ahmad

failure on recent history and current affairs

Revisado: 02-28-23

Mr Rogan should stick to his metier and not let his left leaning oxford socialist one size fit all analysis ruin the better pre-60's part of this book. History often is told by the victor but in this book and especially on the levant post Nasser it is accounted by a writer with language barrier and little sources if reliable. It is off the mark on Lebanon's civil war and Taef accord with most things connected to Iran, Syria and Israel. On Iraq it is equally light. I recommend , if you have to, reading the first half of the book.

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Pedantic and full of fluff

Revisado: 09-30-22

A perfect book for self hating, self doubting Americans especially some on the left who think America is in the wrong no matter what. Short of the conclusion in the last pages of the book I couldn't tell on whose side the author is, clearly not America's. Even when he criticizes the "declinests", he does it without compelling arguments; I happen to think that deep down in it he is one (declinest) himself. On what the US should do in order to win against China, none of the strategic measures and remedies compare to what for example Pillsbury's "hundred year marathon" recommendations. It's very visible the difference between Doshi's academic theories and those of the on-the-ground experience of Pilsbury's. Out of the last 15 or so books I've read, in the last 2 years, on China this is the poorest written, weakest and hardest to stay focused with. And of course the least critical of this grand polluter monster of a regime.

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Love of the the old land.

Revisado: 10-23-20

The likes of Bernard Lewis, Edward saiid, Hourani...etc may have known the words but they never captured and encapsulated the tunes and essence of the old land and its stories of beauty and misfortune like Fouad Ajami in this gem. A generous to his peers book written by a sculptor of language. Refreshing mastery of his adopted and chosen language reflected and written by a true "Ibn Balad" son of the land who couldn't escape his heritage fever. To be listened to over and over.

Thank you, Fouad and Michelle

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Pleasant surprise.

Revisado: 09-19-20

Beautifully written by an elegant atheist gentleman. A true "liberal" in the right sense of the word, a sensible libertarian.

The narrator, MR Ganim, always shines.

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Condoleezza rice Bob gates republican

Revisado: 07-05-18

It’s very hard to defend Donald Trump, the president or the man, but it is doubly impossible to digest Frum’s obsessive work in this book.
Had chapter 11 been chapter 1 I would have returned the book right there and then, especially when it celebrated obama’s so insincere fake 2004 speech in which the forever orator is described to be the historical uniter president… Say what? Obama the unifier? Are you kidding?
The slack Obama gets in this, all over the place book, about Trump, is stomach turning. The insult over injury is when the author, unmoved and un-offended, tells us how a year prior to the elections the Obama intelligence and national security team knew that the russians were espionaging the elections… and in passing he, the author, wonders why Obama didn’t do anything about it.
Also omnipresent in every page is the absence of humility; I was eager to hear, just once, the “...at the time of the writing of this book...” just so the author should protect himself, but already at the time of listening to this book Trump (whom I can’t defend) has proven Frum wrong on a menu of items. The remaining chapters overflow with showers of praise of the president who didn't lift a finger about the interference in America's National Security. Relevant to this book of “collusion” the author chose to forget the incident when Obama, in his voice on a hot mic, asks Medvedev (Russia’s president then) to plead with “Vlad" to give him until after the 2012 elections before he accommodates Putin’s asks.
I will not preoccupy my mind in attempting to guess what is the author wanting to be in his book: An investigative journalist? Historian? Sexual therapist? Political or social scientist? statistician? Sage? Whatever.
The cockiness in the faux mastery of faux facts and dates of events is ugly.
The stellar shocker was Frum’s quoting Desmond Tutu on reconciliation, a concept this war waging book is foreign to. He goes: “the best judgment is reconciliation” and later his own signature wisdom “let us study the incidence of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from… and not wrongs to be revenged!! Word up, from a book oozing and dripping blood of vengeance. Word up, Mr Rogers.
Last not least is the sanctimonious patronizing lecturer closing lines of an orgy of words on how we should “aim and rise high when they go low”. I’d like my money back.

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