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Patrick Tyler

Auteur van A World of Trouble

4 Werken 321 Leden 2 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Patrick Tyler worked for twelve years at The Washington Post before joining The New York Times in 1990, where he served as chief correspondent. His books include Running Critical, A Great Wall (which won the 2000 Lionel Gelber Prize), and A World of Trouble, He lives in Washington, D.C.

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The problem with journalists writing large scale history is that they import so many journalistic tropes. Your story for the New York Times has to start with a half paragraph about how poor Abdul's shack is surrounded on all sides by desert and razor wire, and there are rockets whizzing overhead every fifteen minutes, and give us cod-insights into Abdul's character, and only *then* can you get to the point. So Tyler starts chapters with a couple of pages of guff about the landscape around [insert person's house here], often highly personalized ("I first met Abdul when I was in Iraq for the 1994 conference on flippant book reviewing...")... and only then gets to the point, which is an exhaustive discussion of American foreign policy and diplomacy towards the middle east (which includes Egypt, but not, for some reason, Afghanistan) between Eisenhower and Clinton, with a bit on Bush II and Obama tacked on at the end.

The other problem is that journalists write like they're private investigators, following up every lead. Whereas what people need to know can be summed up very easily, without long digressions into the character flaws of minor Israeli diplomats.

All of which is to say this book is very informative, and about 200 pages too long. The take-away, if you're after such a thing, is that the American government never does the right thing: always too much military response, or too little; too much leaning on middle eastern governments, or too little, etc etc... That obviously can't be true, but at least it's balanced. An interesting theme that he doesn't make explicit: many of the mis-steps and missed chances for peace might have been due to the soi disant democratic processes of the U.S. and Israel. If you worry more about getting re-elected than doing the best thing, you will most likely not do the best thing, and that became very clear throughout the course of this book.

Finally, the conclusion is hilarious. "Muslim youth yearns for the same personal fulfillment and opportunity as youth everywhere. They seek the same advancement in culture, science and technology that market capitalism can deliver to peoples who have been held back by dictators and the orthodoxies of the old world." A day or two after I read that I heard an analyst for Barclay's bank (I think; possibly some other bank, but definitely a bank) suggesting that the protests in Brazil are a cry from a people who has had it with restrictive government regulation. Yes. That is precisely it. Everyone wants more input from multinational corporations! Everyone! Only then can their culture advance! Nobody wants better and more government services! Not idea what made Tyler throw that idiocy at the end of an otherwise balanced and intelligent work.
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stillatim | Dec 29, 2013 |
The book rises and falls with the events in China. The Nixon years are covered in what feels like day-by-day updates, from Nixon, from Kissinger, and other players in the Nixon camp, and also from Deng Xiaoping, Mao, and the Chinese players as well. Each of the players' attempts to to further their national interest in conjunction with their personal interest makes for fascinating reading.

As China policy takes a back seat over the Carter/Reagan/Bush years the book also loses its steam, and the deep detail becomes tedious. The focus shifts to how Chinese policy affected the rise and fall of various American leaders rather than international negotiations.

But after the opening of China it becomes clear that it immediately became a major power, and the attempts of China, Russia, and America to play off their opponents against each other make for intriguing reading. During the Clinton years, the rise of Deng from his roots as a Mao henchman to the defining source and guiding light of Chinese policy over the final two decades of his life are chronicled in great detail and his death is handled quite romantically.

I'd like to hear Tyler's impression of the younger Bush years. Don't know if he ever wrote that book or not, but in scope and scale, this book is a magnum opus to be proud of.
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Gemarkeerd
benfulton | Oct 5, 2009 |

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Werken
4
Leden
321
Populariteit
#73,715
Waardering
3.9
Besprekingen
2
ISBNs
19
Talen
1

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