Hoping to understand the machinations of 'liquid gold', I was seriously disappointed by this book however and learned little. I'm not sure anyone would benefit from a detailed reading and even a skim read leaves little impression. This book really was a disappointment. ( )

When I received the review copy of this book I skimmed it quickly and looked at the references. As I recall, all the references were to newspaper articles, which are, of course, hastily written and which may prove later to be inaccurate. The book did not seem to contain much first-hand information. It seems to have sunk without a trace, which I take as vindication for not reading it more attentively. ( )

Globalistan was the first book I received under the LibraryThing LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, so I was determined to finish it. After slogging away at it for nearly 7 months, I think it is time to give up the effort. I can't seem to get through more than a few pages without falling asleep.

The book reads like a first draft that would have benefited from a good editor. The author uses annoying made-up words throughout (chapter titles include Globalistan, Pipelineistan, Jihadistan, Americastan, etc.) and he provides no glossary for his invented terms including "liquid war".

This is unfortunate, because the author is well read and well traveled, and he has important things to say about globalization, American foreign policy, and the emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East. For example, he points out that Iran is the only country in the world that shares borders with more than 15 neighbors, a fact that certainly influences their views on defense and trade. However, he offers no solutions.

The best part of the book is the bibliography and the extensive list of international websites. In particular, the maps from Worldmapper are useful for illustrating that the US-centric view presented by American media is not shared by the rest of the world. ( )

Pepe Escobar's Globalistan is, in the author's words, "a warped geopolitical travel book" that aims to transform and politicize the reader's understanding of the interrelated processes which facilitate and perpetuate "globalization, energy wars and the Pentagon's Long War." The text, as much a work of abstract political theory as it is reportage, is a brief but overly complicated polemic that ultimately fails to present a practical alternative to the world views and socio-economic practices which the author clearly set out to challenge. The literary and theoretical references and allusions which riddle the text are sure to interest some (myself included), but Escobar's awkward phraseology and penchant for abstraction-for-the-sake-of-abstraction can at times be distracting. ( )

I started reading this book but have been unable to get into it. While the subject is somewhat interesting to me, I have found the book to be well endowed with statistics, such as percentages, which make for a fairly dry read. ( )