Noah

Perfect for scholars, General in-depth overview

Revisado: 07-19-23

This is a very long book, but understandably so. It contains a lifetime of perspectives on the Soviet Union, discussing family life, political change, and the culture of the Soviet Union in sometimes excruciating detail. Audiences look for a concise look into the USSR and the culture of "the people" will be very pleased, although there is far less about the outer republics, These areas would rightly deserve their own section.

Bar an in-depth study in Post-Soviet studies journals, papers, and other obscura, you will not find a more comprehensive general source. What it lacks in specificity on some of the outer republics and their experience, it makes up for in discussing the culture of the Soviet Union. It is a must read companion for any scholar or layperson that wants to dive behind the broad swaths of the Russian/Soviet subjects on Audible, which often repeat the same stories and narratives to a disappointing effect.

I highly recommend this audio book for those looking for a general perspective with high levels of detail. However, it does suffer from an academic style and long winded sentences. If you can handle thirty hours of often very depressing and academic stylized writing, you will get a lot out of this.

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Mesmerizing Gut Wrenching

Revisado: 05-06-21

Of all the books I've read on ISIS and extremists on Audible (and in general), this was the most difficult to finish. This isn't because the content is unrelatable or filled with jargon; it was exactly the opposite.

Throughout this book, Graeme Wood gives us a heart-breaking and gut wrenching human perspective on ISIS for those who claim to support it. At times you can't help but feel pity for those who hold such reviled views and inhumane behavior. Yet at the core of this book, Wood exposes the naivetie and delusion of oddly logical individuals obsessed with making others live according to their terms. It is very hard to read, and I had to stop multiple times because it was so painful to imagine the reality of some of these stories.

It is for this exact reason that I give Wood's book the highest mark possible. Too often do we sanitize the horror of the human experience to a PG experience. This book goes in the opposite direction and looks at the details many would turn away from.

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Classic Ali Soufan

Revisado: 05-05-21

Ali Soufan once again gives a thorough presentation of Jihadi extremists at a personal and ideological level. He gives a deep discussion on both the most well known extremist actors as well as some of the lesser known organizers of al-Qaeda.

Though unsurprisingly framed around the targeted killing of bin Laden, the most noteworthy contribution in this text is perhaps the most thorough record of AQ operative Saif al-Adel. For this section alone, Soufan's text is worth the read. For any party with an interest in the organizational and operational structure and differences of jihadi communities, this book is a must-read.

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Fantastic Narrative/Narrator, Atrocious Editing

Revisado: 06-04-20

This book covers US foreign policy, CIA covert action, and the international and domestic politics involved. It is a must read for anyone interested in the history of current US involvement in South Asia, and a highly recommended book to read before Steve Coll's next book, "Directorate S."

However, as good as the narrator is, there are many editing problems associated with the full audio track. This most often manifests in cut-off sentences that pick up very oddly in a related, but very slight tangential topic the author was discussing. If it were just a few, I would understand. However, there are at least two dozen times this happens making me question if there is more information and writing that I missed because it accidentally got edited out. This occurs throughout the entire book and is a major nuisance.

Otherwise, this is an excellent book that I highly recommend.

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Anthology of the War in Afghanistan

Revisado: 05-22-20

Though the title implies this book focuses mainly on "Directorate S" (ISI), it is by far more of a journalistic history of America's diplomatic, military, and intelligence engagements with Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001-2018.

Anyone interested in a fair account (though it includes some heavy critique, mainly in the form of opinions expressed by persons other than the author) of the War in Afghanistan should read this. There are certainly "boring" chapters that are difficult to trod through, but there are a few gems here, such as the Marc Sageman account of internal base murders, the exploration of black-sites, and a real-life account of Bakersfield; additionally, there are several episodes of important events that are relatively unknown to the broader public.

Most importantly, it reveals the confused approach the international coalition took in Afghanistan, how inter-agency conflicts prevented common sense policies from being implemented, and how international security interests undermined the very goals of the US in Afghanistan.

It does not have a strong structural narrative other than aiming for an objective, chronological history using perspectives of two or so dozen individuals, such as Richard Holbrooke, David Patraeus, Leon Panetta, and Michael Flynn, amongst many others that are sometimes difficult to remember (prior familiarity with some of these figures is very useful); this is especially true of the individuals concerning inter-Afghan politics. However, the author does a good job of keeping track of who that person is aligned with and their reasoning, even if you may have already forgotten their name and position, which is especially helpful in an audio form of this book. A little bit of Wikipedia reference is helpful from time to time to get a better sense of "who is who."

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Academic Case Study

Revisado: 05-09-20

This book is an excellent overview of Central Asian globalization, containing primarily narrative case studies of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. However, it did not discuss Turkmenistan in-depth.

It is a good book, but highly academic and written in a manner that requires some prior knowledge of international institutions and banking systems as well as the basics of recent Central Asian political history. The narration is great, and lends itself very well to the narrative tone that read more as chapters of a story rather than an academic analysis. While it mentions and discusses some political movements, it largely focuses on the stories of elite government officials and a few unique dissident cases. I would highly recommend for anyone interested in learning more about post-Soviet Central Asian political dynamics.

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Narrow Focus As a Good Introduction

Revisado: 03-18-20

I had some high hopes for this book: some were not, but my higher expectations were not met.

The narration could've been less dull, but it was a effective and professional delivery. This book focuses *strictly* on the "Just War" philosophical tradition (a lot of it in the vein of Christian ethics) of large scale American conflicts.

For those looking for a more academic discussion of these conflicts in terms of ethics, each chapter provides a great introduction to the major inflection points. The Chapter on the Mexican American War was very interesting on it's discussion of the Polk administration.

Each chapter had the potential to be a book in its own right; condensing large amounts of information into short chapters is bound to create this problem. All in all, I enjoyed this book and it was not difficult to follow it's argument (although the first chapter is far more academic than the others, and I had to relisten to some parts to catch a few key points).

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