Customer Reviews

Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

It's easy to find out if you'll like this book. Read the following half paragraph from the end of chapter one:

"But as frightening as terrorism is, it's the weapon of losers. When someone detonates a suicide bomb, that person does not have career prospects. And no matter how horrific the terrorist attack, it's conducted by losers. Winners don't need to hijack airplanes. Winners have an air force."

If you think that's funny and on target, you'll like the book. If you fail to see the humor, or think he's off in the weeds on his opinions, try something else.

I've been reading P.J. since his early National Lampoon days, and I think this is as funny as anything he's done in a long time. It's certainly better than his last two efforts ("Eat the Rich" and "CEO of the Sofa"). It's more comparable to "Give War a Chance". I'm glad to see him regaining his edge.

You probably either love or hate P.J. O'Rourke. From the ranting Marxist maniac of thirty years ago to the libertarian leaning Republican of today, he has been consistently funny. This book covers 9/11 through the early stages of the war in Iraq.

O'Rourke is something of a gonzo journalist in the Hunter S. Thompson tradition in that the story is his adventures in getting the story. The fault is not as grievous with O'Rourke, however, in that he is both far less pretentious and far funnier. (He mentions the personal effect of 9/11 on him of driving his prior book off the medium well sellers list, for example.) We travel with O'Rourke as he watches the well intentioned fail to bring order out of chaos while delivering free food to the semi-starving, while he dickers up the cost of buying what he thinks is alcoholic beer in dry Iraq, and while he visits Holy Land, or is it the holely land?

There are certain insights here although the book is played primarily for laughs. It is difficult to dislike the people O'Rourke meets in his travels eventhough they dislike ech other to the point of killing. There is no strong political message in this book and O'Rourke does not burden us with any proposed solutions. Rather, he describes the scenes and the people in such a way as to recall to mind Oliver Hardy saying to Stan Laurel, "This is another fine mess you've gotten me into."

I might mention that this is not a book for the ages. Although there will be no problem for the reasonably well informed now, in ten years you won't be able to get the jokes without reference to footnotes.

Less bitter than Ann Coulter, far funnier than Al Franken, this is a book with an eye for the absurd that has chosen to laugh rather than to cry.

War is hell - but sometimes peace is worse. P.J. O'Rourke's latest book is one of his best. You could shave with this wit. Humor is always funnier when it comes from a particular point of view. When he travels the world and reports on its trouble spots, O'Rourke strikes the pose of the kid in the back of the class making funny noises, but secretly he's the kid in the front row who has done all his homework. He knows his stuff which makes his it funnier and more insightful. Take this passage on how to tell the difference between piles of rubble in the war in Kosovo: "When the destruction was general, it was Serbian. Serbs surrounded Albanian villages and shelled them. When the destruction was specific, it was Albanian. Albaninas set fire to Serbian homes and businesses. And when the destruction was pointless - involving a bridge to nowhere, an empty oil storage tank, an evacuated Serb police headquarters and the like - it was NATO trying to fight a war without hurting anybody." O'Rourke is a former hippie turned Republican frat boy and his work has appeal across the political spectrum - regardless of how much he can't stand Hillary Clinton. Stuffed shirts, people who refuse to laugh because there's so much suffering in the world, people who don't like a good politically incorrect joke over drinks should stay a hundred miles from this book. Anyone who refuses to take the world seriously should ring up several.

Not only is this collection of pieces he has written fun to read but O'Rourke is probably the only chauvinistic writer I utterly enjoy reading. I also appreciate that he dislikes GWB's stumbles as much as I do, which makes him damn fair when it comes to Republican leaning writers. And I laugh when he talks about how war for Americans and American kids is often the only way they learn geography. He isn't easy on the 'average' American which I applaud. He has a wonderful way of incorporating the 'dumbed down' American state of affairs into his first hand adventures.

And if you get the chance to ever catch him speaking on C-Spans Booknotes you will not be disappointed and may well spend some hard earned dollars ordering the VHS tape of the show, if you are to lazy to record it.

And I agree 100% with Amazon.com reviewer rexferal from Grand Junction, CO who notes ' Less bitter than Ann Coulter, far funnier than Al Franken, this is a book with an eye for the absurd that has chosen to laugh rather than to cry'. And as others have noted do a google.com search for his pieces in both Rolling Stone and The Atlantic publications.

A witty and incisive collection of articles on the state of the world, it stars with 'Why Americans Hate Foreign Policy', and goes on to describe the baffling and tangled stae of affairs in Kosovo in 1999. I found the chapter describing his visit to Israel in 2001 particularly interesting, his comments on Zionism are fascinating. The chapter on Egypt is excellent too, though I did have rservations about his comment that we had no civilisation in Europe when the Pyramids were built. We didn't have civilisation on the scale and grandeur of Egypt, but we had some, after all, Newgrange was built before the Pyramids, and it's still standing. He also drags out those old chestnuts about the Arab world being more civilised than Europe during the Middle Ages, and about classical learning being unknown here until the Renaissance, both quite untrue. Mr O'Rourke knows a lot about a lot of things, but I don't think he knows much about the Middle Ages. The chapter about the anti-war demonstrations in Washington is very funny, and the chapter on Kuwait and Iraq during the early part of the war utterly fascinating. O'Rourke's genius for describing countries at war is unequeled. The chapter on Iwo Jima is interesting, but I found myself somewhat bemused by his statement that the Japanese officers were arguably more sensitive - nad more intelligent-than their American counterparts. Praising the culutral attaintments of the Japanese officers, he tells us that one of them knew Spencer Tracy, and that all three officers fought to the death. Having had an uncle who was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and was put to work building their vile Burma railway, I am not disposed to shed any tears over Japanese deaths during the war, and I don't care if every officer in the Japanese army knew Spencer Tracy AND Katherine Hepburn, there was nothing intelligent or sensitive about the way they treated their prisoners. This is a very good book, but not quite as dazzlingly brilliant and witty as some of his earlier books like 'Holidays in Hell' 'Give War a Chance' "All the Trouble in the World" and 'Eat the Rich'. And I definitely feel that when it came to writing about Iwo jima, he must have had too much saki

For the past twenty years or so, P.J. O'Rourke's beat has been the bizarre, the inexplicable, and the stupid. It is no surprise that this particular mix has taken him, more than once, to Washington, D.C. and to the Middle East. It is to these familiar O'Rourkian climes that he returns in PEACE KILLS, asking the major questions of our time. Why do nominally peaceful religions cause so much bloodshed? Can Serbians and Albanians --- or Israelis and Palestinians, or radical com-symp college students and neo-troglodyte book reviewers, for that matter --- live together peacefully? Can you get a Heineken in Kuwait City? How about Budweiser? Whiskey?

O'Rourke is a self-described "trouble tourist," and in a world where trouble means something more serious now than, say, Presidential grand-jury testimony, the arrival of a new book on "America's Fun New Imperialism" is more than welcome. Even more welcome than that, because O'Rourke's previous book dealt with manners domestic --- really, really domestic; a work in which the author's three-year old daughter predominated. One got the opinion that P.J. really needed to get out of the house a bit, which he does here.

Like most books in the O'Rourke canon, PEACE KILLS is largely a collection of magazine articles tied together with some common theme. The most logical common theme would, of course, seem to be the war on terror, but O'Rourke's journey starts well before that --- with prewar trips to Kosovo and Israel. In Kosovo, the author witnesses the post-invasion of the Balkans by international peace organizations, and ponders how American forces can achieve a stable, multicultural society when similar efforts have failed, and failed badly, in places like, well, Detroit. He finds that Israel is, surprisingly, a lot like New Jersey --- that is, if there were barbed wire all across the Delaware River, with dispossessed Pennsylvanians holding a nearby intifada.

Then September 11th happens (and no one familiar with the O'Rourke public persona will be surprised that there's at least one stop to a bar in his narrative of that day). His first stop is Cairo, the cradle of modern civilization, now exhibiting only bits and pieces of it --- NASCAR-scale traffic jams, ugly sofas, pyramids, the "Pizza Hat" restaurant, and the Arab-language version of the Conan O'Brien show.

There is then a brief return to American cultural and social issues. ("How come I've never heard of anyone --- Linkin Park, Ludacris, OutKast --- on the Billboard Top 50?" O'Rourke asks. "Why can't they spell?") He deconstructs a document opposed to the American war effort signed by a variety of Nobel Prize laureates (and that, for some reason, does not include Yasser Arafat), thereby demonstrating that very, very smart people can write some very, very stupid claptrap now and then.

But the home of claptrap has always been Washington, and the best part of PEACE KILLS is that O'Rourke rarity --- straight reporting. O'Rourke attends a peace rally on The Mall and does absolutely nothing but relate what he sees there --- because some things, like middle-aged women dressed up as fairies and wearing Rollerblades, are simply beyond the capacity that ridicule has to address such things.

PEACE KILLS ends with a behind-the-scenes --- well, behind the curtains of a fancy Kuwait hotel, at least --- look at the kick-off of the Iraq war. Readers aren't necessarily supposed to support the O'Rourke view here --- sow the ground with salt, sell the population into slavery, roast the Baath party over a slow fire --- but, having gotten this far, will be treated to the cutting rhetoric, quick wit, and outrageous conduct of America's greatest gonzo journalist currently in captivity.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds

Previous reviewers have given you real reviews (well, except for the whackos) Here are some fun, free samples --

On 9-11: "Winners don't need to hijack airplanes. Winners have an air force."

On terrorist losers: "When someone detonates a suicide bomb, that person does not have career prospects."

PJ's suggested chant, for pointless protest marches:
"Five, four, three, two.
We don't have a doggone clue!"

Very entertaining stuff, some with quite a bite to it. Don't miss, if you like PJ. Not a bad place to start, either.

Happy reading--
Pete Tillman

O'Rourke delivers some of his best stuff in Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism. In this book, long time traveler and heavy drinker turned fake family man P.J. O'Rourke writes about his visits to Terrorist hot spot Egypt, he discusses nation building in Kosovo, he walks in recently conquered Baghdad, and he takes on hippie protestors marching in Washington D.C.

P.J. O'Rourke has authored numerous works of this kind; they're basically the observations of a storied traveler pretending to be a serious journalist in some of the most dangerous places on the planet. Some of his other work in the arena includes "Holidays in Hell" and "All the Trouble in the World." It almost makes the reader wonder what P.J. did to make his assignment editors so angry. That's what also makes most of his works so much fun, O'Rourke approaches deadly situations with humor and pith.

In the funny department, this is O'Rourke's best work. His opening essay discusses why American's hate foreign policy. This essay has got to be the best work ever for P.J. It is so dense, nearly every sentence brings either a thought or a laugh, and despite how funny the essay is, O'Rourke finds truth. American's do hate foreign policy, and we should. O'Rourke also dissects that the stances of other nations, and makes a humorous case for unilateralism.

However, O'Rourke doesn't live up to expectation. The final essay of the book, the climax, his description of conquered Iraq, is a huge letdown. I doubt it's for any fault of O'Rourke's. he just wasn't exposed to anything more exciting than aid truck queues. This is still a must read, and it beats any of O'Rourke's other travel tails of mayhem.

"I like the places I write about. I enjoy the people. I have had a good time where ever I've
gone, Iraq included. My subject in a way is pleasure. This is a book about pleasantness which is why I have dedicated it to Mike Kelly", so says PJ O'Rourke in his new book "Peace Kills: America's New Imperialism. Mike Kelly was the editor of "The Atlantic" until he was killed in an accident in Iraq. Mike Kelly is the kind of person you want as a friend, funny, irreverent, kind, a family man who adored his wife and children- sounds like P.J.O'Rourke as a matter of fact.

I have adored P. J. O'Rourke for several years. P.J. O'Rourke is an admitted Libertarian, as am I. P. J. lives in New England, he moved here after 9-11. He found the kind of simple life he wanted for his family and himself. but, he also has a home in the city, Washington, D.C. so he meet and greet old friends and do his job as a writer/reporter. P.J. also appears on NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" on a semi-regular basis. All in all a man to be admired.

In this new book, he has put together some of his articles from "The Atlantic" and "The Wall Street Journal". He talks about the start of the Iraq War. He was in Kuwait and was awakened by his wife in the US who called to tell him the war had started. He finally arrives in Baghdad and as he visits one of Saddam's palaces he says "If a reason for invading Iraq was needed, felony interior decorating would have sufficed." Now, do you understand why I love this guy's wit? He goes on to discuss his visit to Kosovo and Israel after 9-11. But the largest portion of the book is devoted to Iraq and Kuwait. He bargains with a local for a case of beer starting at $20 and ended up paying $24.50. What a country! He concludes that we will never have Peace but we will have a war where we talk about our soldiers we can say "They are our Heroes".

P.J. O'Rourke is never dull. I search for his articles in "The Atlantic" first- they are always informative, entertaining and irreverent. This is my kind of book. He doesn't clear up my confusion but then, it's mine, anyway. prisrob.

But this book wanders, fun as it is to read. I keep looking for a MESSAGE. I liked the "Eat the Rich" which did have a conclusion and a message of sorts. AS with his writings in Atlantic and I am a bit disappointed that PJ is no longer "sharp". He moves aimlessly, like a man who is fat, dumb and happy with cheap barbs. I think he could make it more meaningful, old as he is now. Perhaps we should expect a bit more depth, although in most of his book lately depth is on a holiday.

Ok, I am a fan, despite the fact this book so far is not hitting the spot for me.