Interesting Times: Writings from a Turbulent Decade [Hardcover]

George Packer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 10, 2009

Throughout his career as a journalist, George Packer has always been attuned to the voices and stories of individuals caught up in the big ideas and events of contemporary history. Interesting Times unites brilliant investigative pieces such as “Betrayed,” about Iraqi interpreters, with personal essays and detailed narratives of travels through war zones and failed states. Spanning a decade that includes the September 11 attacks and the election of Barack Obama, Packer brings insight and passion to his accounts of the war on terror,Iraq, political writers, and the 2008 election. Across these varied subjects a few keythemes recur: the temptations and dangers of idealism; the moral complexities of war and politics; the American capacity for self-blinding and self-renewal.

 

Whether exploring American policies in the wake of September 11, tracking a used T-shirt from New York to Uganda, or describing the ambivalent response in Appalachia to Obama, these essays hold a mirror up to our own troubled times and showcase Packer’s unmistakable perspective, which is at once both wide-angled and humane.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Packer (The Assassins' Gate), staff writer for the New Yorker, creates an illuminating time capsule for a decade book-ended by the September 11 attacks and Barack Obama's rise to the presidency. Comprising previously published pieces, the book spotlights the biggest news—and blunders—in recent history as well as Packer's ability to ferret out important stories, perspectives and subjects elsewhere (e.g., a Sudanese intellectual and mystic hanged for sedition and apostasy who could have provided a nonviolent way forward for political Islam). Closer to home, a piece on stylistic differences between Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primaries is impressively timeless and could conceivably be consulted by historians in the next century. Packer's vivid scene setting and rich language are punctuated with flashes of mischief and humor, as when he ascribes Americans' political complacency to their seduction by iced latte, mutual fund, and The Sopranos. Despite the breadth of his topics, each essay is distinguished by its telling details and the depth of its insight. (Nov.)
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Review

Praise for Interesting Times

“George Packer is a modern-day George Orwell. Like the author of Homage to Catalonia, the places he writes about are never stages for personal or ideological heroism. They are always real and full of frustrating facts that expose both liberal and conservative absolutism as reckless attempts to deny reality. Interesting Times should be read not just as an antidote to contemporary media poison, but as a testament to the values of moral seriousness in a troubled age.” —Jed Lipinski, The Village Voice

“This volume coheres better than most in the genre. That’s because Packer has a far more coherent worldview than most reporters . . . Interesting Times seems an inapt title, ironic and detached in ways that Packer is simply not. But his is the good kind of attachment, self-aware and self-reflective. He writes, ‘One can only be honest about having a point of view while remaining open to aspects of reality—the human faces and voices—that might demolish it.’ In his best work, reality is haunting, indeed.” —Franklin Foer, The New York Times Book Review 

Praise for The Assassins’ Gate

“In reading [Packer] we see the staggering gap between abstract ideas and concrete reality.” —Fareed Zakaria, The New York Times Book Review

“Masterful . . . Packer’s sketch of the prewar debates is subtle, sharp and poignant . . . His reporting from Iraq was always good, but the book is even better, putting the reader at the side of Walter Benjamin’s angel of history, watching helplessly as the wreckage unfolds at his feet.” —Gideon Rose, The Washington Post Book World

“The most complete, sweeping, and powerful account of the Iraq War . . . [Packer] has depicted in stark colors the disillusionment of an entire nation.” —Keith Gessen, New York

“A deftly constructed and eloquently told account of the war’s origins and aftermath . . . Packer makes it deeply human and maddeningly vivid.” —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Authoritative and tough-minded.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A book that is not only relevant but discerning and provocative . . . [Packer] offers the vivid detail and balanced analysis that have made him one of the leading chroniclers of the Iraq war.” —Yonatan Lupu, San Francisco Chronicle

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 409 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (November 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374175721
• ISBN-13: 978-0374175726
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Journalism as a "first draft of history" May 17, 2010

By Paul A. Craft

Format:Hardcover

Packer is an excellent writer that places current events in a deeper intellectual context than most of his peers. He doesn't just seek to report - he seeks to understand. In doing so, he produces a series of nonfiction pieces that hit at the heart of America's last decade.

There is a tragic coherence to Packer's worldview. He wants to see the world in clear moral terms like justice and democracy and equality; as a journalist, however, he encounters a complicated and unjust world. (In this regard - liberalism tempered by reality -- Packer is a bit like his literary hero, Orwell.) "Interesting Times" examines the friction between good intentions (the liberation of Iraq, philanthropy in Africa, Iraqis bravely helping Americans) and messy realities (American failures in Iraq, the limitations of philanthropic projects on African lives, Iraqi translators abandoned by the Western media despite their courageous work).

The writing is beautiful. The concepts are refreshing. A great read.

8 of 20 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Badly Dated and Off Course - February 14, 2010

By Loyd E. Eskildson HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Packer's book, "Interesting Times," is an anthology of his prior essays, most previously published in "The New Yorker," that cover the seven years spanning 9/11 and the election of Barack Obama. The most compelling article, "Betrayed," describes the plight of Iraqis that helped us by serving as translators etc., only to be left to their own devices once the U.S. no longer had use for them. (Similar to what also happened to many of our trained scout and bomb-sniffing dogs.) However, too much of the book deals with Iraq - a war and its progenitor that have long since been replaced by Afghanistan and the new President Obama in the public eye.

Packer also is embarrassingly unprescient with his laborious centerpiece "The Fall of Conservatism" essay. Phrases such as "both (candidates McCain and Obama) embody a post-polarized . . . style of politics," "the fact that the least conservative, least divisive Republican is the last one standing . . . shows how little life is left in the movement Nixon began . . ." clearly don't fit with the Republicans' dramatic resuscitation in 2009 and early 2010 via non-stop rancor directed at the new president and his associates. The Democrats' mid-2000s resurgence, despite widespread belief Republicans would dominate the nation for decades, should have taught everyone the dangers of prematurely burying either party.

Finally, Packer's "Interesting Times" misses the biggest event during the years covered in "Interesting Times" - the obvious weakening of America's economy. Not surprisingly, Packer also misses its three major underlying causes: 1)The off-shoring of millions of jobs to China, India and other Asian nations. 2)Continued corporate delayering, automation, and computerization. 3)Ballooning trade, state and federal deficits and unfunded liabilities. 4)Washington's inability to reason and govern objectively.