Customer Reviews

The Soccer War

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is actually a series of essays and dispatches from various corners of the world, unlike some of Kapuscinski's previous work, which looked in length at specific countries (Iran, Ethiopia, etc.). The various sections ranged from marvelous to merely good. The first half of the book chronicles Kapuscinski's visits to Africa in the 1960's, and he provides us with some wonderful portraits of that continent's post-indenpendence dilemmas. The author really seems to capture the mixture of optimism, heroism, disillusionment, and despair that nearly every African country went through. There is a particularly colorful look at Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, as well as chapters on the Congo's Lumumba, Algeria's Ben Balla, a brutal civil war in Nigeria, and one of the most curious military takeovers I have ever read about in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), which Kapuscinski came upon by accident. The author relates riveting near-death experiences in the Nigeria and Burundi chapters. The latter half of the book chronicle's visits to Latin America, the Middle East, Cyrus, and the Ethiopia-Somalia border during the 1970's. I found his description of the 1969 "Soccer War" between Honduras and El Salvador to be especially compelling. Kapuscinski's specialty is not in technical, academic analyses of war, economic underdevelopment, or tyranny. Nor is he necessarily a sensationalist, out to shock readers with gory details. Of course, many of his stories are quite sensational to those unaquainted with such things, but his presentation is subtle and thoughtful. He seeks to find traces of humanity in even the most barbarous situations. Another thing I really appreciate about Kapuscinski is that he seemingly talks to everyone, from urban intellectuals to impoverished peasants. The only reason I gave this book four stars rather than a perfect five is the fact that sometimes I would have appreciated a bit more technical analysis, or at least background information. This was especially lacking in his chapters on Cyprus and the Somili-Ethiopian war, where he perfectly captures the flavor of everyday life in the midst of crisis, but provides little insight into origins of the crisis itself. Also, Kapuscinski frequently launches into philosophical musings which can range from dazzlingly brilliant to downright ponderous. Nevertheless, even these detours into the abstract do not negatively affect the flow of the book, and they are minor criticisms when put into perspective. I highly recommend The Soccer War to anyone wishing to gain a better picture of some of the most intriguing events and places of our world.

In the world of journalism, no one compares to Kapuscinski. For the sheer range of his intelligence, perception, bravery, and compassion, he stands unique; and in this book he collects the essence of what both allowed him and drove him to achieve his remarkable career. I'm always wary of journalists who try to summarize cultures other than their own--reducing a country's worth of people and all their pain, suffering, history, and joy into a few pithy phrases. But Kapuscinski writes with a combination of humility and experience that allows him to surpass the cynical superiority to which foreign correspondents are so often heir. Nor does he ever stoop to describing his travels as a set of exotic adventures and near misses with death. Instead, his sense of history and culture always blends his own activities with the larger political picture in a way which illuminates both. The overriding theme of THE SOCCER WAR is journalism--what it can be and what it can never be. The book's final essay, in which Kapuscinski, crouched by a fire in Ghana, contemplates his readers at home and the friends he sits with, is as fine a summary of the inherent contradictions of the calling as has ever been written. In these final pages, Kapuscinski condemns, celebrates, and demonstrates both the necessity and the impossibility of this strangest of all modern professions in a way that should haunt both journalists and anyone who has ever read a newspaper.

It's almost impossible to process the news with the same perspective after reading this book...what was true in the 60s still rings true today. I picked up this book while simultaneously reading articles in Esquire and The New Yorker about people (Bill Gates, Bill Clinton...) trying to make a difference in Africa. While I was made hopeful by the observations in today's mainstream press, I grew increasingly frustrated when confronted with the dark reality that Kapuscinski exposes.

R.Kapuscinski has spend many years of his life travelling and trying to understand the reality and the way of thinking of the third world countries . The Soccer War is exactly about that , with it's biggest part reffering to Africa and it's final fifty-sixty pages dedicated to Central America .

Kapuscinski succeeds his aims on many levels . He manages both to analyze the political situation on places like Nigeria and Ghana , to focus on the motivations and strategy of the people who hold power there and at the same time he richly describes the landscapes , the scarried faces and the towns and neighbourhoods he had seen . What he seems to try to explain is this : despite the fact that there are many gifted politicians in these nations willing to make a difference , the lack of diplomatic maturity needed , the poverty and the unalphabatised mases will always stand as an obstacle to their lands' progress .

Finally i was very pleased to see for the first time in a foreign book a chapter about the merely occupied and still divided island of Cyprus , an overlooked national drama which hasn't received the attention it should have for over than thirty years now .

A series of essays based on visits to Africa and Latin America that exposes Kapuscinski's almost pathological need to get as far behind the scenes of bloody revolution and savage civil war as possible.

The absolute pinnacle of modern reportage. The world is deeply indebted to the author for gathering the searing stories that otherwise would have remained largely untold. Had Kapuscinski hailed from the USA or perhaps a more affluent European nation, rather than his native Poland, he would surely have won a Pulitzer by now.

As somebody who once lived in Honduras before the infamous soccer war of 1969, I long had Kapuscinski's book on my "must read" list. Though I bought it five years ago, I didn't get around to reading it till just now. I'm glad I did. THE SOCCER WAR is another sterling volume from this master of description.

THE SOCCER WAR isn't a book about the absurd war between El Salvador and Honduras, triggered by World Cup qualification matches, but really caused by El Salvador's overpopulation and the subsequent overflow of Salvadorenos into much-emptier Honduras. The war may also be ascribed to the fact that neither country has been able to tame its landowning classes, who continue to this day to run rampant over the poor masses of people. In any case, this war, which happened decades ago, occupies only 30 pages of a 234 page book. The rest of the book contains vignettes from Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Burundi, Algeria, Tanganyika, Syria, Cyprus, and Ethiopia. I think another title would have given readers a better idea of what the book is about. Anyway, I would not say this book is about particular societies or countries, rather it is about the human condition. Kapuscinski, if you have read any of his other (excellent) work, specializes in inserting himself into extreme situations----war, rebellion, conflict, and abnormal behavior. Where the strictures of daily life have fallen down, we find him reporting, usually at considerable risk to his person. He is nearly burned to death in Nigeria, nearly executed in Burundi, nearly lynched in the Congo, nearly blown up in Honduras. In every case, he manages to portray some participants as humane and decent, or as simple people caught up in events beyond their control. He never writes off groups of people as `wild' or `barbarous', but manages to `read' them even as he faces almost certain death. The absurdity of all this violence, the violence that never ends on this planet, comes through loud and clear. Ryszard, you wrote your best, but nobody in charge listened. Readers of the book, however, will come away with a better understanding of human nature and its universal similarity on every continent, among every race and religion. From the stupidity, waste, and blood, we can learn. We just don't.

Kapuscinski is the master of international journalism. Often he prefaces his accounts by saying something to the affect of, "Everyone told me that trying to get into the Congo was suicide. I had to do it." The result is a perspective that no one else is able to give, a sometimes brutal but eye-opening account of the effects of war.
The best part of The Soccer War to me is Kapuscinski's ability not only to report on war, but to capture the humanity of the people involved. He is in this way an anthropologist as much a journalist. True, this book covers extensive topic matter: Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Algeria, Congo, Burundi, Cyprus, etc, but Kapuscinki's voice is powerful enough to unify these seemingly disparate stories.
If you are curious about world history, if you want a humanistic and first-hand view of events that have shaped our world today, this is your book. There were times when I was literally on the edge of my seat wondering if Kapuscinski would make it out alive. Of course, we know he did because he pubished a book about these experiences.

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I just finished The Soccer War and thoroughly enjoyed it. Like 18th century novelists and Milan Kundera, Kapuscinski rambles where he pleases and you enjoy every minute of it. A reporter for the Polish press during the cold war, his essays cover Africa, Central and South America, and the Middle East during political upheaval and revolutions. His viewpoint and humor are, for me, very reminiscent of Kundera, had he roamed the third world countries. Don't miss this delightful book.

Those who are truly interested in what our world is all about and would like to get profound insights into other cultures don't waste their time on the pulp spewed daily by the popular media. Books and essays by Ryszard Kapuscinski constitute a needed antidote.

A Polish reporter whose literary skills have been compared to those of G. Greene and E. Hemingway, Kapuscinski is the only writer I know who has consistently managed to capture the essence of the geo-political realities, misunderstood conflicts, and non-Western mentalities - in all of their complexity - so accurately, with such poetry, and in so few words. "The Soccer War" is a favorite of mine. His upcoming "The Shadow of the Sun" is the best book on Africa I have ever read.

He may be one of the best writers around; it's such a shame he is not more widely known.

This intriguing collection of essays chronicles the author's experiences as a foreign correspondent covering war and revolution between 1958 and 1980. The titular piece refers to a brief war between Honduras and El Salvador, but the collection mostly deals with Africa, especially the Congo, Ghana, and Algeria. Some of the essays are, inevitably, not as strong as others; nevertheless, Kapuscinski, an internationally acclaimed journalist, communicates with immediacy and heart in an engaging, readable style. Speaking of his childhood in Poland during World War II, he writes, "In my country, the war did not pass anyone by; it went through every home, it smashed its rifle butt against every door, it burned dozens of cities and thousands of villages. The war wounded everyone, and those who survived cannot cure themselves of it. A person who has lived through a great war is different from someone who never lived through any war. They are two different human beings. They will never find a common language, because you cannot really describe the war, you cannot share it, you cannot tell someone: Here, take a little bit of my war. Everyone has to live out his own war to the end."