seemed headed for glory: now he’s living among heathens in a vermin-infested bachelor pad and must summon all his forensic knowledge to find a killer who may be after him next.
Who are the true barbarians, the conquered or the conquerors? It’s up to Ruso—certainly the most likeable sleuth to come out of the Roman Empire—to discover the truth. With a gift for comic timing and historic detail, Ruth Downie has conjured an ancient world as raucous and real as our own.
Customer Reviews:
Medicus is great.......2007-09-19
Medicus is the first book by Ruth Downie, and she plans more to come. Her hero is a crusty Roman medical officer stationed with the XX Legio at Deva, modern Chester, England. Because they have no one else to take the bodies to (there were no police forces in ancient Rome, and anyway these murder victims were only slaves), people keep bring the bodies to the doctor. Though he's reluctant to get involved (he has more than enough troubles to worry about, from the pending foreclosure on the family farm to his difficult relationship with another Roman official), he's finally hooked on the question of the deaths. Murder and mayhem ensue, of course. I liked the fact that the protagonist wasn't an official "informer" or investigator. And also that he was living in the imperial backwater of Britain. His difficulties with the hospital administrator were amusing. Bureaucracy never changes!
Doctor in the House.......2007-09-11
All in all it is a good read, one that I recommend.
Rather than embroidered with a vast sweep of historic greats, Downie's "Medicus" is woven with day-to day circumstances of the more common folk, a slant that gives the plot some fascinating twists readily recognizable to the average person as the sort of surprises, ambiguities and aggravations so much a part of their own lives. But there is mystery and intrigue for Gaius Petrius Ruso, a medical officer stationed with a Roman legion in ancient Britain. His already complicated life becomes even more so by Tilla, his would-be slave, who is not exactly in full appreciation of her dire circumstances. A well-constructed plot in and around the fort location of Deva keeps a steady pace. The novel's other characters provide a colorful supporting cast and stimulate marvelous images of human comedy and tragedy, especially when they center around Merula's, a site of local, um, entertainment. Personal details of the characters' day-to-day living experiences bring this above the typical sword and sandal genre and provoke some refreshing humor.
I did find the attribution of vernacular English to be a bit of a distraction, for example the soldiers referring to each other as "lads." However, this was not a serious enough flaw to detract on what was otherwise a fun book to savor.
A Good debut.......2007-09-02
I have no doubt this author will improve with experience. Medicus is a little slow to start. I was about half through with little sleuthing on Ruso's part, more denial that he was investigating, although others seemed insistant he was. Nevertheless it was a nice read, and if this is a series she may continue with, this is a good introduction to the characters. It did however pick up in the second half and move along nicely. I wouldn't say she rivals Lindsey Davis, her characters and writing are her own, and she will, I think, carve her own niche.
I don't regret buying the book and look forward to her next, which I will definitely buy.
Amazing first book.......2007-08-23
Good story, great characters, well researched, funny, overall an amazing first novel. I sure hope this is the first book in a long series.
Compares very favorably with Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, John Maddox Roberts (all writing about Roman times), Ellis Peters and Elizabeth Peters. Can't get much better than that!
dave
In between Davis and Saylor.......2007-07-19
With Medicus, Downie joins Lindsay Davis and Stephen Saylor as the preeminent authors of genre fiction set in ancient Rome. I already like her more than Davis, but she has to write a few more books before I can compare her to Saylor. On the positive side, the novel features a likable hero in Ruso, a doctor, and I like how the author sprinkles in detail about medicine and health care of the time. I also like how she bridges the gap between ancient Rome and the modern world: for example, Ruso's problems with women and bureaucracy are relatable despite the centuries. On the negative side, the central mystery progressed too slowly and the identity of the villain is too predictable. I am also tired of reading about Roman characters who fall in love with their slaves. It's so trite. Furthermore, I don't feel that the author explains their romance. Why does he fall in love with her? Because she's pretty? That's lust, not love.
Medicus is a good debut novel. If Downie can evolve as a writer like Saylor did, she will become required reading.
Amazon.com
Noam Chomsky is considered the father of modern linguistics. In this richly detailed criticism of American foreign policy, he seeks to redefine many of the terms commonly used in the ongoing American war on terrorism. Surveying U.S. actions in Cuba, Nicaragua, Turkey, the Far East and elsewhere over the past half a century along with the modern American war in Iraq, Chomsky indicates that America is just as much a terrorist state as any other government or rogue organization. George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq drew worldwide criticism, in part because it seemed to present a new philosophy of pre-emptive war and an appearance of global empire building. But according to Chomsky, such has been the operating philosophy of American foreign policy for decades. Opponents of the Bush administration's tactics consistently point out how the American government supported Saddam Hussein for many years prior to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait (pictures of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand are easy to come by) as a means of pointing out how the United States is happy to fund despots when it's in American interests. But Chomsky, armed with extensive historical notation, takes this notion further, arguing how the repression of other nations' citizenry is, in fact, the very reason Americans support certain foreign leaders. The charges made throughout the book are severe, as are the dire consequences he posits if current trends are not reversed, and Chomsky is no more likely to make friends or gain supporters from the mainstream now than he's ever been. But Hegemony or Survival is relatively dispassionate. Instead of relying on camp or shock value or personal attacks as some of his contemporaries have done, Chomsky drives his well-supported points steadily forward in an earnest and highly readable style. --John Moe
Book Description
"Reading Chomsky today is sobering and instructive . . . He is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet." The New York Times Book ReviewAn immediate national bestseller, Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing-as in the Cuban missile crisis-to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government's aggressive pursuit of "full spectrum dominance" and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today's most influential thinkers.
Download Description
The United States is in the process of staking out not just the globe but the last unarmed spot in our neighborhood-the heavens-as a militarized sphere of influence. Our earth and its skies are, for the Bush administration, the final frontiers of imperial control. In Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this moment, what kind of peril we find ourselves in, and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.
Customer Reviews:
Connect the dots?.......2007-09-13
This material is not easy to digest in two ways. First, there are so many facts and figures that after a while your head begins to spin. I listened to it twice in succession just for that reason. Secondly, it's difficult to believe that your country's political leaders could possibly be saying one thing and doing another. Aren't we, the US, always the "good guys"? Don't we always do things the right way, "the American way"? Maybe that is a problem. Perhaps other nations want to do things their own way.
If you wonder why so much of the world dislikes or even hates the US, then this book will offer bountiful explanations, dating back to probably the Monroe Doctrine in the first part of the nineteenth century. Whether or not you agree with Mr. Chomsky's conclusions is up to you, but to refute him you will have a lot of offered facts to overcome.
Previous reviewers have labeled him a communist, or at the least, a communist sympathizer. I didn't get that impression. He just doesn't like American interventionist foreign policy which supposedly is leading to a New World Order, with the US the undisputed leader. And a lot of other people in the world think the same way and don't like it either.
If even a small portion of what he writes is true, it's a sad situation in my eyes. But if you consider the facts and connect the dots...where does it lead? Make up your own mind.
Dr. Chomsky.......2007-09-10
The most insightful look at the past 60 some odd years of american foreign policy, it's consequences and possible motives. A thouroughly researched and meticulously catalogued breakdown of the views and voices that have been there every step of the way, the voices that are usualy silenced and swallowed up by the historical accounts of the victors.
Chomsky poses the compelling question of our time.......2007-08-28
Other reviews have covered, at length, the perceived pros and cons of Chomsky's critique of American foreign policy in general and of the war in Iraq in particular, and I will reveal from the outset that my conclusions on these topics are simliar to Chomsky's in many respects. The incredible value of this book, however, is that seeks to address the question of human survival within the context of American foreign policy.
Although Chomsky does not delve deeply into the topic of the pending petroleum crisis, it, as well as other questions regarding the future of industrial civilization, is never too far beneath the surface. According to geologists of the Hubbard school, the world has reached or will soon reach a point of peak oil production after which the ability of global production to meet demand will inevitably decline, leading to a global crisis of unprecedented proportions. To the extent that U.S. policy continues along the lines of exerting hegemonic control over what is left as opposed to engaging in principled and collective effort towards creating a more equitable post-petroleum global economy, it certainly does lead us towards destruction or at the very least, a nightmarish Hobbesian existence in which human lives will indeed be "nasty, brutish and short".
One may choose to agree or disagree with many of Chomsky's arguments. However, for any thinking person who is conversant with history and who has an interest in social justice for all and not just for some, Chomsky drives home a number of points that are practically unassailable:
1. U.S. foreign policy, like the policies of great powers before it, have rarely been predicated on the publicly espoused principles of democracy, equality and freedom, but in the pursuit of its elite's interests, often to the detriment of the environment, democracy itself, and of the well-being of working and oppressed people around the world as well as within the United States. The unprecedented ability of modern man to destroy not only each other, but the very environment that makes sustainable existence on Earth possible however, dictates that unlike any empire or imperial age before it, the consequences of American policy are truly global in scope, and they may prove to be beyond any conceivable ability of repair.
2. The phenomenon of "globalizaton", in practice, has benefited, for the most part, only the financial elites and the military and technocratic elements whose services are necessary to maintain the system. For the rest of humanity, globalization has come to mean a nightmare of economic and cultural disruption and dislocation on a global scale. It is interesting to note that with the advent of globalization, the gap between the rich and poor has increased significantly, not only on a global scale but within the individual economies of the wealthiest nations as well. Lenin's "aristocracy of labor" is shrinking as we speak!
3. Despite the fact that the U.S. can justifiably be seen as the world's only military superpower, its attempts to exert unilateral control over the dwindling energy resources of the Middle East (and by extension of the rest of the world) will increasingly lead it into escalating conflict with other nations and peoples, resulting not only in its own moral, political and economic bankruptcy, but potentially in the destruction of civilization as we know it.
4. Only by understanding the nature of the current situation and organizing to change course can Americans and other people around the world prevent this continuing descent into madness.
Regardless of one's ideological inclination, "Hegemony or Survival" should provoke readers to serious thought on these matters, and for that Professor Chomsky should be thanked and applauded.
Another mandatory reading for those who wish to understand the world. .......2007-07-27
The writing has Chomsky's typical laser-like clarity. The facts are abundant and irrefutable. The arguments are powerful and inescapable. A refreshing break from all the propaganda and indoctrination that cover the landscape.
disturbing revelations.......2007-07-05
I hated how the book made me feel but it gets 5 stars for its brutal edification - as I'm sure was his intent.
Whatever your politics are, and regardless of whether you dislike or disbelieve Chomsky's conclusions, the facts laid out in this book speak disturbingly for themselves. Our government consistently pays lip service to supporting and promoting democracy but apparently has a nasty track record to the contrary. I would sincerely rather that not be true but there it is in the historical record. As stated by another reviewer, his facts are correct.
I could only read this book a little at a time. I would get too angry and have to set it aside for a few days until I could handle some more ugly truth.
I always thought Bush's statement that the terrorists "hate us because of our freedoms" did not quite ring true. In light of our government's actions reported in this book, the statement becomes absurdly transparent misinformation.
At least now we know the REAL reasons why they hate us.
SG
Amazon.com
In the past, Antonia Fraser's bestselling histories and biographies have focused on people and events in her native England, from Mary Queen of Scots to Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot. Now she crosses the Channel to limn the life of France's unhappiest queen, bringing along her gift for fluent storytelling, vivid characterization, and evocative historical background. Marie Antoinette (1755-93) emerges in Fraser's sympathetic portrait as a goodhearted girl woefully undereducated and poorly prepared for the dynastic political intrigues into which she was thrust at age 14, when her mother, Empress Maria Theresa, married her off to the future Louis XVI to further Austria's interests in France. Far from being the licentious monster later depicted by the radicals who sent her to the guillotine at the height of the French Revolution, young Marie Antoinette was quite prudish, as well as thoroughly humiliated by her husband's widely known failure to have complete intercourse with her for seven long years (the gory details were reported to any number of concerned royal parties, including her mother and brother). She compensated by spending lavishly on clothes and palaces, but Fraser points out that this hardly made her unique among 18th-century royalty, and in any case the causes of the Revolution went far beyond one woman's frivolities. The moving final chapters show Marie Antoinette gaining in dignity and courage as the Revolution stripped her of everything, subjected her to horrific brutalities (a mob paraded the head of her closest female friend on a pike below her window), and eventually took her life. Fraser makes no attempt to hide the queen's shortcomings, in particular her poor political skills, but focuses on her personal warmth and noble bearing during her final ordeal. It's another fine piece of popular historical biography to add to Fraser's already impressive bibliography. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
France's iconic queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous "Let them eat cake," was alternately revered and reviled during her lifetime. For centuries since, she has been the object of debate, speculation, and the fascination so often accorded illustrious figures in history. Married in mere girlhood, this essentially lighthearted child was thrust onto the royal stage and commanded by circumstance to play a significant role in European history. Antonia Fraser's lavish and engaging portrait excites compassion and regard for all aspects of the queen, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but in the culture of an unparalleled time and place.
Customer Reviews:
A Gripping Royal Life.......2007-08-29
Light on analysis and heavy on chronicling, MATJ efficiently and often movingly recounts a notorious chapter in history. AF does a fine job of evoking life in a European court in general, and in the times of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI in particular. She treats her subject objectively, though with a reasonable measure of implicit sympathy. The Antoinette depicted in MATJ is far more nuanced a figure than the one many of us were first introduced to in public school history lessons. Though not without flaws, Marie Antoinette emerges in MATJ as no more flawed a person than most -- a product and a victim of circumstances that were largely of others' making. MATJ is particulary affecting in its treatment of the Terror, the collapse of the French monarchy, and Marie Antoinette's ultimate fate -- a fate as brutal as one can imagine. As a history of the Terror and the French Revolution, MATJ falls short. But it does not purport to be a broader work of historical synthesis or analysis. It hews closely to its subject -- the queen whose life intersected, tragically, with enormous national and world-historical events. In doing so, it offers a full and affecting portrait of one of history's most compelling figures.
Engrossing from beginning to end.......2007-08-09
"Marie Antoinette: The Journey" was my first experience with the work of Lady Antonia Fraser. Having read many biographies of famous British historical figures, I noticed that her name always seemed to crop up in various authors' "Acknowledgements" or bibliographies. In fact, the point at which I first recall reading her name was in reviews for John Guy's "Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart". My interest piqued, I ordered a copy of "Marie Antoinette" to test the waters of an author whose scholarship and style was, it seemed to me, almost universally respected. And I can safely say that I've never been more pleased with the outcome of an experiment.
Antonia Fraser's sparklingly eloquent and witty writing style lends itself perfectly to the glamorous story of the ultimately tragic French queen. What I appreciated most about the narrative (aside from its seamless fluidity) was the lack, thankfully, of shameless allusions to the subject's eventual disastrous fate. Lady Antonia stated in the introduction to her biography that she would endeavor to present Marie Antoinette's tale `without the perils of hindsight' (her words, although not in the introduction), as most authors I'm sure would have been prone to do. Despite the fact that I was aware of Marie Antoinette's death going in, I had little knowledge of the reasons for it.
And thusly I come to another brilliant aspect of this biography: the sound and thorough description of events leading, not only to Marie Antoinette's beheading, but the French Revolution itself. Obviously, Antonia Fraser's intention in presenting the queen's story was not to simultaneously provide the reader with an exhaustive analysis of the Revolution (for that, many would recommend Simon Schama's "Citizens"); so with that said, I found the author's breakdown of the events occurring throughout Marie Antoinette's adopted country entirely satisfying within the confines of a biography.
This is one of the few biographies in which I was so sufficiently engrossed by the story that I gradually disregarded my previous knowledge of how the story ends. So swept along was I by the narrative's current that I actually harbored quiet hope for the queen's rescue from the Conciergerie, where she was incarcerated prior to her execution. As a result, I was crushed when Marie Antoinette met her gruesome death. Such unquestioning absorption is, in my opinion, the mark of any quality biography, when coupled with an objective and engaging presentation of facts that envelopes you in the world of its subject. "Marie Antoinette: The Journey" shines vividly in that regard and many others.
Elizabeth Longford, Antonia Fraser's mother and a highly-respected biographer, stated in a later-edition introduction to her masterful "Victoria R. I." that the word `definitive', in describing biographical works, is meaningless. Various authors studying the same subject may interpret facts and events quite differently. Having never read another biography of Marie Antoinette, I cannot rightly speak of Lady Antonia's book as being the essential source for information. But based upon my own experience with it, and those of most other reviewers, I would wager that this is the best possible place to start.
A sympathetic biography of a much maligned queen.......2007-07-12
Always the victim of fate and controlled by external powers, Marie Antoinette warmed to her roles well. From her idyllic childhood in Austria to her life as a princess (the Dauphine) in France during her adolescence to her extravagant Queenship in Versailles and Petit Trianon to her staid motherhood and finally to her untimely death at the hands of the Jacobins, Marie Antoinette filled her role with grace and dignity. Fraser brings us a portrait of Marie Antoinette as she certainly would have liked to have been remembered rather than the villainous harpy she was portrayed as during her life and beyond.
Starting, as any biography of Marie Antoinette must, in Austria under the reign of Maria Teresa, the book proceeds to describe life in the Empress' household and the various intrigues therein. The book tries not to miss any significant points along the way, but the book soon moves to the marriage of Marie to the young French Dauphin Louis XVI. From there, the life and political machinations of the courtiers and Marie among them are highlighted. Fraser sometimes seems to get lost recalling all the courtiers and their significances, but Marie is always kept as the central figure. Through this storytelling the reader watches a young woman grow up, sometimes under bad influences, but mostly under the watchful eyes of responsible advisors.
There is quite a bit of focus on Marie and Louis' failure to consummate their marriage, with the lightness of the King's attitude towards the Prince (Louis) in sharp contrast to the heavy yoke of responsibility laid on the Prince by Marie's brother the Emperor Joseph. In time, the married couple figure out their roles and they give birth to the first Dauphin.
What stands out about Fraser's prose is her ability to evoke great joy in the reader, as well as great sadness. She gives the joy of the royal family at the birth of their first child directly to the reader. Likewise, when the Dauphin, a sickly child, dies at a young age, Fraser pulls no punches and the sadness of the royal family is also felt by the reader.
Naturally, the book goes on to cover the rule of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as she oversees her hobbies and children. The attempted escape, called the flight to Varennes, is well covered and Fraser does a good job of bringing out the tension and suspense of the incident. The recounting of this event reads very much like fiction, though the events are very real. Finally, the book wraps up with the incarceration and execution of the royal family at the hands of the French revolutionaries.
The inclusion of paintings and photographs of important people and places makes the book all the more enjoyable. From the cute portrait of the Austrian imperial family to the sketch of Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, each picture frames the period discussed so well that the reader's imagination is free to explore the world of 18th century France and Austria.
Fraser's book is an easy, if long, read, but it is enjoyable and reads very much like fiction rather than a dry biography. The only places it lags are when the number of characters gets too unwieldy or when Fraser tries to explain the bloodline relationships between various courtiers. I think anyone wanting to get a solid background on the life of Marie Antoinette would welcome this book to their library.
Amazing Biography.......2007-07-08
This is an awesome book, written on such an intriguing person in history. Marie Antoinette has gotten a bad rap throughout the years, the whole French revolution has been blamed on her, which is wrong. There are MANY MANY reasons why the revolution happened, and many don't have anything to do with her. It's a great book and the movie by S. Coppolla is also great (if you liked Clueless, you'd like this because it has an innocent air to it). The Marie Antionette in this book comes off a little more sympathetic because the reader is able to see how young and vulnerable she was. We must remember she became Queen of France at such a young, immature age and it's no wonder she had all those lavish parties. This is a great book by a great author and I highly recommend it.
A Well Told Biography.......2007-06-16
Ms. Fraser is a well known author of historical biographies. She does her research and manages to be fair in all things when it comes to delving in past lives that have touched the world. Her attempt at penning Marie Antoinette's story is well done, fair, and shows the world a different young woman that is often portrayed in historical films.
Beginning at the young archduchess start in life to her horrid end, we travel beside this young woman, learning what she had to endure and seeing her in a way not always portrayed. With plenty of historic facts, color pictures the author has penned a fair biography that will give the reader insight into a much misunderstood woman. This is one book I highly recommend.
Book Description
John Perkins's sensational New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (more than 300,000 sold) revealed just the tip of the iceberg of the secret world of economic hit men and the web of global corruption. Now more economic hit men and investigators tell the whole shocking story.
Customer Reviews:
Good reference book for "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".......2007-10-08
This book completely documents how large multinational corporations together with the IMF, The World Bank, and the various "free trade" organizations, as well rule the world and effectively rob from the poor and middle class and increase the wealth of the already wealthy.
It dramatically underscores the fact that if we don't act, and act now, we will be facing a world of new "serfdom", if the world isn't destroyed altogether by the greed and connivery of the world's rich.
This book is a good read, but tends to be a bit dry for the average person. One would be better off tackling books such as John Perkins "Confessions of an Enonomic Hit Man" and "The Secret History of the American Empire" as well as John Howard Kunzler's "The Long Energency" before tackling this book.
A Context the Opposite of What We're Told .......2007-08-17
As an ex-international banker who quit banking for the same reasons John Perkins quit being an Economic Hit Man, I can vouch for the truth of every essay in this fine book. The underlying truth is: the world is increasingly run by the corporatocracy, and it has negligible concern for either the poor countries it purports to help nor the environment in which it functions. The truth is the opposite of what we would like and pretend to be true. And the corporatocracy doesn't just behave as it does in foreign, underdeveloped countries, it behaves the exact same way here at home. The mortgage scandle is the same kind of hustle - selling bad debt to unsophisticated borrowers and investors. The only difference is that the poor people who default on their mortgages don't have natural resources the lenders can now take. Fascism redux.
This is a brilliant book. One can already see how the corporatocracy is ignoring it. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
The Dark Underbelly of International Economics.......2007-06-27
In CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, John Perkins outlined his 20-year career as agent of the government and multinational corporations as they attempted to (and succeeded in) exploiting lesser-developed countries. That book, published by Berrett-Koehler in 2004, painted a rather gloomy picture of the dark side of globalization - in theory, a worthy endeavor.
A GAME AS OLD AS EMPIRE, edited by Steven Hiatt with an introduction by Mr. Perkins, continues the story of this exploitation, abuse, and waste in the name of "globalization." Let me say - as an aside - that I remain a proponent of globalization within the context of responsible stewardship. Removing barriers to trade, offering educational, vocational, and economic opportunities to men and women of all nations, is a good thing. Done properly, economic development and stewardship offers the possibility of true societal progress, ennobling humanity, enriching lives, nurturing the environment and increasing business activity and profits.
Unfortunately, the reality is far different from the ideal. The shortsightedness and greed of political and leaders - focused only on personal enrichment or the next quarter's operating results - leads to a culture of global exploitation. The pattern is familiar: special interests descend like locusts, consume everything in their path, and then move on, leaving a wake of destruction, degradation, and despair.
The book presents a compelling exploration of these economic and human abuses through other voices, most of those voices from men and women that participated for a time in the dance of exploitation for their temporal masters. The individual essays focus on a number of issues ranging from the stranglehold of foreign debt, the culture of ineptitude and corruption in many aspects of international banking, and the unconscionable extraction of natural resources (as in the Congo) at the high cost of human life and economic prosperity.
A GAME AS OLD AS EMPIRE is expectedly one-sided in that it shows only the abuse and corruption of international economics. There are many businesses that operate with high-principles and integrity (while maintaining high earnings for both its management as well as other constituents). However, the book serves an important purpose in that it shows that all is not sunshine and roses in the global economy. There is corruption, waste, incompetence, and short-sightedness that is unacceptable from not only a human standpoint, but from a business valuation perspective as well. I would recommend this book to anyone who seeks to undertake an intelligent study of the state of international economics in the real world.
A revealing survey.......2007-05-10
A GAME AS OLD AS EMPIRE: THE SECRET WORLD OF ECONOMIC HIT MEN AND THE WEB OF GLOBAL CORRUPTION comes from the author of the best-selling CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN and expands upon the prior book's theme. Where CONFESSIONS was fueled by the author's revelations of economic secrets, A GAME AS OLD AS EMPIRE is joined by other journalists and investigators who tell their own stories of a world-wide web of deliberate corruption, even narrowing topics down to specific countries and how they've been subverted. The result is a revealing survey which expands well upon the popular theme of CONFESSIONS and which deserves a spot in any academic or community library's business, economics, or social issues collection.
A Story that Deserves to be Told.......2007-05-08
This book should be mandatory reading for college students. Through the various essays--written by real people involved in the various aspects of modern empire--the reader gains an understanding of the real work (and damage) done by multilateral development agencies,offshore banks, and global trade organizations. If we want to build a better world and a better future for our children, it is critical we all understand how these various institutions of the global elite affect the global poor.
Amazon.com
If the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century may be a time of reckoning for the United States. Chalmers Johnson, an authority on Japan and its economy, offers a troubling prognosis of what's to come. Blowback--the title refers to a CIA neologism describing the unintended consequences of American activity--is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world. "The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation," writes Johnson. "The world is not a safer place as a result." Individual chapters focus on Okinawa (where American servicemen were accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in "Asia's last colony"), the two Koreas, China, and Japan. The result is a liberal-leaning (and Asia-centric) call for the United States to disengage from many of its global commitments. Critics will call Johnson an isolationist, but friends (perhaps admirers of Patrick Buchanan's A Republic, Not an Empire) will say he simply speaks good sense. All will agree he is an earnest voice: "I believe our very hubris ensures our undoing." --John J. Miller
Book Description
The term 'blowback,' invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended results of American actions abroad. In this incisive and controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire, which insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From a case of rape by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa to our role in Asia's financial crisis, from our early support for Saddam Hussein to our conduct in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster. In a new edition that addresses recent international events from September 11 to the war in Iraq, this now classic book remains as prescient and powerful as ever.
Customer Reviews:
Astonishingly good.......2007-10-10
I came across this book when I was looking for the recently published book by Profs. Mearsheimer and Walt on the Israeli lobby. I was familiar with Chalmers Johnson's name, but knew nothing about his work. I just read Blowback and am eager to read the other two in his trilogy. I have a generally good awareness of the idiocy of most American foreign policy simply from reading newspapers regularly and well-researched books occasionally on foreign policy or political science or history - as well as from spending some time outside the USA at various times and in various roles.
The disparity between how the USA as an entity and through the citizens (mostly soldiers) it sends abroad to perform official roles behaves outside the confines of its borders and how the average citizen goes about his/her daily life and therefore perceives his/her country is frighteningly wide. However, I was truly stunned at the well-written, clearly well-researched and even-handed account that Prof. Johnson gives of USA policy and USA actions in regard in particular to Asia. I do not doubt the accuracy of his analysis and reporting. In support of his recounting of the utter waste of citizens' tax dollars on most military and military-related activity (so-called intelligence-gathering, covert undermining of non-dictatorial governments and the like) I noted that the Bush Administration recently (summer 2007) had one of its flunkies start blathering about the fact that the USA maintains bases throughout the world, notably in Western European countries, Okinawa and Korea even though there are no "hostilities" there.
The inadvertent raising of a pertinent issue regarding the USA military presence (in less polite words, occupation) in those countries was quickly excised from the arguments for establishing a permanent military presence in Iraq. Good point. Why does the USA maintain a military presence in these countries? Mr. Johnson's book admirably traces the why and thereby makes clear the horrible impact our presence in these countries has had on many people in the world and in turn on innocents in the USA, such as those who died at the hands of Tim McVeigh and the suicide airline pilots. It is books like Mr. Johnson's that should be on the forefront of discussion among politicians, editorial-writers and any others who attempt to make or debate policy. As the inanities, nonsense and outright lies that have no basis whatsoever in fact emanating from the current roster of right-wing, know-nothing Republicans in Congress - abetted on occasion by poorly informed Democrats - attest, the current unending propaganda regarding events and conditions in the rest of the world, notably in Iraq and in the Middle East in general, is likely to continue to overwhelm outstanding analyses such as this. I wish it wouldn't. I hope that those with some curiosity about the wonders and diversity of the world - not to mention facts about how the USA and other countries behave in the world - will discover this book as I did.
Blowback? Nah---mainly just Blow........2007-08-23
Chalmers Johnson might very well have entitled this manifestly overrated little jeremiad of gloom, doom, and rice-paddy Manchurian manifest destiny "Everything I know about Geopolitics I learned from the Golden Rule".
That's "Blowback": do unto others, O Mighty Great Satan, as you would have them do unto you. Or as the learned geo-strategist and member of the Council on Foreign Relations grandmaster funk-flash rapper extra-ordinaire Jay-Z once put it (in verse, and to a funky hip-hop beat, which is *way* more than Johnson accomplishes in this nearly cranium-anesthetizing snoozer):
"now you shoot my my dog/
I'ma gonna kill yo' cat/
just the unwritten Laws/
in Rap."
Word. Basically, Johnson is saying that all those nasty, naughty, uber-meanie things the U.S. did (or might have done, deniability, baby, deniability) in the last century (and now, yes, tiresomely the first part of the 21st century) are gonna come back to haunt us. Payback's a bizzle, fo shizzle.
Or, to dip deeply into the cliche snuffbox, what goes around, comes around. Or better still, if you're up for Chinese---4th BC Chinese---: "if you sit by the River long enough, you will see the bodies of all your enemies float by."
There: in this review, you've gotten the gist of Johnson's 'argument', and you've saved yourself the misery of having "Blowback" inflicted on you. You should be grateful.
OK: so example---we helped supply, feed, & train the Mujahadeen to fight a nasty and ultimately successful insurgency against the Soviets. The Jihadis won, kicked the Soviets out, and replaced a doddering, backward, socially repressive & economically retarded 19th century system with a---get this---doddering, backward, socially repressive & economically retarded 7th century system.
Progress? Yes. Blowback? NO! Not Blowback, not that bit anyway. Blowback was what happened when the Taliban and their buddies (including our Bon Ami et Frere Amicable Osama bin "Gin & Juice" Laden) got tired of crushing homosexuals beneath stone walls, blowing up ancient Buddha statues, and strangling dogs. Those crazy Talibs! We got 9/11, the ultimate "blowback.". Or blowup. Or something like that.
Now, it's true that Chalmers Johnson's 'idea' has a nice, simple symmetry to it, in the same way the delightful childrens' potty book "Everything Poops" does: it's, well, true. And obvious.
But seen from a different angle (say, that of adulthood), it's a bit retarded. Or, let's be kind, simplistic. It says, if you, as an Empire, or Republic, or whatever you are---if you do something, something's going to happen. Man, go tell it to the Spartans! (or Newton). Actions have consequences. If you read "Blowback", for instance, the blowback might be that you hear your brain cells scream as they die.
Take the British, who for years now have done everything they can to pretend to be a stodgier, duller, more moldy version of Canada, & what has that gotten them? Flaming gate crashers at Glasgow airport and having their Royal Marines publicly humilated and dressed by Tehran's answer to Today's Man.
But like Paul Kennedy yammering, with yen besotted yuppies back in the early eighties, that the Land of the Rising Sun was about to make us all eat sushi and do Shinto devotionals before our morning calisthenics prior to ruling the World---well, Blowback is just not all that. It's too elementary, man: it's thermodynamical.
And in politics, in affairs of state, in war and manipulation & sabotage, in all of that, it's not even necessarily true. The point being: if you're brutal enough, there will be no blowback.
Think about that for a moment: you don't even have to consult antiquity for examples where if you're willing to play around in a little bit of blood and crack some skulls, there will be no real `blowback'. Russia has ruthlessly crushed & decimated Muslim movements in its former Asian provinces and puppet states, the latest being the pathetic instance of Chechnya. And for all that, I have yet to hear Russia denounced by any imams as even a moderate-sized Satan. Hell, Russia & Iran are great buddies, so long as the latter keeps those rent checks coming on the old Bushehr reactor.
China is another great example: for more than five decades, China has occupied Tibet and taken every step possible to destroy its society and culture. For all of that, wanna know China's "blowback" from this merciless, honestly fascist occupation? The 2008 Olympic Games, a few thousand pathetic "Free Tibet" bumper sticker affixed to the bumpers of liberals' Priuses, & Richard Gere.
To dragoon Orwell's delicious little phrase, if you stomp on a man's face long and hard enough---you know, until you hear bone snap & soft tissue turns to jelly and the eyeballs pop out---there ain't gona be enough to---well, blow back.
In summary: Chalmers gets a big fat F for his stupid "Blowback" and should wear a duncecap in public.
That said, I can find one example---right here, right now!---that supports Johnson's thesis. Are you ready?
Johnson writes his tired, pathetic, dull little ratturd of a book.
In return, I gut his book like a sick fish in a quick and deadly online review.
Now that's what I call blowback.
JSG
Enlightening.......2007-08-17
The book's idea is that US foreign policy, made to win the cold war, has consequences. For instance, in '53 when we installed the Shah of Iran to act as a puppet for the West (overthrowing the democratically elected Mosaddeq because of oil) he repressed the people until he was overthrown in Jan. 1979. We'd be crazy to believe that the people who overthrew Persia's most ruthless dictator not be anti-American (since we installed that dictator). To this day I see people asking why Iran's government dislikes the US - "Do they hate us for our freedoms?" Taking this idea of "unintended consequences," Johnson talks specifically about East Asia and its history during the Cold War and after. In particular, he mentions Indonesia, Korea, China, and Japan.
I found the book very enlightening. Since 9/11 the US news and media's idea of international news coverage has been Middle-Eastern news coverage (except for natural disasters around the world and other frivolous events). Also, I went to public-school - I didn't know anything about Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries (and I took all AP history classes). So, there was this vacuum of knowledge about East Asia I had, which this book filled quite nicely.
Also mentioned in the book, briefly, are neoclassical economics, WTO, IMF, World Bank, 1997 economic crisis, Hungarian revolution, and the '73 Chilean coup as well as some other US interventions in the Middle-East.
Very informative, but drawn out and wordy............2007-08-04
This book is very informative and the first and last chapters are worth paying for the entire thing just to read them. Not the most Pro-American book I've ever read, but will give you an interesting take on things. Very in depth and revealing. Certainly shows how our American Empire can throw our weight around when necessary - and when not. Not bad, but a bit too wordy for me. Still good though.
Pull Your Head Out or Die With It In The Sand.......2007-07-17
This book deserves five stars, but I can tell you it's nothing like listening to this man speak in person. As in "Blowback" he lays it all out on the table. Sadly he says, "We just may have gone pass the point of no return." Americans now know that authors like Chalmers Johnson, Norm Chomsky, Webster Griffin Tarpley and Paul Waldman are not just over-educated nay sayers. We know that we're in real trouble, we just don't know what to do about it. If 9/11 proved nothing else, it proved that aircraft carriers, F16's, and smart bombs are useless against terrorists and apathy.
Dr. Johnson summarizes the status quo: "We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits patiently for her meeting with us."
I am without the education to travel in the circles of the aforementioned authors, but I can in my own way address my fellow blue collar workers... The media has dubbed me one of America's most controversial writers. I think it's because I criticize my own party, the Republican Party, instead of the Democrats. This unorthodox approach of mine gives people the wrong idea about me. I don't hate predators. If there weren't hawks in this country, those in other countries would show up here. Do not misinterpret "Hawk" to mean I approve of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney and their Hermann Goering protégés in the Pentagon. Bush is a mouth and a pen; he's in a different league altogether than his vice president. Cheney is a vulgar, immoral, sadistic subhuman. Does that make me a Libertarian?
Amazon.com
Since September 2001, the United States has "undergone a transformation from republic to empire that may well prove irreversible," writes Chalmers Johnson. Unlike past global powers, however, America has built an empire of bases rather than colonies, creating in the process a government that is obsessed with maintaining absolute military dominance over the world, Johnson claims. The Department of Defense currently lists 725 official U.S. military bases outside of the country and 969 within the 50 states (not to mention numerous secret bases). According to the author, these bases are proof that the "United States prefers to deal with other nations through the use or threat of force rather than negotiations, commerce, or cultural interaction." This rise of American militarism, along with the corresponding layers of bureaucracy and secrecy that are created to circumvent scrutiny, signals a shift in power from the populace to the Pentagon: "A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control," he writes.
In Sorrows of Empire, Johnson discusses the roots of American militarism, the rise and extent of the military-industrial complex, and the close ties between arms industry executives and high-level politicians. He also looks closely at how the military has extended the boundaries of what constitutes national security in order to centralize intelligence agencies under their control and how statesmen have been replaced by career soldiers on the front lines of foreign policy--a shift that naturally increases the frequency with which we go to war.
Though his conclusions are sure to be controversial, Johnson is a skilled and experienced historian who backs up his claims with copious research and persuasive arguments. His important book adds much to a debate about the realities and direction of U.S. influence in the world. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
"Impressive . . . a powerful indictment of U.S. military and foreign policy." Los Angeles Times Book Review, front page In the years after the Soviet Union imploded, the United States was described first as the globe's "lone superpower," then as a "reluctant sheriff," next as the "indispensable nation," and in the wake of 9/11, as a "New Rome." In this important national bestseller, Chalmers Johnson thoroughly explores the new militarism that is transforming America and compelling us to pick up the burden of empire.Recalling the classic warnings against militarism-from George Washington's Farewell Address to Dwight Eisenhower's denunciation of the military-industrial complex-Johnson uncovers its roots deep in our past. Turning to the present, he maps America's expanding empire of military bases and the vast web of services that support them. He offers a vivid look at the new caste of professional militarists who have infiltrated multiple branches of government, who classify as "secret" everything they do, and for whom the manipulation of the military budget is of vital interest. Among Johnson's provocative conclusions is that American militarism is already putting an end to the age of globalization and bankrupting the United States, even as it creates the conditions for a new century of virulent blowback. The Sorrows of Empire suggests that the former American republic has already crossed its Rubicon-with the Pentagon in the lead.
Customer Reviews:
A Critical Review.......2007-08-05
This book gets everything wrong.
Johnson argues that the demise of the USSR was a great economic victory, having everything to do with the failure of socialist economics and nothing to do with the successes of American foreign policy. Unfortunately for Johnson, the wasted resources of the Cold War arms race - and the wasted resources of the Cold War arms race alone - were what bankrupted the natural-resource rich Soviet states. The United States fought and won the Cold War economically, by forcing the East into a battle it could not win - a battle where the biggest spender (necesarily the economically liberal west) wins by default. Left to its own devices, the Soviet states could have persisted indefinitely in moderate prosperity thanks to the global capital markets and the value of their domestic resources, the lunacy of their domestic economics aside. See China, India, and even Venezuela today.
Johnson further argues that the Pentagon failed to "restructure" and/or "demobilize" following the Cold War. This is categorically false. The United States military (particularly its Army and Air Force) was phased down radically in the two decades between the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the September 11th terrorist attacks. A signifigant Naval presence was maintained as a matter of apparent national necessity - even without a Soviet Union, the post-globalization world demanded the West have at least one member capable of global power projection as a simple matter of motivated self interest. The United States has ALWAYS maintained a signifigant peace-time naval capacity, however. This is nothing new and certainly no product of a "military-industrial" complex. Washington himself, that great hero of the anti-military renegades and oft-quoted as decrying standing armies, comission the first permanent and standing warships of the USN to protect the young country against - whoulda thunk it - Islamic terrorists.
Johnson then argues that the Pentagon's involvement in the war on drugs and terror is a dishonest effort at justification of a bloated budget, but this is historically inane. The American armed forces have always been intimately involved in the enforcement of extramilitary foreign policy. American soldiers pursued Mexican criminals across our sothern border over a century and a half ago. We have dispatched the Navy repeatedly throughout our history to deal with piracy and barbarism when local authorities have been noncooperative. The war on drugs - and military involvement therewith - is simply an extension of this legacy. So, too, is the war on terror.
Everything this book argues is backwards and apparently nonsensical. And everything that Johnson proports to be a "new" product of post-Cold War Pentagon amokism is as old as the Republic he so claims to love. The man could do well to get himself an elementary history lesson, and to spend 15 minutes outside the safe, secure, and utterly arealistic ivory tower that is American elite society. Our half a trillion dollar military is the foundation that keeps his - and to an extent all of our - tower(s) of ignorance erect and pristine. We would all do well to realize that our lives and lifestyles are both historically unprecedented, and unique to our borders and our civilization even today. THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES NOT LIVE AND THINK LIKE WE DO.
The United States maintains the worlds largest and most capable standing army in the history of the planet not because it wants to, but because it must. The world is a dark place. Most if its people are not like Americans (and Westerners), and most of its countries are not as benevolent as America (and the Western world). While the rest of our civilization surrenders its capacity and will to defend itself and its ideological allies, the United States has willfully chosen to bear the burden alone, knowing full well the costs and consequences of this decision. We do this because we have confidence in this old, and grand, Republic. And because we know better than to trust and surrender our fates to the good-will of our less Republican neighbors.
Secrets of our Empire............2007-07-26
Truly a revealing expose of things you never knew about our American military and related.....now you do...and it may surprise you or scare you.....read this book...very revealing.....
might does not make right.......2007-07-03
From George Washington and James Madison to Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961, some of our country's greatest leaders have warned about the dangers of standing armies and the military-industrial complex. In this second installment of his "inadvertent trilogy" about the costs and consequences of America's belligerent empire, Chalmers Johnson describes in meticulous detail the nature and extent of American militarism. In his first book, Blowback (2000), he warned that our global militarism and predatory economic policies virtually assure retaliations for decades to come. He published Blowback about eighteen months before the 9/11 attacks, and in retrospect his warning now reads like a diagnosis. His third volume, Nemesis (2006), is more like an autopsy; it describes our destiny with Nemesis, "the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris" (in Greek, "nemesis" means "to give what is due").
Unlike ancient empires, our imperial hegemony consists not of conquered territories but of military bases. Today the Department of Defense admits that America deploys 254,788 (double that number if you include dependents) military personnel to at least 725 military bases in 153 countries (there are 189 countries in the United Nations). That does not include numerous secret and officially nonexistent bases. Our own country is home to 969 separate bases in all fifty states. It's hard to believe, writes Johnson, that at the beginning of World War II our regular army consisted of 186,000 men; today it numbers 1.4 million. Nor is this any longer a citizen's army, but instead a professional warrior class (41% of whom are nonwhite).
Johnson's book documents our militarism beginning with the 1898 Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-American war; Woodrow Wilson's fervent belief in America's moral exceptionalism and obligation to export democracy to the world; the incestuous marriage of the military to the incredibly lucrative for-profit arms industry, and merry-go-round of former military and corporate personnel; America's sale of weapons to the world; our violations of international treaties and courts that have generated global distrust of much of what we say and do; the roles of oil (our import levels are "at the highest levels ever recorded") and Israel; and the predatory nature of economic globalization.
In a final chapter Johnson suggests four sorrows of our militaristic empire that he now considers all but unavoidable: a state of perpetual war, the loss of democratic processes and institutions, endemic lying by the state (glorification of war, disinformation, propaganda, etc.), and financial ruin. Empires don't last forever, he reminds us. In the last hundred years nine "empires" have collapsed: Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, China, Austro-Hungaria, and the Ottomans. Despite our deep delusion about our good intentions and moral exceptionalism, we have no reason whatsoever to expect that history will treat our belligerence and hubris any differently. What we should expect is a meeting with Nemesis.
Better Than Blowback.......2007-06-10
In the first nine chapters of the book, Johnson writes about his perception of an increasing American militarism, and also says there is an emerging American empire. He also describes the privatization of the military through war merchants and mercenaries. A solid case is made against some members of the current administration, but he doesn't spare Clinton's "globalization" in the book either. The tenth and last chapter alone is nearly worth the price. After making a very strong case for the United States to turn from its interventionist tendencies of the last 30 years, Johnson outlines four great dangers the USA will face as it wades deeper into the waters of interventionism. He finds fault with all recent past presidential administrations, and says that Congress has abandoned its duties and responsibilities in favor of greasy palmed careerism.
Like the first part of the trilogy, Chalmers Johnson writes about blowback, a CIA term for unintended consequences of covert action. His theory is that the perils of blowback are increasing, and the country is rapidly descending farther and farther away from its democratic moorings and into a militaristic empire.
This book is written in a more interesting style than part 1 ("Blowback") and keeps the reader interested through out.
Weakness-Some of the original source work is not strong and it is clearly written with a more popular audience in mind. For example, the suspect web site Capital Hill Blue is used as a source. So, perhaps some of the evidence presented is flawed, but the main theme still rings true.
This book, coupled with "Blowback" have seriously altered my thinking of foreign policy matters. I recommend both.
What else has Mr. Johnson done for the Republic lately?.......2007-06-03
Gore Vidal has been writing far longer and more eloquently than Mr. Johnson on the end of the Republic as a consequence of the American Empire. Mr. Johnson adds a dispassionate and steadily accumulating set of figures, monetary and otherwise, that show the true costs of the American Empire and its negative eroding effects on the Republic.
This is Mr. Johnson's second book in his "American Empire Project". The first Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Second Edition), published before the events of Sept. 11, 2001 now seems eerily prescient. That book pointed out the unintended but inevitable consequences of American foreign policy and interference abroad and suggested a consequent "blowback".
The problem I have with Mr. Johnson and other eminent diagnosticians, even Vidal (though he did try running for elected office in CA a long time ago), is they seem unwilling to go further than write books. Mr. Johnson makes much (pp. 12) of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the US Constitution which says "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." Now the latter clause regarding publication of accounts has been honored only in the breach, at least in recent times. I wrote Mr. Johnson asking "What legal attempts by private citizens have been made thus far to attempt to have this provision enforced?" Mr. Johnson replies that "You ask an excellent question but it would take a Constitutional lawyer to answer it." Now if I am to trust Mr. Johnson in his avowed belief in the Republic, its Constitution and the enforcement thereof, I would have expected him to have explored this avenue of enforcement already.
Given that the Republic is not yet dead, and that the rule of law is at least intermittently permitted, and that the courts are not yet entirely corrupt or partisan. I for one don't understand why those of Mr. Johnson's ilk, with their resources, don't approach the courts or petition the few honest or semi-honest legislators left to force the light of day on the costs and consequences of our empire. At least then, no citizen of this our disappearing Republic will be able to say that Mr. Johnson didn't do his best to tell them so. Only writing books doesn't cut it.
Book Description
Wonderful....No book published in recent years has more lasting relevance to our understanding of the Middle East. Los Angeles Times
Customer Reviews:
A Major Source of Historical Perspective.......2007-10-01
I wish to second Robert Steele's 5-star review of "A Peace to End All Peace", which was posted yesterday. I had ample time to read the book thoroughly, not in the stands at my son's Little League game, some years ago. It's worth a careful and thoughtful reading; no other book I know of sets the stage for understanding the Middle East in the 20th C as conprehensively. And after you finish it, I'd recommend "All the Shah's Men" as the key text for understanding America's embroglio with Iran.
Supporting Links and Passing Praise.......2007-09-25
I am forty books behind in actual reading, but I had the pleasure of scanning this book while on the sidelines of my son's football practice, and it is, as so aptly described by the best of the reviews, breathtaking.
The sentence that grabbed me is in the final paragraph, where the author sums up the roots of the Middle Eastern troubles as being directly on the heads of the English in particular, who lied, cheated, and stole without mercy. He says of Loyd George: "His political deviousness and his moral and financial laxness were never forgotten." Would that this were so, for Dick Cheney and George Bush are our Lloyd George.
I have written a full summative review of a book that complement's this author's sensible account, and reading that review before reading this book could be helpful. The other books also support the view that we are our own worst enemy, that there is plenty of money with which to make the world heaven on earth, but rule by secrecy, predatory capitalism, and fascism disguised as democracy has looted the planet and picked the pocket of the individual taxpayer while destroying the middle class. We are repeating history, in part because we have one of the most poorly educated populations with respect to history and global cultures, than ever before. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency has taken to complaining recently that he cannot find enough qualified recruits in our shallow pool of "worldly" talent.
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
The key point of the above book is that the Treaty of Westphalia and the creation of nation-states as soverign entities with unrestricted powers within their own borders--borders created by the English and other invasive colonizing powers with the US the most active in the last 200 years--were huge mistakes. We should instead have at least made Indigenous Peoples co-equal, and understood, and respected, tribal boundaries established over centuries. Ignorance and hubris/arrogance combine with greed at the corporate and dictator levels (see Ambassador Palmer's book on "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil" to understand why our White House loves 42 of the 44 dictators on the planet, and Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashies" for why CIA went straight into the business of supporting dictators as proxy bullies). Paul Bremer had it right: the root cause of terrorism is us. See my comment for a note on Chinese Irregular Warfare that just took force off the table as a US option.
See also
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
On the positive side, but Amazon only allows ten active links, see
Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks
Barry Carter, Infinite Wealth
C.K. Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
J. F. Rischard, HIGH NOON: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Robert Steele, The New Craft of Intelligence
Robert Steele, The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
Thomas Stewart, Wealth of Knowledge
Alvin Toffler, Revolutionary Wealth
E. O. Wilson, The Future of Life
Medaard Gabel, Seven Billion Billionaires (forthcoming)
I hope this contextual connecting of some dots is viewed as helpful. This is not a "pretend" review!
Not 5 star good........2007-09-08
I have bought this book after looking at all the 5 star reviews on this site and was aghast when I read it through. The book is not terrrible. It provides an extremely elitist interpretation of history which still teaches many things. The author, aside from several exception, illustrates individuals as caricatures. Does not analyze the cultural social and economical structures any more than skin deep and appears to have very limited access to any knowlegde about the Ottoman empire. Many contentious issues are glossed over. I would not have written this review cause as I said the book is not terrible but it certainly does not deserve all the 5 stars that it got. If you have read real history books, just read the first chapter and you will understand exactly what I mean. If you just want to have some hazy idea about the "Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East" than this book is good for you. Note however that you have only that, a hazy idea.
A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing..........2007-09-02
I agree with all the rave reviews--this book is a "must-read" in order to understand what is going on in the world today. The title refers ironically to the justification that World War I was a war to end all war. The peace that followed the First World War, including the carve-up of the former Ottoman Empire by the Allied powers and encouragement of nationalism by Woodrow Wilson, led to disaster. A good companion for Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly".
Extraordinary! A monumental book........2007-08-25
This is a well researched, comprehensive narrative on how the middle east was formed, centered on the British side of events, where the most important decisions were taken. Reading these pages, I can only think of the mess that the middle east was in those days, mostly because the major constituents of this region, that is to say Mesopotamia, Arabia and Palestine, had more than one internal player interested in holding part of the dismembered Ottoman Empire, and with the major external players at war trying also to get a piece of the cake and install or retain its influence on this important region, strategically important for its oil resources and geographic location. Added to this scenario was the zionist question, Turkey and its confilcts in central Asia and the internal problems faced by Britain, politically and economically.
Those were very complex times indeed, where the best of British diplomacy was deployed in order to forge peace and stabilize the region according to the situation in those years. Sadly, the settlement of 1922 didn't consider the Kurdish people and the Palestinian Arabs. In spite of all these problems, the book also allowed me to know more about the Arab people and part of its history and religion, its tribes and sects. I cannot say this book is the best in this subject, but certainly a must reading.
Books:
- The Human Record: Sources of Global History Volume II: Since 1500
- The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity
- The Leadership Experience (Thomson - South-Western)
- The Misadventures of Maude March
- The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace
- The Mongol Warlords: Ghengis Khan, Kublai Khan, Hulegu, Tamerlane (Heroes & Warriors)
- The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Islam (and the Crusades) (Politically Incorrect Guides)
- The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion (Philosophy and the Global Context)
- The Road to Serfdom Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
- The Strategy Paradox: Why committing to success leads to failure (and what to do about it)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation
- The Great Book of Guns: An Illustrated History of Military, Sporting, and Antique Firearms
- Like Night and Day: Unionization in a Southern Mill Town
- Map Use & Analysis
- Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease, Seventh Edition
- The Light in the Forest
- Plant Chromosomes: Laboratory Methods
- Survey of Advanced Sales, 8E
- Managerial Accounting: An Introduction to Concepts, Methods and Uses
- Local Institutions And Livelihoods: Guidelines For Analysis
General
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| History
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| Books
Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities
Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories
Heaven: A Prison Diary Volume 3 (A Prison Diary)
A Twist in the Tale
