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What Everyone Is Talking
About - Books Review
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| We are dedicated to making
sure you'll choose your books from what's new, what's interesting and what
everyone's talking about. And we're always looking for bright new talents
for you to enjoy too. |
Hegemony
or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire
Project) (Paperback) by Noam Chomsky
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. |
In
the Line of Fire: A Memoir (Hardcover) by Pervez Musharraf
Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf
is author of this strange book and we can only hope that something positive
and good will come out of this book where, to wrap that nicely,
one can say that here is a lot of Musharraf promoting, well, Musharraf,
and just a litle bit between.
Alwaleed:
Businessman, Billionaire, Prince (Hardcover) by Riz Khan
There are few individuals as unique,
enigmatic, and colorful as Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.
This biography of the world's fifth-richest man -- worth around $24 billion
-- tells the story of a businessman who started out with a relatively modest
bank loan and built an empire that embraces the best-known brands, from
Citigroup and Disney to Apple Computers and the Four Seasons Hotels. Alwaleed,
as he's known to most in the Middle East, is the largest single foreign
investor in the U.S. economy, with interests in almost everything that
touches the American lifestyle. Like investment guru Warren Buffett, Alwaleed
became hugely successful through consecutive strategic high-profile investments,
earning him the respect of Wall Street. Riz Khan offers a revealing insider's
view of this provocative business genius. |
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Clarke’s very interesting
book!
Against
All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (Hardcover) by Richard A.Clarke
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Few political memoirs have
made such a dramatic entrance as that by Richard A. Clarke. During the
week of the initial publication of Against All Enemies, Clarke was featured
on 60 Minutes, testified before the 9/11 commission, and touched off a
raging controversy over how the presidential administration handled the
threat of terrorism and the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Clarke, a
veteran Washington insider who had advised presidents Reagan, George H.W.
Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, dissects each man's approach to terrorism
but levels the harshest criticism at the latter Bush and his advisors who,
Clarke asserts, failed to take terrorism and Al-Qaeda seriously. |
Clarke details how, in light of
mounting intelligence of the danger Al-Qaeda presented, his urgent requests
to move terrorism up the list of priorities in the early days of the administration
were met with apathy and procrastination and how, after the attacks took
place, Bush and key figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and
Dick Cheney turned their attention almost immediately to Iraq, a nation
not involved in the attacks. Against All Enemies takes the reader inside
the Beltway beginning with the Reagan administration, who failed to retaliate
against the 1982 Beirut bombings, fueling the perception around the world
that the United States was vulnerable to such attacks. Terrorism becomes
a growing but largely ignored threat under the first President Bush, whom
Clarke cites for his failure to eliminate Saddam Hussein, thereby necessitating
a continued American presence in Saudi Arabia that further inflamed anti-American
sentiment. Clinton, according to Clarke, understood the gravity of the
situation and became increasingly obsessed with stopping Al-Qaeda. He had
developed workable plans but was hamstrung by political infighting and
the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. But Bush and his advisers,
Clarke says, didn't get it before 9/11 and they didn't get it after, taking
a unilateral approach that seemed destined to lead to more attacks on Americans
and American interests around the world. Clarke's inside accounts of what
happens in the corridors of power are fascinating and the book, written
in a compelling, highly readable style, at times almost seems like a fiction
thriller. But the threat of terrorism and the consequences of Bush's approach
to it feel very sobering and very real. |
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The
Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Hardcover)
by
Lawrence Wright
A sweeping narrative history of
the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas,
the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated
in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright’s remarkable book is based on
five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany,
Spain, and the United States.
The Looming Tower achieves
an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through
the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama
bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John
O’Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal. |
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Fiasco:
The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Hardcover)
by
Thomas E. Ricks
Fiasco is a more strongly worded
title than you might expect a seasoned military reporter such as Thomas
E. Ricks to use, accustomed as he is to the even-handed style of daily
newspaper journalism. But Ricks, the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington
Post and the author of the acclaimed account of Marine Corps boot camp,
Making the Corps, has written a thorough and devastating history of the
war in Iraq from the planning stages through the continued insurgency in
early 2006, and he does not shy away from naming those he finds responsible. |
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