The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Conflicts [Paperback]

Steven D. Strauss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002 | Series: The Complete Idiot's Guide

For many Americans in the aftermath of September 11th there seems to be heightened awareness of religious, ethnic, and political unrest around the world, and particularly in those conflicts that have had and will continue to have some impact on American society. Considering that the United States is the sole superpower and often the world's policeman, those conflicts are many. Of the books on the market that attempt to analyze various conflicts around the world, almost all of them have a professorial, academic take on the issues and are limited to those conflicts in a given region or that share a common relationship.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steven D. Strauss is a nationally recognized lawyer, author, and political analyst. He is the author of the acclaimed Ask a Lawyer series, published by W.W. Norton & Co. and two works of political nonfiction-The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Impeachment of the President and The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to The Kennedys. A highly sought after political commentator and media guest, Strauss has been featured on Leeza, the O'Reilly Factor, MSNBC, Court TV, and the BBC. He has been a political analyst on over 100 radio talk shows, including the CBS Radio Network and the Talk America Radio Network, and has been featured in Time, USA Today, theNew York Daily News, Investor's Business Daily, and The Los Angeles Times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 1st edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028643666
• ISBN-13: 978-0028643663
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven D. Strauss, often called "the country's leading small business expert," is an internationally recognized author, lawyer, and speaker. His column in USATODAY.com is one of the most highly syndicated business columns in the world. The author of fifteen books, including The Small Business Bible, he is also the President of The Strauss Group, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chaos on the Brain, March 18, 2003

By 

Spunk Monkey (The pit of despair) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Conflicts (Paperback)

As anyone whose ever read a "Complete Idiots Guide" can tell you, they are definetly not all created equal; some are, infact, garbage, while others I have found to be, suprisingly, excellent, and indispensable. This one, "World Conflicts," I have found to be in the latter category.

I have devoured this book since I bought it recently, underlining and scribbling all over it, eager to pick it up and continue reading it; its the thrill of learning, see. It comes down to this-yeah yeah, its a skeletal framework of history, but it gives you enough information so that you now have the power to know "what" you would like to investigate furthur. For instance, one gets a brief synopsis on a countries history, like say Sudan, it runs down some of its cutural history; who ran the country, who imperialized it, etc; what cou de tas have occured; whos fighting for what and what happened when; and, of course, all the gory details of histories sanguine epochs.

In order to have obtained this amount of information about these many countries, one would have to scoure through stacks of history books assembling some info here and some there for ever. Now, I can rattle of some incredble strange information in casual conversation going through all of Egypts wars and leaders leading up to modern times and feeling quite pleased with myself and broadening the range of my world view and my capacity to interact in meaningful dialogues.

OK, I have had the hardest time putting together what exactly happened in the Balkans some time now. It seems like all books start in the middle, like everyone knows exactly whats happened and why and they are just going over the details. I couldn't for the life of me find something or someone that could exaplain the big picture, anything that could satisfactorly explain what when down: Croations, Serbs, Ethnic Albanians, and how did these events have their roots in the First World War? The book expained it to me, simply and consisely...ahhhhhh. Now, I know what questions I'd like answered and can persue them in other places.

Having trouble understanding who the Sunnies are? The Shiites? The Kurds? Are they religions or nationalities or both and what happened in Ruwanda and why this that and the other and whats the deal with Kashmire or Bangladesh or Korea or Sierre Leone or even the King of wars ourselves, the US, just how many wars have we had? This book is great, it puts history in perspective so that the present can be more clearly comprehended. I by no means agreed with everything the author wrote philsophically, but I respect his work and am thankful for having found it. Definetly Five Stars.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I hoped for., July 25, 2004

By 

praxis (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Conflicts (Paperback)

I picked up this book in my constant quest to expand my base of knowledge as a high school teacher of World Studies. I was rather surprised at the lack of depth and glaringly obvious omission of key details. For example, the section on North Africa does not even mention Libya or Morocco, and the multi-page description of the Sudan conflict never mentions oil, a critical factor in the tug-of-war between the Arab north and African south. I found the maps to be irrelevant, and there sometimes even simple grammatical errors. Most disturbing was the slanted writing. I have no problem with a viewpoint from an author, but for a book purporting to be a factual description of world conflicts, the bias was evident. Some chapters are well-written, such as the Indonesia chapter, although a correctly-labeled map of all the separatist regions
described in the text might be helpful! I gave this book three stars because it does provide many clear, concise details, but for a much better book along the same lines, check out WHAT EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quick and dirty guide to world conflict, August 3, 2006

By 

George Ehrhardt (Blue Ridge Mountains, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Conflicts, 2E (Mass Market Paperback)

The book is what it purports to be--a quick and dirty guide to the world's conflicts. Other reviewers, who labeled it slanted or say it doesn't contain all the facts, miss the point. If you want ALL the facts about one of these conflicts, you can find those in the long, dry books that we academics write (please do! we need SOMEONE to read what we write).

For each conflict the author writes about, he takes a particular angle. This simplifies the story, allows readers to get an overall feel for the participants and chain of events, and guides what he includes. For most readers, this makes the book useful and informative without being overwhelming. For specialists (or even just people who care about a particular issue) it is obvious that he leaves stuff out. As someone who has written on the subject of North Korea, I was pleased with his chapter on the subject. In limited space, it tells casual readers what they need to know, without getting bogged down in complications.

A reviewer said it has an anti-US slant. I thought that if anything, it had a pro-US slant. I guess that's a good sign that it is actually somewhat balanced.