Customer Reviews

The Unauthorized World Situation Report

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This book was a surprising discovery.It is all about what was going wrong with US Foreign Policies from the 20th century up to the present. A firework of facts and conclusions focussing on the war in Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

According to the back cover, the author studied English literature and American diplomatic history in college. The book certainly illustrates mastery of both disciplines. This is well written and easy to read, indeed sometimes is a pleasure to read, and illustrates an excellent knowledge of the historical and diplomatic subject matter. The book isn't a traditional academic treatment and lacks the full bibliographic referencing that marks a more coventional scholarly work.

The book is essentially an extended critical essay, or series of essays, focusing on American foreign policy through the Twentieth century. The book really starts with the Great War, but the author sees things essentially heading down the wrong track from the Spanish American war, moving forward to the Great War and with the US essentially taking over the role (and bad habits!) of the British Empire following it's exhaustion. This wrong track has no "U Turn" in sight as late as the Kosovo and Iraq Wars. So far so good.

The author essentially claims that the UK and the US were the real "loose cannons" during the 20th Century and therefore must take a larger share of the blame for the century's tragedies than is usually apportioned. This viewpoint is still unorthodox and unconventional, at least in the anglophone world, so the author's single minded focus on Anglo-American faults can perhaps be forgiven. There are of course althernative explanations, including the observation that the most powerful nations, by definition, are more able to engage in wars of choice and their greater resources permit them to sustain and repeat errors. Nations lower on the pecking order have no such luxury.

A.J.P. Taylor was once remarked that it was not history which repeats itself but historians who repeat each other. So sometimes an outsider can bring new viewpoints into events that more specialist and narrow focused treatments can miss. For example, both Hitler and Roosevelt were elected in the same year. And by most of the usual economic metrics, Hitler did a much better job of restoring economic health, or at least the semblance of economic health, to his nation before WW2 than did FDR. The author suggests there may have been an element of, for want of a better term, personal envy, in Roosevelt's animosity for Hitler. I have never heard this argument made before, and "proving it" would be difficult, but it strikes me as something to think about.

But there are negative aspects as well. Not every point, and not every major point is supported. For example the author's claim that the zionist movement played a role in US entry in WW1 is simply asserted without any apparent evidence. The last few chapters of the book seem stylistically much weaker than the rest as if they were hastily amended to update the story to Gulf War 2.

An interesting read, and reader may find themselves returning to some of the particular anecdotes provided.