The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

From The Week of November 21, 2011

Of the many sins humanity has visited upon the world, war is surely the most grievous. For the benefit of the privileged, their pride and or their gain, the many are asked to sacrifice their liberty, their luxuries and their lives in order to execute unimaginably murderous engagements with the enemy. Perhaps, if the bloodshed could be confined to the battlefields, war could be granted some minimal respect as a means for conflict resolution. Invariably, though, its corrosiveness spills over onto perfectly innocent bystanders whose families and livelihoods are destroyed by the ambitions of men and women who do not know them and would not care about them even if they did. How often are these costly campaigns actually worthwhile? Is there truly no other way to mend what is broken? Or is humanity so brutal, so pig-headed, that nothing short of mass-violence can satisfy the honor and the dignity of the ruling class? With savage grace and cynical humor, Mr. Abercrombie asks these questions and more in the darkly entertaining The Heroes. The answers he finds amidst the blood and the corpses leave little room for a notion as silly as hope.

In a world of winter and stone, of greedy nobles and ruthless sorcerers, the armies of two kingdoms have come together, on here-to-for unwanted ground, to act out the violent will of kings. From the south comes the rapacious Union, a coalescence of fractious states forged into a unified whole by the ancient and whimsical Bayaz, first of the Magi. Accountable only to destiny, Bayaz long ago manipulated the Union into being as both a beacon of civilization and a bulwark against the cannibalistic forces gathering in the deserts beyond the Union's southern reaches. From the north come the Northmen, an alliance of warlike tribes bound by blood, by marriage, and by the black-hearted competence of their chieftain. Individualistic to a fault, the Northmen are disinclined to suborn themselves to the softness and the regimented order of the Union, preferring the familiar chaos of the clan-like lives they have always known.

Having recently suffered political and economic setbacks elsewhere, the Union is eager for victory and conquest against what it considers to be an easy, northern foe. Having recently enjoyed a resurgence in strength and focus under their pitiless leader, Black Dow, the Northmen are eager to test themselves against the Union in hopes of cementing their sovereignty and satisfying their pride. The result is a gruesome and costly three-day engagement in which thousands of Union soldiers and northern clansmen fight and die in what is bound to be remembered as a pointless and bloody skirmish for land neither side cares about. On this do the fortunes of great men rise and fall. On this are the modest hopes and dreams of commonfolk tested and dashed. This is war...

The Heroes will only serve to enhance Mr. Abercrombie's well-earned reputation for bloody nihilism. For this is nothing short of a black-humored, 550-page treatise on the ugliness and pointlessness of war. From pride-blinded rulers to their ambition-soaked generals, from cynical mercenaries to patriotic soldiers, the author creates a gallery of war's instigators and its adherents, its promoters and its customers, in an effort to reveal it for what it is; a murderous enterprise that harm's the many for the benefit of the few. In making this point, Mr. Abercrombie is far from militant. He neither laments nor agitates against this state of affairs. Rather, he begins with the basic premise that authoritarian societies are inherently violent, that their violence is fed by the capacity for violence that lives within man's soul, and that there is nothing for it but to laugh at its absurdities, cringe at its costs and get the fuck out of the way of its ravenous path. For if we know anything about the nature of war, it is merciless.

No, Mr. Abercrombie does not give birth to any legendary characters, nor does he spin any labyrinthine plots. Though these are skills he has summoned in the past, they are not evident in The Heroes. No, here, Mr. Abercrombie is a critic of the soul of man and of the societal constructs man creates. And in this, he is wonderfully witty and masterfully insightful. Futility has rarely had a more expressive champion. (4/5 Stars)

Hotel Heaven by Matthew Brace

From The Week of November 21, 2011

Though human personalities are often too individualized to be easily and accurately captured by generalizations, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that luxury is an indulgence that polarizes humans. Epicures, those who derive pleasure from delighting their senses, embrace luxury. After all, life is not only short, it is often punctuated by episodes of pain or boredom. Immersing oneself in aesthetic pleasures is one sure way of avoiding, or softening, life's uglier moments. Stoics, meanwhile, while not principally opposed to luxury, resist extravagance on the grounds that it is not only excessive but indulgent. The Good Life does not arise from intemperance; it flows from the satisfaction gleaned from hard work done well. Perhaps neither camp has the right of it. Maybe the answer lies somewhere in-between. If so, it will elude Mr. Brace for in this, his paean to life's luxuries, he leaves little doubt of which side of the question he favors.

From the historic to the opulent, from the scandalous to the futuristic, Hotel Heaven is a whirlwind tour of Earth's grandest hotels. After confessing an addiction to these palaces of luxury,Mr. Brace, a journalist and travel writer, eagerly recounts his many stays in the world's various five-star accommodations, reconstructing their grandeur with respect bordering on awe. But then it does not take the reader long to see why the author is so enamored with his pleasure palaces. For if he is not enjoying patronizing a middle-eastern hotel fit for a sheikh, he's soaking up the nostalgia of the Chelsea, the culture of the Savoy, or the fiery delights of Heaven in Fiji. There is no destination too outlandish, no delight too exquisite, no experience too seductive for this chronicler of luxury.

On the surface, Hotel Heaven is a piece of cultural fluff, an indulgent journey through exotic locales most of its readers will never see. In this, it is a successful work; for Mr. Brace has deployed the written word to wonderful advantage, conjuring up images of places of such sensory beauty that it makes the surroundings of ones ordinary life seem gray and drab by comparison. However, Mr. Brace, to his credit, does reach for something deeper than superficial hedonism. In reconstructing the history of the modern five-star hotel, he has introduced his readers to a story about innovation. After all, the desire of powerful and intelligent people to build, for their customers, shrines to elegance and pleasure have driven them to seek an efficiency of service, a thoroughness of detail, and a uniqueness of experience that their patrons will remember for always. This, along with the history lesson Mr. Brace conducts on each of his memorable hotels leaves the reader as enticed as he is educated.

Hotel Heaven does throw up some uncomfortable moments. There can be no doubt that, behind the facade of each of these magnificent locales, lie tales of exploited workers and polluted land. What's more, there is something eminently distasteful about the lavishness Mr. Brace celebrates here. Wealth is not a zero-sum game. Just because some have it and others don't doesn't automatically mean that the haves greedily took the fair shares that belonged to the have-nots. Wealth can be expanded, grown. However, Hotel Heaven does serve to remind us that there is an unimaginable gulf of privilege that exists between the rich and the poor. And while this may not be the fault of any one person involved in this tale, it does prompt one to wonder at what gruelling tasks others have to perform in order to make perfect the experiences of the insanely well-off.

A fun read. For epicures, an inspiration to visit some of these legendary locales. For stoics, some sobering food for thought about the nature of indulgence. Regardless of your affiliation, entertaining... (3/5 Stars)

Keynes Hayek by Nicholas Wapshott

From The Week of November 21, 2011

Our world is defined by economics. Its theories are the engines that empower production, endow us with wealth, and open the riverways of international trade. It has given us the free market -- the cornerstone of commercial enterprise -- and the welfare state -- a safety net to protect the least fortunate from the worst of life's cruelties. No one reading this has not been shaped by its ideas, or benefited from the structure it has granted to the nations that shelter them. But as much as the practice of economics have unleashed the productive powers of humanity, it has also wrought unimaginable harm. For it has not only set into motion the business cycle, the vagaries of which have the power to crush the dreams of entrepreneurs and hard-workers everywhere, it has allowed governments the world over to seize upon its ideas as justification for all manner of exploitation.

If our world is defined by economics, then economics is defined by its theorists. And no two men did more to shape 20th century economic thought than John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek. This is their battle.

By most measures, J. M. Keynes was the most consequential economist of the 20th century. An Englishman of immense charm and intellect, he created the field of macroeconomics, that sub-discipline of economics which attempts to grapple with a nation's economy as a whole instead of its countless constituent parts. An advisor to governments and an advocate for the impoverished, Keynes advocated a kind of benevolent interventionism in the national economy never before attempted on such a broad and systematic scale. He believed that governments could mitigate economic upheaval, and its devastating consequences for the poor, by stimulating their economies during downturns, acts of boldness and confidence that would shorten the troughs of the business cycle and allow their economies to maintain full employment. His ideas lead to a revolution in economic thought that, in the halls of power, went unchallenged for 40 years until the stagflation of the 1970s which Keynesian economics was helpless to combat.

In virtually every way, F. A. Hayek was Keynes' polar opposite. Austrian by birth, Hayek staunchly argued that government should not intervene in its national economy. Limited by his poor grasp of English and his tendency to fall back on labyrinthine mathematical constructs to justify his positions, he believed that any good the government did by intervening to mitigate the pain of an economic downturn was more than offset by the risks it took in doing so. For not only do governments lack sufficient knowledge to properly guide their economies, they might well be encouraged by their occasional successes to widen their intervention, creating slippery-slope scenarios in which all civil power is eventually and inevitably grasped by the state. In other words, authoritarianism... Given that Hayek did much of his writing in the aftermath of two epic world wars, largely prosecuted by authoritarian states, this argument seemed to have merit. However, for decades, Hayek's advocacy for non-interference fell on the deaf ears of a world that considered it heartless, especially compared to Keynes' policies of careful and caring intervention.

Instilling drama and panache into an intellectual argument between two ivory-tower academics is a considerable challenge. And so it is to the credit of Mr. Wapshott, a British journalist, that he has imbued Keynes Hayek with an energy that transforms its dry subject into a battle worthy of the billing. The author is utterly convincing in his contention that the ideological war waged by Keynes, Hayek and their disciples has had a profound impact on the world as we know it. After all, political giants from LBJ to Margaret Thatcher, from Nixon to Reagan, have used the models these two men espoused as justification for their economic policies. And in our world, there are no greater forces than governments.

However, as much as this piece succeeds in its core contention, it is also both a wonderful biography and a treatise on modern economic theory. It deeply delves into the lives of these two men, chronicling their fascinating private and public lives with equal attentiveness. In this, the author allows his readers an opportunity to know these men, to revel in their moments of brilliance and to sympathize with their crushing defeats. Their episodes of Cassandra-like perception into the intertwined natures of economics and human nature, abound. But Keynes Hayek would be nothing more than a slick biography without its admirable ability to reduce complicated economic concepts into language the layperson can understand. Everything, from macroeconomics to the Keynesian multiplier are explained with clarity and brevity.

For anyone remotely interested in the tug-of-war the West is currently enduring between advocates of the free market and proponents of the welfare state, this is a must-read. Gripping and thorough work that is as informative as it is engaging. Exactly what I want from a history text. (5/5 Stars)

Death In The Haymarket by James Green

From The Week of November 21, 2011

Justice does not come to those who ask for it. It must be demanded, seized, through persistent protest, peaceful or otherwise. For, injustice is the outgrowth of greed, opportunism and the hunger for power, dark desires which create societal inequities that are much more easily engendered than eliminated. After all, what person, what race, what class, would knowingly, willingly and unreservedly surrender the privileges of power to the powerless? Who, having fought to carve out an advantage, would choose to forego that advantage in the name of fairness? Justice must be seized and it is this potent lesson which underpins Mr. Green's riveting history of a turning point in the history of American labor.

On May 4th, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, protesters and police clashed in a violent incident that deeply influenced the politics and the ideology of 20th century American labor. After years of organized strikes, many of which were violently dispersed by industrial titans and their for-hire paramilitary muscle, tempers in the city were deeply frayed. The protesters, a collection of unionists, socialists and advocates for the eight-hour work day, had been bullied, beaten up, and shot at in their attempts to strike for improved wages and working conditions. The police, meanwhile, obligated to maintain the peace in the face of a movement willing to shut down the industrial heartbeat of the midwest in order to achieve their aims, were stressed by numerous encounters with protesters, pressured by powerful interests to impose order upon them, and fearful of the chaos that imposition might reap upon the factious and immigrant-heavy Chicago of the 1880s. The protesters, riled up by the police firing into a crowd of strikers just a day before, were angry and looking to make a statement. The police, tired of being thwarted in their many attempts to force peace, refused to back down. It was a powderkeg just waiting for its fuse to be lit.

We may never know who hurled the bomb into the crowd of police on that fateful day. Was it an agent provocateur trying to give police the excuse they needed to suppress the protesters, or was it a radicalized sympathizer who thought to strike a blow for the rallyers? Time has likely robbed us of proof of his identity and, consequently, his motivations, but we know this much. When that dynamite-packd explosive detonated amidst the police, grotesquely killing one of its officers, it unleashed a response from law-enforcement that lead to the deaths of seven other officers, an unknown number of protesters and a huge, city-wide crackdown on socialists, foreigners and anarchists, all in the name of finding the cop-killer who, with one bomb, with one flick of the wrist, changed the course of history. For within a year, eight of the protest's leaders would be executed by the state for their association with the crimes committed that day, crushing any hopes for their movement's success, as they envisioned it.

Death In The Haymarket is a compelling recount of a turning point in American history. Mr. Green, an American historian, skillfully and concisely details the socioeconomic forces that animated the protesters, the political and industrial interests that opposed them, the corrupted judicial system that convicted them, and the pro-industrial press that was so eager to condemn them. Though this account undoubtedly favors the laborers, portraying their leaders as honorable advocates for equality who might well have succeeded in their shared dream had they not been ground under the bootheels of powerful interests, the author does not demonize the movement's foes. But for a few magnates and trigger-happy cops,Mr. Green reserves his black hat for institutional corruption. More over, the author laments the extent to which the Haymarket Affair put an end to the hopes of millions of workers fighting for a fair deal. For, in many ways, it would take nearly 50 years for their reforms to take hold under the aegis of Roosevelt's New Deal.

This is wonderful work that captures an all-but-forgotten United States. This is not the America of airplanes and iPads. It is an America of impoverished immigrants and industrial titans, an America before the welfare state, before labor laws, before 20th century social activism instilled into American culture sympathy for the urban worker. This is an America where life is cheap, where corruption is rampant and where the wilds of the western frontier are right outside the door. It is an America to be remembered for the lessons it can teach us about justice and the extent to which violence will erupt when a fair deal is denied to any subset of a society's citizens. Vivid work. (4/5 Stars)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

From The Week of November 14, 2011

No matter how devout we are, all humans adhere to a creed. For nonbelievers, it is often a set of ethical principles that guide their actions in life. But while believers aspire to a similar, living morality, they must also grapple with questions concerning the life to come. Upon the death of the flesh, Where will their immortal souls reside? And what must be done in life to smooth that soulful journey? How best do they get right with god? While agnostics and atheists are spared the contemplation of these difficult and ultimately unanswerable problems, they remain, at least for theologians, points of contention that distinguish the sects within humanity's major religions. Consequently, they can be, for followers of those sects, literally matters of life and death. Mr. Waugh treats it thus in Brideshead Revisited.

In the tumultuous wake of the First World War which consumed much of western Europe in its fiery conflagration, Charles Ryder, a young Englishman born into comfortable if common circumstances, attends Oxford college where he befriends Sebastian, the prodigal son of the aristocratic Marchmain family. Eccentric and dysfunctional, the Marchmain clan, Charles learns through his association with the charming if drunken Sebastian, is plagued by a decades-old schism begun when Lord Marchmain, after converting from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in order to marry Sebastian's mother (Teresa), abandoned both his religion and his bride to settle, with his French mistress, into a comfortable, epicurean life in Venice. This abdication left Lady Teresa Marchmain free to impose the strictures of her Catholicism upon her four children, each of whom react differently to this profound development.

While her eldest son, Brideshead, and her youngest daughter, Cordelia, enthusiastically embrace Roman Catholicism, her eldest daughter, Julia, and her youngest son, Sebastian, suffer under its yoke. The former rejects a clear path to happiness in order to adhere to the faith's principles while the latter descends into alcoholism in order to numb the pain of failing to meet the standards it imposes upon him. Collectively, the five Marchmains present the agnostic Charles, an aspiring artist, with an opportunity to explore his own faith, an opportunity he seizes with a mixture of fascination and contempt. This is his first-hand account of his 20-year association with the family and the profound extent to which it has shaped his relationships, his career, his worldview and his religiosity.

Widely considered to be a classic of 20th century English literature, Brideshead Revisited is, in the main, Mr. Waugh's attempt to make the argument for Roman Catholicism to a skeptical, Anglicanized England. It is a shame, then, that this is perhaps the novel's weakest element. For in attempting to imbue the strictures of Roman Catholicism with grace and dignity, the author has managed, through Julia's suffering, through Sebastian's misery, and through Lord Marchmain's illness, to convey the abject pettiness that consumes dogmatists intent upon convincing those who do not think as they do that theirs is the only rightful road, that to travel any other path is to invite the fearsome disappointment of the almighty.

Perhaps there's a worthwhile argument to be made here; there is, after all, much to be said for encouraging the wayward to live a good and righteous life. But the author, instead, elects to argue that the blessings of the divine can only be felt through strict adherence to the proper interpretation of the Christian god's, at best, ambiguous will. In this, Mr. Waugh espouses the same nonsense advanced by dogmatists the world over. If there is a god looking over us, and if he is as wise and kind and caring as some would have us believe, then the last thing such a being would care about is a slavish adherence to the fine points of religious rituals, or the accurate interpretation of scripture. An omnipresent being would judge us on the contents of our souls, on the depth of our humanity, and on the quality of our actions. He would measure us by what matters, not by honoring every possible point of canonical law.

As much as Brideshead Revisited labors under an outdated and misguided argument for religion, it is, in every other respect, an exquisite novel. Mr. Waugh imbues the friendship between Charles and Sebastian with emotion and subtlety, so much so that he leaves the reader grasping at the extent of the relationship shared between the two men. More over, the author's choice to make Charles the unreliable narrator is paid off wonderfully well, as the reader is treated to the innerworkings of a cynical mind occasionally brought low by fits of uncontrollable passion. Finally, the extent to which Mr. Waugh deploys the entanglements of religion to create tragedy and chaos in the Marchmain family leaves the canvas of the piece splattered with tempestuous emotion that does the work justice and brings each of its eccentric characters to life. Few English works can claim better prose.

This is a masterwork that is, unfortunately, marred by the biases and theological preoccupations of its author. Nonetheless, it is a worthy read. For it is a window into a time in English history now gone, the interwar period that brought low the manorborn and raised up the common man. And in this, it is as much a piece of delightful nostalgia as it is a work of literary excellence. (4/5 Stars)

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

From The Week of November 14, 2011

While most of us are blessed by good fortune to live long and healthy lives, some among us are confronted by extraordinary and existential medical conditions that cannot be overcome. Even as far as we have advanced our understanding of human medicine, the natures of these challenges remain terminal, pipers that must at some point be paid. But until that day, when the will can no longer stave off death, the afflicted have a decision to make. How will they occupy themselves in their final days, weeks, and months? Will they live as they always have? Will they hold out hope for a miracle? Will they plunder their savings for a final, unforgettable experience that frugality has here-to-for denied them? All the available avenues have merit, but there can be little doubt that the road Mr. Pausch has chosen is the most remarkable.

The Last Lecture, published mere months before Mr. Pausch's death in July of 2008, expands upon a singular, hour-long presentation he gave to a collection of students, faculty and friends at Carnegie Mellon University in 2007. Having been diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer, and having failed to win full remission from the condition, doctors informed Mr. Pausch, a professor of computer science at CMU, that he had only weeks to live. Over the understandable objections of his wife who strongly encouraged him to spend as much of his remaining life with her and his three young children, Mr. Pausch, a lifelong dreamer and work'a'holic, devoted himself to the crafting of one final lecture that would, in conveying the myriad lessons he learned from life, act as his legacy, to the world and to his children. On September 18, 2007, he delivered this final performance to an audience of hundreds. It has since been viewed millions of times, inspiring the writing of this book which distills, in point form, the ideas that comprised this most famous lecture.

By any measure, The Last Lecture is a thundering success. Narratively driven by Mr. Pausch's thoughts and feelings in the wake of his diagnoses and failed treatments, it thoroughly details the admirable character of a man determined to have succeeded at everything he tried. Though it would have been easy for Mr. Pausch to descend into self-referential backslapping, the author largely avoids this trap by freely crediting others, from his parents, to his football coach, to his doctoral advisor, to his wife, for making it possible for him to have had a wonderful life. Yes, Mr. Pausch is, at times, arrogant -- someone who decides to make theatre out of his final lecture cannot be else --, but, for the reader, the bitter flavor of his self-importance is amply softened by the sweetness of his humility and humor which, together, prevent this memoir from sliding into the kind of grandiosity that so often characterizes such works.

Ironically, to an extent, the work's events are overshadowed by the powerful, philosophical question it poses to its readers. If told that you had only a brief time left to live, what would you do with your final days? Would you spend that precious time with your family? What would you say to your friends and acquaintances? Would you continue to go to work? There is no single, proper response to this existential scenario and in this lies its power. Regardless of the ambiguity of the proper answer, let there be no doubt that Mr. Pausch has chosen well and with honor.

Notwithstanding its moments of self-absorption, this is exceptional and emotional work that flies well above the ocean of cliches that so often dominate the self-help genre. (4/5 Stars)

Jerusalem by Simon Sebag-Montefiore

From The Week of November 14, 2011

Though there are numerous methods by which humans have created orderly societies, peace and stability appear to depend upon one, powerful prerequisite. There must be enough land to be fairly shared by all. For if humans have cause to fight over land, on the grounds of its scarcity or its significance, then violence and discord are inevitable. And where violence and discord reign, order cannot take root. This is the lesson that the city of Jerusalem teaches us, both through its history and its present day. It is a lesson that Mr. Sebag-Montefiore's thorough biography of this most ancient and contentious city conveys so well.

Settled some 6,000 years ago, Jerusalem is one of the oldest, continuously inhabited human settlements on Earth. After its rise to regional prominence under King David, the city was claimed by the Persians, the Macedonians, the Maccabees, the Romans (pagans and Christians both), the house of Herod, Islamic kalifs, warlords from ancient Iraq, Christian Crusaders, Saladin, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, a succession of European empires, and regional Arab factions before the mantle of its ownership was finally seized by the Jewish people in the name of a new Israel. Amidst these contested centuries, the city has been sacked and besieged, its holy sites desecrated and its peoples savaged by wars, plagues and unimaginable deprivations. At its height it was a world-renowned place of trade and commerce that housed hundreds of thousands of souls. At its ebbs, it was a ravaged ruin, a rat-infested jungle of broken buildings that was home to barely 20,000 humans, its glory a dim and forgotten memory next to the brilliance of Damascus and Baghdad.

And yet, despite the wild variations in its fortunes, Jerusalem has always been the spiritual home to three of the world's most prominent faiths: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Its holy sites are, for these adherents, literally biblical, the places where demigods lived and died. These are the ties that have maintained the settlement for all these centuries. But of course, these are also the ties that cause it to be the center of its factiousness. For each of these three faiths have a claim upon ground that has never been shared. It has only ever been fought for and won. It seems doubtful that this will change anytime soon.

Though Jerusalem is preoccupied with creating a catalogue of the lives of the powerful leaders who have, over the millennia, claimed and ruled this holy, human city, it is, in every other respect, an informational tour de force. Mr. Sebag-Montefiore, a British historian, is thorough to the point of academic rigor in his attempt to trace Jerusalem's political lineage from its founders down to the Six Day War which, since 1967, has momentarily settled the question of Jerusalem's ownership. He is refreshingly forthright concerning the fallibility of his sources, particularly for the city's earliest years, the history of which comes down to us primarily through biblical tales. Consequently, the author wisely confines this part of the narrative to a brief reconstruction of events as we understand them. The majority of the tale is taken up with Jerusalem's more recent history, the authenticity of which can be confirmed by multiple, contemporary sources. These more modern sections are filled with both the giants of history and the wars they waged, all of which are vividly rendered by the author.

However, as successful as Jerusalem is at teaching the reader about the city's political history, it does very little to convey a sense of Jerusalem as seen through the eyes of anyone but its rulers. But for some passages concerning architectural trends through time, and but for passing references to a few of its more famous artists, the reader is negligibly educated on life in the city, at any point. History is not just a reconstruction of the successes and the failures of kings and politicians. It is a tapestry comprised of culture and politics with neither more important than the other. Jerusalem has failed to considerably deepen my understanding of the city as a whole.

This is a thorough and successful read which is well worth the 650-page commitment. Jerusalem has a fascinating and tangled history which Mr. Sebag-Montefiore has admirably conveyed. Unfortunately, the lack of cultural information prevents it from achieving the greatest heights. (4/5 Stars)

Haiti After The Earthquake by Paul Farmer

From The Week of November 14, 2011

As much as rational analysis argues otherwise, some regions of the world appear to be cursed. Whether they find themselves at a nexus of tectonic instability, or blessed by natural resources that other societies want very much to steal, turmoil and conflict stain their histories, causing prosperity to be as elusive, for them, as tranquility. But even on a list of Earth's most cursed locales, Haiti stands apart. For the Atlantic hurricanes that sweep in to buffet this Caribbean island are as tempestuous as this impoverished nation's self-destructive politics. In Haiti After The Earthquake, Dr. Farmer and his associates attempt to give us a window into this nation and its history as seen through the recent, tragic events there. Unfortunately, they fail miserably.

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Port au-Prince, the densely populated capital of Haiti. Destroying buildings and roads, hospitals and power grids, the devastating temblor, considered as of this writing to be the third deadliest in recorded history, lead to the deaths of 316,000 people, wounded nearly as many, and rendered a million more destitute. Overwhelmed by such widespread destruction, the Haitian government long-plagued by corruption and instability, was unable to respond adequately to the severity of the disaster, a reality which quickly triggered a humanitarian response from the UN and neighboring nations which rushed life-saving assets to the crippled country. Though many lives were saved as a result of the swift, international reaction to Haiti's crisis, it also complicated matters. For without strong intra-agency coordination, the logistics of trying to help so many, in a nation suddenly without functioning infrastructure, created a bureaucratic nightmare the likes of which the western world has rarely seen.

A book entitled Haiti After The Earthquake should have two, straightforward tasks: to describe the earthquake and its aftermath and to use the earthquake as a vehicle to inform the reader about Haiti and its troubled history. Dr. Farmer and friends fail on both counts. Though some effort is made to elucidate the magnitude of the earthquake, the authors blur their descriptions of the 12th of January, and the fearful days thereafter, with their own preoccupied and emotional reactions to the devastation. If these accounts actually conveyed some solid information about the destruction of Port au-Prince, the self-obsession of the narrative would be tolerable. Unfortunately, these 400-odd pages are consumed, in the main, by the authors expressing their shock, their dismay, their worry for family, and their admirable desire to help the afflicted. This tells us far more about the authors than it does about the actual earthquake and its victims.

The effort to inform the reader about Haiti's history is equally as feeble. Dr. Farmer makes a token effort, reserving a couple dozen pages in the middle of his piece to give us a crash course in 200 years of Haitian history. Not only is this section hopelessly pro-Haiti -- it discusses at length the many international injustices Haiti has suffered while making very little attempt to locate any blame for the decay of its modern-day civil society --, it is misplaced in the narrative. It ought to have been expanded and positioned near the beginning of the piece where the reader, having had his sympathies activated by the enormity of the disaster, is educated on Haiti's difficult past and how these struggles inform its present. Poorly done...

There can be no doubt that the contributers to Haiti After The Earthquake made heroic efforts, in the days after the earthquake, to give succor to an impoverished people. Their successes should be championed; their morality should be applauded; and their tenacity should be used as an example to the rest of the world of the great achievements that emanate from the application of human compassion. However, the extent to which Dr. Farmer and his associates are consumed by their own existential drama prevents the reader from fully appreciating these admirable accomplishments, much less extracting valuable lessons from Haiti and its history.

Uninformative and poorly assembled... The self-absorption of an author should never supersede fidelity to the subject at hand. One of the worst reads this year... (1/5 Stars)

The Cold Commands: A Land Fit For Heroes 02 by Richard K. Morgan

From The Week of November 07, 2011

Once in awhile, an author distinguishes himself from the literary crowd to stand alone as the voice of a decade, a man whose work, albeit fictional and fantastical, perfectly harmonizes with both the tastes of his readers and the socioeconomic climate of his environment. This synergy, when it occurs, is something to behold, for it creates in the sympathetic and receptive reader a love for the text that is both rare and exquisite. These experiences must be cherished. For there is no guarantee the reader will ever again enjoy the unique sensation of appreciating every page and all the moments of brilliance they contain. Mr. Morgan is, in all his power and brutality, is just such an author and The Cold Commands is just such a book.

On a difficult world of deserts and tundras, of banished demigods and entitled elites, peace and justice are vanishingly rare commodities. There are, of course, moments in which the light of truth and fairness shine through the darkness of iniquity to provide some relief to the oppressed, but mostly the commonfolk live and endure under the bootheel of selfish nobles and extravagant emperors who think nothing of grinding them up in their internecine schemes. Though this swamp of inequity does its best to choke out the hope of all of those it touches, three battered souls occasionally bob up out of the fray to combat, each in their darkly cynical ways, the most intolerable of their world's excesses. It may well be that their efforts are futile, failing to enact lasting change for good, but who is to say the right cut throat, the properly smited demigod won't inch forward the hope for something like fairness.

Their bond forged in the last great war which swept across their world, threatening the very existence of man, Ringil, Egar and Archeth are allies in blood. Lord Ringil, exiled from his homeland for his homosexuality and his inconvenient politics, emerged from the war with a hero's reputation, but an affinity for the dark corners of the world and a propensity to reap nihilistic vengeance upon those who oppose him have left him open to the sweet seductions of powerful forces that stretch far beyond his little planet. Egar, his closest friend, and one of the few men alive who can rightfully call himself a dragonslayer, is a warrior of legend who, now that he has entered middle age, finds his personality incompatible with the nomadic people of the Step that birthed and shaped him. But where Ringil and Egar have chosen to reject their native peoples, Archeth's forefathers have abandoned her, choosing to flee a world they could not save,leaving it to her, a half-breed and outcast, to bring slivers of civilization to a violent empire.

Though their missions are different, their obsessions unique to themselves, the fates have conspired to reunite these three, brooding heroes in anticipation of a vital voyage into the northern seas where a city created by Archeth's vanished kin has re-emerged from centuries of somnolent obscurity. But before they can embark on this mission to divine the depths of the dark forces stalking their world, they must confront a zealous threat at home that might well crush their fledgling venture before it has even begun.

The Cold Commands, the second instalment in a proposed trilogy, is a far more contemplative novel than its action-packed predecessor. Though it is characterized by Mr. Morgan's customary intensity -- episodes of savage violence, carnal sex, merciless oppression and delightfully dark humor abound --, it is a transitional work that must act as connective tissue linking the saga's explosive beginnings to its undoubtedly cynical conclusion. In lesser hands, this would be cause for both boredom and concern; however, Mr. Morgan uses the relative lull in the narrative to fill in vital details about the world and the war with the Scalefolk which both improve our understanding of his antihero protagonists. This, combined with a swift and decisive conclusion make the two-and-a-half-year wait for The Cold Commands well worth it.

Mr. Morgan is a poet of war and an avatar of violence. I have never encountered another author who so capably weaves together the inequities of society, the dark nature of humanity, and the subversive power of coarse language into a single tale of humor and despair. He is not a perfect scribe; his tendency towards nihilism can tip over into chaos, as it did with Market Forces and the latter entries in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. However, when he is on his game, as he is here, as he was so memorably in Altered Carbon and Thirteen, he is a dark sage, a man capable of injecting more realism, more humanity, and more emotion into a world of his creation than authors of contemporary fiction can grant to our to the real world around us! He is intensely of the tumult of the first decade of the 21st century and for this, for the sublime nature of his work, and for his willingness to throw over all the idols and cliches, the niceties and the crutches, he deserves to be elevated to his rightful status among the greats of SF. (5/5 Stars)

The Death of Grass by John Christopher

From The Week of November 07, 2011

Though humanity has only enjoyed civilization for the last few millennia of its two-million-year history, those of us alive today cannot imagine a world without its blessings. After all, this Earth of societies and governments, of industry and commerce, is all we, and our ancestors, have ever known, banishing into history the necessities of sleeping in caves for shelter, huddling around fires for warmth, and killing animals for survival. However, much as we would like to think of civilization as permanent, steps taken that cannot be undone, it is, in reality, a fragile construct that only persists thanks to the unspoken agreement of the many to abide by the laws of the land. Threaten our safety, jeopardize our futures, take away our abundance and it would be only a matter of years before we returned to the animal behaviors that defined us for so long. This is the stirring, disturbing and thrilling lesson of Mr. Christopher's existential classic, The Death of Grass.

In a 1950s England recovering swiftly from the deprivations of the Second World War, life is characterized by order and prosperity. Sure, inequities persist, but most families get by in a country that is still sufficiently rural to feed, clothe and empower the majority of its citizens. However, no matter how well-oiled the machinery of civilization may be, it is always vulnerable to surprises, disturbances that cause vital components of its system to cease functioning. When word filters out of China that a virus there is rotting out the particular strain of grass that yields rice, their most critical crop, there is, in England, more sympathy than concern for civilization. But when attempts to combat the virus cause it to mutate into a strain with the power to kill off all forms of grass on the planet, then it becomes painfully clear, to everyone everywhere, that life will never again be the same.

With every grain-based crop failing, with Britain's 50 million souls waking up to the realization that the supply of fish and root vegetables cannot possibly sustain all of them, John Custance, an architect, his wife Anne and their two children mount a journey from their now worthless home in doomed London to a valley in Westmorland where, for years now, John's brother David has operated the family farm he inherited from their father. Initially augmented by John's friend Roger and his family, the party, captained by John, quickly grows to incorporate more desperate people seeking out safe harbor in a world that has, virtually overnight, descended into lawlessness and barbarism. For without an abundance of resources, a mad scramble for what's left will inevitably take place, an all-consuming drive for food that will leave little energy left over for the sustenance of civilization. On the way, the Custance clan will have to learn which of their morals they can afford to keep and which will have to be sacrificed in a world now defined by the singular will to survive.

Though The Death of Grass is not without its flaws, this dark and gripping novel from Mr. Christopher is powerfully and movingly conducted by its premise, that civilization depends upon a few key pillars to remain upright and that, should any of those pillars suddenly crumble, humanity will swiftly collapse back into the abysmal chaos of survival and death that characterized so much of the species' history. Mr. Christopher argues, rather convincingly, that human civilization is an outgrowth of our planet's vast resources which simply cannot be captured by one person, or even a small band of tyrants. It is so ubiquitous that it must be shared and enjoyed by most, allowing for prosperity to fuel society. Remove that abundance swiftly and without warning, reduce the supply of necessities to an amount that must be fought over in order to be had, enjoyed? Then might will make right and the darkness of feudalism will re-capture us all.

But as much as the novel succeeds in communicating the full horror of this reasonable, if pessimistic, deduction, a few key flaws prevent it from reaching its full potential. Published in 1956, The Death of Grass is very much a work of its era. Female characters here are largely neglected not only by the author but by his male characters. This is somewhat understandable given that the subject matter concerns paternalistic 1950s england, but not even in feudal societies were women this marginalized. They had voices, wills and purposes. Here, they lack even that much. The most developed woman in our roster of characters is John's wife, Anne, and her singular purpose appears to be to highlight the extent to which John Custance has changed from the man she married pre-collapse, transforming into the hardened killer of the new England.

More annoying than this form of period paternalism, though, is the extent to which the personalities of the main players shift in order to suit the author's needs. Some of this is forgivable; the reader understands quite well that minor characters are little more than plot devices to thrust the story along, but John and Roger are the story's two most developed characters and their behaviors are in-flux for most of the novel, hardening in the face of their circumstances, only to soften, only to harden again. The authoritative Roger is especially victimized by this schizophrenia, losing his assertiveness only to regain it and lose it once more for no apparent reason.

This is a swift and grim work of post-apocalyptic fiction that is vivid in its darkness, shocking in its violence, and provocative in its message, but the author's inability to provide the reader with a set of solidly familiar characters, and his incapacity to fully understand feudal England, mars the piece. (3/5 Stars)

One Crowded Hour by Tim Bowden

From The Week of November 07, 2011

While most of us live unexceptional lives, lives that conform to the expectations of the societies that harbor us, some souls reject the safe existence and choose, instead, the more dangerous and difficult road of venturing out into the chaotic unknown. The virtues of such an unusual life are obvious. Not only is adventure forever around the next corner, but so too is the opportunity to delve into the moral and intellectual jungles that lie at the heart of man's nature. For to see man operate free of the strictures lawful society imposes upon him is to understand him in a way that we conformists will never comprehend. We cannot step outside ourselves to gain the perspective that the unshackled mind enjoys every day. While One Crowded Hour is an outstanding biography of an exceptional man, it is this lesson that underpins its tale.

Born into the economically depressed rural Australia of the early 1930s, Neil Davis shrugged off the life of a farmer, proscribed to him by family and birth, to become one of the 20th century's most notable combat cameramen. An accomplished athlete and sportsmen, Davis could have lived comfortably, firmly ensconced in an orderly nation with abundant resources and a respect for the law. Instead, he traded the commonwealth for the adventure and bustle of southeast Asia where, for two, blood-soaked decades, he covered the Vietnam War. Not only was Davis often positioned in the front-lines of combat, he was, for most of his career, a one-man team, writing, shooting and narrating two to three minute segments for broadcast on the major news organizations in Australia, Britain and the United States. His work captured some of the war's most memorable moments while earning a reputation for luck -- he escaped fatal wounds on several occasions --, for courage -- he appears to have never ducked an assignment --, and for fidelity to his craft -- he refused to stage any of his segments, believing that he had a responsibility to his viewers to capture the historical facts of the war. After countless near misses, after exhibiting a neutrality that earned him the respect of both capitalists and communists, after seeing the world and immersing himself in its many cultures, Neil Davis amazing career was abruptly ended in 1985 when he was gunned down during a forgettable incident in one of Thailand's many, forgettable coupes.

One Crowded Hour is Mr. Bowden's chronicle of the remarkable life of his friend and colleague. Compiled from Davis' diaries and journals, as well as many hours of recordings in which the two men discussed Davis' unique career, Mr. Bowden not only educates us on the life of a man in love with both Asia and its people, but the essence of what it means to be a war correspondent trapped in the inferno of combat. Rarely armed, these journalists were called upon to carry and utilize heavy equipment in some of the world's hottest combat zones, recording the depravities of man while ignoring threats to their own safety. Though some spirits must surely have been shattered by the enormous, psychological pressures of such circumstances, Davis' numerous close calls seemed rather to immure him to the paralytic effects of fear and chaos.

But as much as Mr. Bowden's biography captures the bravery of the man's work, Davis himself is the winner here. The conformity he rejected, the objectivity he aspired to, and the zest for life he never lost rise above the sins of war and the logistics of war journalism to make this a well-rounded biography of the first rate. For Mr. Bowden chose to let Neil Davis be remembered through his own words and actions which were eloquent and remarkable. This is unforgettable work. (4/5 Stars)

Terrorists in Love by Ken Ballen

From The Week of November 07, 2011

Due to a confluence of unfortunate factors, most of us have a poor understanding of the powerful forces that impel radicalized Muslim's to commit acts of unspeakable terrorism. Not only do governments try to spin their populations on the shape and scope of events as they want them to be viewed, the western media, which is designed to be a check against the disinformation of government, relies far too heavily on said governments for their reporting during times of crisis. But while governments and newspapers may fail us in our attempts to understand, to know, we are ultimately our own worst enemies. For the human desire for a simple and logical narrative to explain the inexplicable, to make comprehensible the irrational, causes us to favor the half-lies of black-and-white scenarios over the truth inherent in complex and nuanced reality. This is a great shame because it leaves us to obsess over the explosive events of the War on Terror while ignoring the corruption and the hopelessness that makes it possible.

Terrorists in Love is a vivid, if unsystematic, attempt to understand the hearts and minds of men and women who have tried to martyr themselves for their faith. Mr. Ballen, an American prosecutor, uses numerous trips to the Middle East, over the ten years since 9/11, to recreate the life-stories of six reformed jihadis who, at one time, swore to devote their lives to the ruination of the United States. From the Pakistani military insider to the broken-hearted Romeo of Saudi Arabia, from a young Jihadi burned alive by Al-Qaeda duplicity to the Saudi princeling who is the genetic heir of the sect of Islam that spiritually sustains Jihadis, the author takes his readers on a journey through Saudi deserts, Iraqi cities, Pakistani camps and Afghani mountains in an effort to expose the tribal, spiritual and economic forces that plagued and radicalized his interviewees. These are their tales, their experiences, their thoughts. These are their whys.

While Terrorists in Love is a totally unscientific attempt to understand the motivations of jihadis, and though Mr. Ballen recognizes this when he argues that it is dangerous to extrapolate thematic commonalities from a half-dozen martyrs from a pool of hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of willing suicide bombers, there can be no doubt that this is a stirring work which goes a long way to shedding light on the soul-crushing conditions that nourish radicals. Presuming that resources are not vanishingly scarce, humans, generally, live in peaceful coexistence with one another. However, take away their hope of advancement through society, strip them of their trust in justice to make life lawful, and deprive them of their belief that stagnant societies can change for the better and you will have smashed their dreams for a better tomorrow. Without hope to sustain us through life's inevitable setbacks, we lack any means of guarding ourselves against the acute pains of disappointment and despair. In the midst of such bleakness, some of us will inevitably conclude that they have nothing to lose, that they might as well throw their lives away for someone else's war.

Terrorists in Love is a multifaceted biography that forsakes academic rigor for a poignant, human story. We all want to live free of the fetters of corruption, illegality and institutionalized rent-seeking. We all want to thrive on our own merits, unburdened by the inertia of government. When that proves to be impossible, we search for someone to blame. Unfortunately for the West, it's our turn to be the great Satan. But even more unfortunately for the world, that humans are willing to obliterate themselves for any cause suggests that deep, systemic problems exist in all of Earth's societies. Mr. Ballen's vivid portraits of these six reformed jihadis may not aid anyone in preventing the next terrorist attack, but at least, in reading it, we will better understand the complex and existential motives that drive human beings to be terrorists. This is gripping and moving work. (4/5 Stars)

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany

From The Week of October 31, 2011

Though corruption exists in every human society, some have proven more susceptible to its destructive charms than others. After all, only three things are required to institutionalize corruption into the very fabric of society: a weak rule of law, rampant rent-seeking, and vast inequities in economic and political opportunity. But while we have a firm grasp of how corruption flourishes, most of us don't have a solid understanding of how to uproot it. When a small group of people have tasted ultimate power, it is difficult to take that power from them without killing them in which case, more often than not, the killer becomes a usurper, not a reformer. But while debates on how best to eliminate corruption will no doubt carry on for decades, we know one truth to be self-evident, that systemic corruption has profound consequences for the poor, for the disenfranchised, and for the powerless. This is the enlightening and disturbing subject of The Yacoubian Building.

Nestled in the heart of crowded, polluted and frenetic Cairo, the Yacoubian is an apartment building home to all sorts of colorful characters who work, strive and scheme in hopes of bettering their lot in life. Some, like the powerful Hagg Azzam, a successful car magnate and drug kingpin, seek to further their ambitions by buying their way to the pinnacle of state power. Others, like Taha el Shazli, the son of the Yacoubian's doorman, hope to improve their lot by devoting themselves to respectable, civil service. But while their goals may differ, shaped by the limitations of their class, they all dream of becoming more than they are, of overcoming a system that is naturally opposed to granting them their wishes. Unfortunately, the inertia of the state, in all its pomp and privilege, prevents all of them, from the homosexual newspaperman, to the entrapped widow, from the westernized engineer to the entrepreneurial schemer, from advancing in society through legitimate means. For some, this glass ceiling is a crushing impediment from which they'll never recover. For others, it is a barrier to be broken, or circumvented, an obstacle to ambitions that must be overcome. For without the hope of a better tomorrow, they will suffocate in their own disillusionment. This is the story of the Yacoubian Building, its secrets, its depravities and the dreams contained within its walls.

Though the plodding pace of The Yacoubian Building threatens to keep its plot from catching fire, the various plights suffered by its cornucopia of characters provide the tale enough propulsion to reach critical mass. These ordeals are both the story's blessing and its curse. For given that this is a novel that concerns itself almost entirely with the notion of disillusionment, and all its associated emotional and physical torments, everything prior to the payoff is simply a means of advancing the characters to the point at which their hopes are trampled on by an uncaring state. Furthermore, being that it is told from the prospective of at least six main characters, some of which work better than others, the successes and the failures of the novel's intentionally fragmented narrative hinge upon the likeability of its protagonists. But while some, like Taha, do succeed in provoking powerful reactions, both positive and negative, others, like Dessouki, the westernized engineer, fail to be any more than filler.

To the extent that The Yacoubian Building exposes readers to the consequences, to everyday Egyptians, of state corruption, it is a momentous success. It marvellously details the myriad ways in which, in an unfair environment, the cruel can capitalize on the credulity of the good and the secrets of the different. However, the author has ambitiously staked the enjoyment of his novel on the effectiveness of a multitude of characters, spread out over a fragmented landscape. And while some of these personalities do the novel justice, others are little more than distractions. An interesting but uneven read. (3/5 Stars)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

From The Week of October 31, 2011

Though humans have many commendable qualities to recommend them, kindness, generosity and compassion to name a few, it is, nonetheless, a species whose members are obsessed with the desire to draw distinctions between themselves and their fellows. Be they differences in race, in culture, even in the clothes they choose to wear, distinguishing oneself from the crowd appears to be essential to the human experience. This divisiveness may well be nothing more than an outgrowth of that fundamental strain of individualism that underpins human identity. If so, more's the pity; for there can be few aspects of the human character that have lead to more hatred and discord than this otherness in which we take so much pride. For this is also the fuel that has powered the racial conflicts that have divided us for so long and for which our forefathers have so much to answer. Rarely has the pain of these foolish distinctions been better rendered than in The Color Purple.

Set in rural Georgia of the early 20th century, Ms. Walker's 1982 classic centers on the very different lives of Celie and Nettie, two black sisters enduring all of life's hardship in hopes of reuniting after a long and unwelcome separation. Celie, unattractive and uneducated, is deprived of her childhood when, after sexually abusing her for years, treatment that resulted in two pregnancies, her father arranges to marry her off to a man she only refers to as Mister. Her children gone, presumed by her to have been killed by her father, Celie settles into a joyless marriage, taking solace in her letters to god and in the handful of resilient women that make her life bearable. Nettie, meanwhile, who ran away from their father's shameless schemes, is taken in by missionaries, Samuel and Corrine, who plan to travel to Africa to preach and live with the people of their ancestors. Along with their two adopted children, the missionaries take Nettie with them, beginning a decades-long stay in Africa where Nettie is mostly buffered from the Second World War and the social changes it brings to the United States.

Having thought Nettie dead, Celie is shocked when she, and her lover Shug, discover that Celie's husband has been receiving letters from Nettie for years. Uncovering them in Mister's trunk, Celie is both shattered by this darkest betrayal and heartened to realize that her sister is alive and well in Africa. But while her attempts to write Nettie back prove unsuccessful, Celie is motivated to make something of her life independent of the men she was trained to please. In this, though the two sisters are separated by thousands of miles and dozens of years, they both overcome the poverty of their youth to become successful, independent women.

Told through a series of letters penned by the sisters to one another, and from Celie to god, The Color Purple is a powerful statement about the extent to which the marginalization of minorities leads to crime and depravity. Celie lives in a world devoid of justice. There is no police to help keep her father from abusing her, no court to annul her arranged marriage to Mister, and certainly no social services capable of delivering her from the clutches of her parasitical parent. Consequently, Celie is stuck in a life of servitude until the example set for her by two women within her community empower her to carve her own business and her own happiness out of an existence that has given her nothing and a country that has done its best to forget her. But for these revelations, Celie must suffer extraordinarily, a plight which no one should have to endure to achieve enlightenment and happiness.

As much as the reader is moved by Celie's narrative, Nettie's half of the tale proves less successful. While her presence is essential to the story's potent conclusion, her contributions, otherwise, are minimal at best. But for laying the groundwork for one of Celie's key revelations, her passages are little more than descriptions of a missionary's life in Africa. While the reader is informed about the nature of such work, and while it nicely contrasts Celie's ordeals, it does little to move the reader's emotional meter.

Nonetheless, this is riveting work. Ms. Walker's decision to tell Celie's tale in a thick, ungrammatical dialect allows the reader to create a sympathetic link with Celie that the novel richly rewards. At times chilling, off-putting, gripping and heartwarming, The Color Purple is notable, emotive fiction. (4/5 Stars)

The Whistleblower by Kathryn Bolkovac

From The Week of October 31, 2011

Though there are many candidates for the most grievous of human crimes, few make a better case than the betrayal of innocents by those who have sworn to protect them. We are not naive; we expect that, in the course of our lives, there will be those who try to exploit us, to entrap us in their schemes and their desires. But while we naturally have our guards up for these manipulators, we have no innate defenses against being blindsided, exploited, used and discarded by those in whom we have placed our trust. Though we can imagine the consequences of being knifed in the back by our sworn protectors, The Whistleblower makes a powerful case for why we cannot truly fathom this betrayal until we have witnessed its cost.

Approaching 40, restless and struggling under the fiscal burden of raising three kids on her own, Ms. Bolkovac, a police officer in Nebraska, stumbles upon an opportunity for a new and financially rewarding challenge. The year is 1999 and the embers of the ethnic conflict in the Balkans are still simmering when the UN rewards Dyncorp, a private contractor based in Virginia, with a $15,000,000 contract to resuscitate and re-train the police forces in the war-torn region. Offering lucrative salaries to cops, active and retired, across the United States, Dyncorp quickly recruits a stable of officers, including Bolkovac, and dispatches them to the Balkans as UN Monitors on six-month terms to bring some semblance of law back to cities and towns traumatized by an existential conflict.

Though Bolkovac initially finds her work rewarding, investigating sex crimes that would have otherwise gone completely unpunished, difficulties quickly accrue. Not only is she disturbed by the insensitive attitude of some of her male colleagues towards the women trafficked in and out of the region, she soon realizes that there is an almost institutional unwillingness to take seriously the crimes she is pursuing. However unnerved this makes Ms. Bolkovac, it's not until she discovers wads and wads of American money, in a bar she knows to have been peddling underaged girls, that she has uncovered proof of a heinous crime. For the money could have only come from the pockets of American servicemen and or her fellow American Dyncorp employees, the currency being otherwise unavailable in the region. Ms. Bolkovac's attempts to further investigate the matter are thwarted by her bosses. And when she refuses to go quietly, her time sheets are altered as a means of creating cause to fire her which they do without shame or mercy, never imagining that Bolkovac would challenge them in open court.

The Whistleblower is as riveting as it is sickening. Ms. Bolkovac details her journey from the rough but ultimately sane streets of Lincoln, Nebraska, to the lawless and exploitative alleys of the turn-of-the-century Balkans with commendable and relentless logic. The author clearly possesses an ordered mind, capable of holding onto important facts while pursuing vital leads as a means of solving difficult crimes. But while her personal narrative does not disappoint, the extent to which she exposes Dyncorp's depravity is breathtaking. She mounts a convincing case that Dyncorp made virtually no attempt to perform even the most basic of background checks on its employees before sending them into the eminently exploitable Balkans. Consequently, a number of opportunistic rapists and pedophiles effortlessly found their way onto its payroll. When this was brought to Dyncorp attention, rather than do the right thing and admit their errors, they swept the sins of their employees under the proverbial rug, discharging them with stainless records. It was only after Ms. Bolkovac's lawsuit over her wrongful dismissal that Dyncorp agreed to change its policies. And yet, depressingly, even these changes appear to have been only window-dressing. For Dyncorp continued to be plagued by similar scandals after sending its employees into Iraq at the behest of the US government.

The Whistleblower is, in many ways, an old tale. It exposes the depressing duplicity of corporations that care about profit more than justice and the governments that blithely allow them to do so. But though it may not be an original, it is full of rewarding irony. For Ms. Bolkovac had only circumstantial evidence of Dyncorp's involvement in the trafficking of underaged girls. Forced to prove her case in a European court, she'd have surely lost. After all, a few off-handed comments and a box-full of American currency do not represent smoking guns. It was the extent to which Dyncorp committed fraud as a means of wrongfully dismissing her that secured its conviction. A stomach-churning but ultimately rewarding read about the courage of one person to do the right thing in the face of revolting corporate malfeasance. (3/5 Stars)

Quartered Safe Out Here by George Macdonald Fraser

From The Week of October 31, 2011

War is so costly a weapon, in lives and coin, that it must only be used when all else has failed. For war is an insidious crime that runs longer and cuts deeper than its instigators ever imagine, scarring the world with its pain and ugliness. But even though we all, to some extent, understand these truths, war persists because acuteness of its cruelty fades with time, allowing populations to forget its harsh lessons. This is why we read war memoirs, to remind us of what has come and gone and of those who suffered in the embrace of that most destructive of human inventions. Unfortunately, in every way, Quartered Safe Out Here is incapable of teaching us anything.

Mr. Fraser, a British author and screenwriter, here, reflects upon his time in the British infantry during the second world war. Stationed in Burma, he vividly details the unromantic side of war: the suffocating conditions, the endless marches, the chaotic battles and the blessings of fortune which distinguish the living from the dead. Contesting the British forces in this inhospitable land are the soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army who, in their dogged determination and their suicidal bravery, earn both Fraser's grudging respect and his burning enmity. For many of their deadly traps and their bullets have found the flesh of his friends, striking them down far away from home, in a theatre of battle halfway forgotten by a world seemingly exclusively focused on the dramatic collapse of the third Reich. Even while Germany is surrendering and Paris is being liberated, the war grinds on in the east until, with some relish, Fraser observes the capitulation of the Japanese after their homeland becomes the first in the history of humanity to be devastated by nuclear weapons.

Though Quartered Safe Out Here harbors some wisdom regarding the everyday deprivations confronted by soldiers fighting far from home, it is, in every other respect, a contemptible memoir. Published some 50 years after the events it describes, it is full of long and detailed conversations between the author and his fellow infantrymen. Everything from politics to the age-old complaints of soldiering are covered in discussions which the author appears to remember with exquisite clarity even though he had no way of recording them for posterity. His unwillingness to so much as caution the reader on the authenticity of these conversations drains his account of credibility.

Worse, though, is Mr. Fraser's unwillingness to bestow even a gram of validity upon any viewpoint but his own. Not only is he dismissive of those who were critical of the United States' use of nuclear weapons -- would they have rather hundreds of thousands of western soldiers die taking Japan? --, he exposes himself as a hopeless fossil by decrying the extent to which the modern culture is in touch with its feelings. Soldiers of Mr. Fraser's day complained, sure, but they didn't need to see psychiatrists. They did not suffer from PTSD. They did their jobs because these were the tasks before them, the routines assigned to them. They did not blubber like babies; they accomplished their goals. They were real men, living in a better time. Such boastful blather not only ignores the heavier, psychological burden placed upon the modern soldier who, more often than not, is fighting an unconventional war, it assumes that 50 years of advancements in the understanding of the human mind is nothing more than an attempt to weaken man's indomitable spirit. This is backward-thinking nonsense from someone clearly incapable of adapting with changing times.

Some engaging moments centering on the poignancy of war, but has very little else to recommend it. A thorough disappointment from a narrow mind... (1/5 Stars)

Warriors Of God by Nicholas Blanford

From The Week of October 31, 2011

Though the roots of the conflict are centuries old, for the last 60 years, the Middle East has been awash in spot fires eager to erupt into a full-blown conflagration. Ever since the founding of Israel in 1948, a region-transforming event brought about by the flight of Jewish Europeans from the deadly antisemitism of the Third Reich, the region's Arab populations have felt aggrieved not only by the Jewish state's aggressive policies, but by the unconditional support they've earned from guilty, Western nations. Hobbled by their own societal inequities and angered by Jewish intransigence, the Arab Street agitated for war with Israel, to reclaim, in the name of justice and religion, the Palestine they believed they owned. But rather than bring about glorious victories over young Israel, these engagements largely resulted in crushing defeats for Arab nations, some of which even found their lands occupied by the very Jews they were confident of destroying.

Though the reverberations of these defeats have impacted on every Arab nation in the region, none have felt its brunt more than Lebanon which has given birth to a phenomenon that promises to have a mighty impact on the 21st century. I speak of Hezzbollah, the subject of this thorough and frightening history.

Mr. Blanford, a British-born journalist who has spent decades corresponding from the Middle East, here assembles the nearly 30-year history of the world's most successful and provocative resistance movement. Vivified by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon which required only nine days to reach and occupy the country's capital, Beirut, Hezzbollah, literally "party of god," has since become the region's most powerful paramilitary organization and Lebanon's mightiest institution. Financially and ideologically nourished by the Shi'a Islam brought to prominence by the 1979 revolution in Iran, Hezzbollah considers itself above the Lebanese state, operating unilaterally and without sanction within every aspect of its society.

Helmed by Hassan Nasrallah, a Shi'a cleric and Hezzbollah's patriarch, the movement, which seeks to sew the ideology of resistance to Israel into the very fabric of Lebanese culture, has been widely credited with forcing Israel to end, in 2000, its 18-year occupation of Lebanon. But not content with its territorial gains, Hezzbollah has since pressed its advantage by launching hundreds of rockets, provided by Iran via Syria, into northern Israel, terrorizing the Jewish population there and provoking a second war with Israel in 2006 which annihilated much of southern Lebanon. However, unlike every other occasion in which Israel's technological advantage has allowed it to claim victory over its opponents, Hezzbollah is widely felt to have strategically defeated Israel in this most recent conflict. For it has not only managed to repair much of the damage done by Israeli bombs, it has not only succeeded in acquiring modern weapons capable of holding their own against state-of-the-art Israeli materiel, it has mastered the art of psychological warfare by maximizing civilian casualties and by terrorizing Israeli populations and sending them to their bunkers with the mere firing of a missile. Given these advancements, not only must Hezzbollah be considered a significant evolution in resistance fighting, it must also be given the benefit of the doubt in future conflicts with Israel. For it has promised that the next engagement will not play out in war-weary Lebanon, but in the here-to-for sacrosanct territory of Israel itself.

Published in the fall of 2011, Warriors of God is an exquisitely detailed and up-to-date history of Hezzbollah as both a terrorist organization and a resistance movement. But while the reader is profoundly informed about the nature of Hezzbollah, its fundamentalist roots, its charismatic leaders, its ingenious structures and its frightening achievements, he is also educated in the anatomy of an occupation, both its destructive necessities and its inevitable outcomes. For here, with the benefit of hindsight, we are witness to Israel's foolish 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon and how its claim to such territory only fuelled existing resentments towards Israel from within Lebanon. Every wrong step, every provocative act on the part of the Jewish state only swells Hezzbollah's ranks, popularizes its ideology and deepens the divide between it and its sworn enemy. In this, the account is utterly convincing that peace and justice can never flow from occupation. There are simply too many destructive elements nourished by such conflicts.

This is a terrifying read. Mr. Blanford does nothing to dissuade the reader from the notion that all-out war in the Middle East is but a few years away. For while Hezbollah has had its individual successes and is fuelled by the ingenuity of its members and its leadership, it is only effective as a result of being sustained by Iran. If Mr. Blanford knows this, then surely Israel does as well which means that, as Hezzbollah grows more and more antagonistic towards Israel, it is only a matter of time before Israel considers it necessary to strike at Iran as a means of isolating Hezzbollah. And given that it seems likely that the United States would militarily support Israel in any conflict of this severity, there is little doubt that the next war in the Middle East, involving Israel, might well be the biggest and perhaps even the last. And at the heart of all this, Hezbollah... Exceptional work. (5/5 Stars)

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

From The Week of October 24, 2011

As much as humans can be conditioned to endure almost any discomfort, let there be no doubt that the emotion that drives us through all of life's challenges is love. It can take any of a hundred forms, manifesting as love of country, of ideology, of family, even of ones own labor. But regardless of its shape, it is equally powerful in all its guises. Without it, we are nothing but aimless animals. With it, we can endure any wound or torment, no matter its variety or severity. Few stories can claim to make this point with more clarity and gravity than this quiet, autumnal epic from Mr. Frazier.

As the American Civil War grinds to a bloody and inevitable conclusion, W. P. Inman, a young soldier who has only reluctantly fought for the all-but-defeated Confederacy, takes the opportunity of his convalescence in a military hospital to desert from the army. His intention is to return home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina, where he hopes to resume a pre-war romance begun with Ada, the intelligent but somewhat helpless daughter of a preacher. But in order to make this homecoming a reality, Inman must travel 250 difficult miles of treacherous country which, thanks to the war, has been stripped bare of all but those things essential for human survival. Not only must Inman complete this journey on foot, with only a pistol to help him hunt for the occasional game, he must also avoid the Home Guard, bands of Confederate loyalists who sweep the countryside in search of deserters who, upon being apprehended, are often executed as an example to any other soldiers who may be thinking of abandoning their sworn duty.

While Inman drives onward, through the endless obstacles that separate him from Ada, the object of his obsession and hope has her own problems. For her father, upon whom she depended for her survival, has died, leaving no one to upkeep Black Cove, their sprawling and now idle farm. Ada, at a loss for how to proceed with making the place viable, is on the verge of surrender when Ruby, a wiry vagabond, falls into her life. In exchange for Black Cove's roof over her head, Ruby willingly teaches Ada the basics of farmwork. It will take a number of seasons, but together they are determined to make a going concern of the place, to raise it up into a level of prosperity that will banish memories of the dark days of the war.

As Inman draws closer to Ada, and as the war shudders into its final, costly days, life has never seemed harder. Nonetheless, in spite of the fact that Ada has all-but forgotten the boy who left for war four years ago, Inman will not stop until he is home. Brigands, Home Guard, even starvation, all must fall before him for he has a love to find and a home to claim in his beloved Cold Mountain.

The winner of the 1998 National Book Award, Cold Mountain is a novel of exquisite prose and muted emotions. Mr. Frazier has clearly spent countless hours in the dusty corners of library archives, memorizing 19th century texts for he has vividly captured the customs and the rhythms of the 1860s. Far from ever doubting the account's period authenticity, its finely crafted passages draw the reader down into a convincing world of love and war and the extent to which the former makes the latter seem both foolish and depraved. It is masterfully done.

However, while the work's epic structure and fine phrasing make it worthy of acclaim, the author fails to make Cold Mountain a visceral experience. The stoicism exhibited by Inman, Ada and Ruby in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges is commendable, but their lack of affect, their unflappable determination to carry on, reduces them to somewhat mechanical figures, puppets who only act when their strings are pulled by their masters. A measure of this was clearly deliberate on the part of the author who injected his tale with a remoteness meant to reflect both the physical desolation of the environment and the emotional desolation of the war, but the technique is, perhaps, too effective. It left me numbed to the plight of the play's main actors when I ought to have been deeply moved by their endurance.

Despite its tendency to anesthetize the reader, this is a fine work of historical fiction that will withstand the test of time. For it is so much of the period that a reader, ignorant to the date of its publication, might well imagine it a product of Reconstruction. Rare, epic work. Cormac McArthy without the emotional fire... (4/ Stars)

Burned Alive by Souad

From The Week of October 24, 2011

Some crimes are so heinous, some betrayals so deep, that we lack even the words to properly describe them, let alone do justice to their harm. No excuses can be found for them because they are not deeds brought about by ignorance or of immaturity. They are atrocities so vicious, so scornful, so destructive to the progress of humanity, that they cannot be forgiven, no matter what culture birthed them or religion failed to censure them. They are crimes too dark even for love to stanch. And yet, often, despite their barbarity, we never hear of them. The dead, after all, cannot tell their tales. And so it must fall to those lucky few who have escaped the cruelty of Honor Killings to rise from the ashes and tell the world of what they have endured. Of these first-hand accounts, few are as breathtaking as Souad's.

Burned Alive is the 240-page reconstruction of the life of Souad, the third daughter of a farmer in the West Bank. Born to an abusive father and an obedient mother, Souad is denied any of the gifts of civilization and society that are taken for granted by the developed world. For her family feels no need to educate her, to teach her how to read or write, to instill her with intellectual curiosity, to give her any sense of the broader world. Why squander profitable time instructing girls in such frivolities when, ultimately, girls are for nothing more than marriage and childbirth?

Detailing a life of beatings and obligations, Souad describes her endless days of rising early to pick fruit, to shear sheep and to care for the farm's animals all while safely harboring her mother's secrets. Any deviation, mistake or thoughtless act on her part is eagerly and thoroughly acknowledged by her father's belt, the violent use of which is so customary, so frequent, that Souad seems almost immured to its strikes upon her skin. There is but one path out from under her father's roof, marriage. For in her culture, once a daughter is married off to another man, she is to never return to her father's home. She is then the property and the responsibility of another. But as the marrying off of daughters must be done in order, and as Souad's older sister is without suiters, she has but one avenue, to court the neighbor's son.

Their relationship, forged in secret, initially brings Souad some modicum of pleasure, but when the boy flees in the face of Souad's pregnancy, the young, defenseless girl is left to the pitiless hands of her family and the gasoline-fuelled pyre they have arranged for her. On fire, Souad flees her own murder, is indifferently treated at an area hospital, and is on the brink of death from her burns and from a lifetime of neglect when an a European aidworker sneaks her out to Switzerland where she is healed and released, for the first time, into society as a free woman.

Burned Alive is non-fiction at its most chilling. It is nothing less than the step-by-step retelling of an honor killing from the perspective of its victim. Though Souad's voice is rough and simplistic, her account, which reads like it was the product of dictation, is all the more raw and immediate for its lack of refinement. Yes, the reader must approach Souad's recount with a great deal of caution -- she depends entirely upon her own unreliable memory to recreate the traumatic events of her adolescence, a reality that conveniently excludes corroboration. Nonetheless, she is forthright with her own fallibility, pointing out when her recollection has failed her. More over, she at no point asks the reader to believe her. She states, simply and clearly, the circumstances that lead to her family-sanctioned punishment for being "a whore." In this narrative, she is as compelling as she is courageous.

But though this work succeeds as a memoir, its greatest virtue is the extent to which it is both an expose and an excoriation of honor killings and the cultures that practice them. Souad describes her parents as religious, as regular attendees at their local place of worship. And yet nothing is done to halt her suffering, at the hands of her father prior to the honor killing, or at the hands of the nurses at the local hospital who refuse to heal her once she has been "punished." This widespread callousness transcends ignorance. It is systemic cruelty which is only possible in a society that has completely dehumanized women, reducing them to property that can be heartlessly claimed and discarded at whim.

How can we hold with such societies? How can we trade with them and call ourselves clean when we know what happens behind closed doors? No, we in the developed world are not perfect; far from it. But we are not this. No one should be this. Anyone who practices such is not worthy of civilization. (3/5 Stars)

Powering The Future by Robert B. Laughlin

From The Week of October 24, 2011

While there are some of us who, for reasons of dogma, of self-interest, or of simple cynicism, remain skeptical about anthropogenic climate change, this much we can all agree on. The Earth's supply of fossil fuels is finite. Regardless of whether or not, in the meantime, the climate collapses under the burden of excess CO2, the resources we rely upon to power all of our societies will eventually be exhausted. When that day comes, what will we fall back on to keep the lights of civilization burning? What will stand in for the oil, the coal, and the natural gas that have enabled humanity to transform itself from a species that admired the stars to one that ventures to them? Powering The Future does its best to provide a pragmatic answer to this difficult question.

From wind power to photovoltaics, from the dangers of the Plutonium Economy to the truths about electricity, Mr. Laughlin, a Nobel Laureate in physics and a professor of physics at Stanford University, examines each of the available, and theoretical, sources of alternative energy in an attempt to divine which of them will underpin future civilizations. In his investigation, he interrogates each energy source in the hopes of uncovering a few basic realities: its cost, its practicality and the extent to which it is renewable. Though Mr. Laughlin does not completely dismiss any of the candidates for the mantle of holy grail for humanity's energy needs, he concludes that none demonstrate the power to surpass, for efficiency and effectiveness, the fossil fuels we are so swiftly depleting. These deficiencies provoke Mr. Laughlin to give the reader a crash course on the science of hydrocarbons and what makes them so potent.

While Mr. Laughlin dispassionately explains the flaws of each of our available alternatives,he does hold out hope that some will surmount their challenges to fill in the gaps left behind by a post-hydrocarbon world. Of particular promise is, the prospect of transforming Earth's deserts into enormous, and powerful solar farms which would, at least during the daylight hours, provide colossal amounts of electricity to North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. However, without a practical way of storing the excess power during the daytime, this solution is utterly useless when the sun sets and there is no more power being generated. This crippling drawback turns Mr. Laughlin to so-called Breeder Reactors, nuclear power plants which are optimized to produce, as a waste product, enriched plutonium which can then be put back into the reactor as fuel. Unfortunately, such plutonium could be put to another purpose as well; nuclear bombs.

Powering The Future is as exciting as it is cynical. The extent to which Mr. Laughlin clearly and rationally lays out the pros and cons of each potential power source leaves the engaged reader dreaming about a future in which our needs are facilitated by any number of renewable alternatives that do not, as a consequence of our use, destroy Earth's environment. But for pouring some scientifically chilled water on the most outlandish options, the author does nothing to dissuade us from this optimistic notion.

However, Mr. Laughlin leaves little doubt of his own cynicism regarding human nature. Repeatedly, he spells out his belief that humans will ultimately choose the energy option that is cheapest for them regardless of the consequences to the environment, or to their fellows. This is not a ridiculous notion; after all, in many respects, the history of capitalism could be summed up as a competition to sell the most things at the cheapest cost. However, Mr. Laughlin bases his argument here on the vigor with which his father searched for the cheapest available gas. Yes, this is simply an illustration of his belief, but he makes no other attempt to corroborate his claim. It is clear, from the millions who have bought electric cars, to the hundreds of millions who recycle, that people, the world over, strive to consume responsibly. In assuming that every human will act as his father did, or as he does, Mr. Laughlin fails to account for any of the influences that animate those who are not like him.

This is a fast-paced, clearly articulated, and highly informative look into the question of alternative energy, an issue which will, short of some unforeseen, utopian development, dominate the decades to come. But while Mr. Laughlin is commendably without bias in his treatment of the various sources he scrutinizes here, the extent to which he rests his prediction for the future on a single assumption of human nature left me doubting his conclusion. Nonetheless, well worth the read. (3/5 Stars)