World Conflicts: A Comprehensive Guide to World Strife Since 1945 [Hardcover]

Patrick Brogan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0810835517 | ISBN-13: 978-0810835511 | Edition: 3 Sub

In this meticulously researched book, Patrick Brogan allows specialists and general readers alike a view behind the headlines and news reports from throughout the world, detailing the violent conflicts that now afflict the world, together with chapters on past conflicts that still seriously effect events.

The first edition, published in 1989 under the title The Fighting Never Stopped, accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet Bloc; this new edition provides a substantial update. Each eye-opening chapter in World Conflicts benefits from the strength of the first edition and Brogan's continued research into the relationship between humanity, violence, history, and politics. Organized by country, it provides important statistical data and discusses the historical origins of the tensions, describes the parties involved, delineates the main events of each conflict, and examines the possible outcomes and their effect upon the prospect of peace. Armed with the thesis that the greatest dangers to peace at the end of the century are caused by ethnic animosity, Brogan provides a coherent account of the uneasy peace in Central America, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa, and other current or seemingly-imminent conflicts around the world. World Conflicts is a balanced, forward-looking study of a world that continues to be at war. It is essential reading for anyone who needs precise, detailed information on current conflicts. This work will be an invaluable tool for journalists, libraries of all types, and students and teachers of International Affairs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...essential...it deserves to be in every library. (New York Daily News )

Highly useful for undergraduates, graduate students, and general readers; recommended for undergraduate and public libraries and libraries supporting military studies. (Choice )

... strength of this book is its writing and organization. Brogan has a good understanding of the warring factions and personalities involved and shows a very good grasp of military operations. (Religious Studies Review )

Nowhere else will you find a more accessible and insightful examination of warfare today...This is essential reading... (Keith Dickson The Journal Of Military History )

This thick but manageable volume has a lively historical narrative style, making it a joy to read...Patrick Brogan is to be commended on this fine work. It is highly recommended for private, public, college, university, and government reference collections. (Arba )

'War makes rattling good history,' as Thomas Hardy once wrote; and this book undoubtedly proves his point. World Conflicts is essentially a reference book on war, however, it is one of narrative and not a mere compilation of facts...a highly readable and above all useful work. It can be dipped into at any point for an overall, big picture of each situation and its history. (London Financial Times )

...this is a very good reference work for any student of the twentieth-century world...Brogan's organization is straightforward and logical. The author's thoughtful essays on modern terrorism and drug wars are noteworthy...Brogan's work is a valuable reference tool. Brogan's wide-ranging and thorough look at the world's instability is a wonderful point of departure for anyone seeking either to begin research on any of these areas, or for anyone who wishes to gain a brief understanding of what has gone on to make so many places in the world so dangerous. (Journal Of World History )

About the Author

Patrick Brogan has spent over twenty years as a foreign correspondent on assignment for The Times London, the New York Daily News, and The Observer. He has reported on many of the conflicts covered in this book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 704 pages
• Publisher: Scarecrow Press; 3 Sub edition (March 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810835517
• ISBN-13: 978-0810835511
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,952,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Companion to Little Known world wars, June 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: World Conflicts: A Comprehensive Guide to World Strife Since 1945 (Hardcover)

This is a truly excellent book. I picked it up in England, started reading it on the plane back to the States, and couldn't put it down. The author manages to describe almost every important armed conflict since the end of World War II in breathtaking clarity. Through this book I found about wars that I never knew existed. As a bonus, the author also throws in a chapter about all of the different terrorist groups-fascinating reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, Dull, Superficial, Indispensable, March 24, 2000

By 

L. Byron - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Conflicts: A Comprehensive Guide to World Strife Since 1945 (Hardcover)

Although flawed, WC is informative, almost comprehensive, and quite handy--it's a 682pp paperback you can read at the pool, but don't expect to make friends; the cover looks downright anti-social. His analyses are rather slanted in the expected, standard Anglo-English mode, i.e., he spends 20pp. on Northern Ireland (cf., only 8pp on all of Korea, and 13pp on China). And although he does bash America where it needs obvious bashing (eg., United Fruit, the CIA, etc.) his unabashedly liberal stance forces his hand into rather superficial, yet standard, conclusions concerning the nature of nation building, modernization, and repressive and totalitarian regimes. While endorsing the democracy/free-market system is hardly a bad thing, it does seem small minded to think of it as a panacea. There are functional reasons for countries to 'choose' other systems, especially when confronted with internal chaos and external threats (eg., Islamic Fundamentalism, extreme nationalism, Communism, Fascism, centralized economic systems, and totalitarianism may not be stupid mistakes made by crazy and evil men, but unpleasant yet necessary means to an end). But all books have their bias, and PB's is probably the most palatable to the most people. Also, this book is basically a micro-encyclopedia. It is not a profound treatise on the clash of peoples with historical necessity, whatever that may be. In fact, it's not profound at all, but it is informative. The prose is text-bookish, and he has a thing for using the same 1-2 cliches throughout the book (one of which is, 'to the tune of', as in,'to the tune of 2 billion dollars'.) But this is beyond nit-picking. A more important flaw is the sporadic lack of explanation. Granted, he can't write everything, but it gets increasingly frustrating to read a series of 'whats' without any 'whys'. Eg., PB writes, correctly, that Thailand backed the Khmer Rouge and that Israel backed Somoza, but no reasons are given. This turns what should be interesting history into a confused and very boring shopping list of disjointed facts, free from both causation and meaning.

Admittedly, this is somewhat unfair. The book is over 600pp as it is, and one can't accuse PB for being prolix. If he included penetrating insights at every needed point, the book would be in volumes.

As the reviewer from Mexico discovered, the book is not perfect. If you know a lot about a particular area, PB's thumbnail sketch may upset you. But again, this is unfair. The world is a big place, if PB were to make all distinctions and treat all conflicts to, let's say, 25pp, then the book would be roughly 1500pp long. Also, one of the beauties of the book is its inclusion of conflicts (and even countries) which most people don't know about or remember. WC provides the starting point for deeper analysis. (You can't look it up on the web or in the library if you don't know that it exists.) In sum: it's a great learning tool. It may not be as good as I had hoped, but it's well used, I have no regrets. At best and worst, WC will show even the most informed how little they know about many contemporary conflicts. Even if one doesn't learn much from WC--all this fact stuff doesn't 'stick' well--exposure to one's ignorance is very enlightening. And if the book creates more questions than it answers, all the better. Until something better comes along, WC is indispensible, and there is little point in waiting for that to happen.

5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Looks more like a tourist guide., July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: World Conflicts: A Comprehensive Guide to World Strife Since 1945 (Hardcover)

Brogan's title is a very ambitious one for a book in which he fails to separate the Colombian case (decades of violent guerrilla and terrorism) from the drug wars,who fails to note that there are five and not four Central Asia former USSR replublics, who includes Mexico (situated in North America, a geographic area regardless of economic and cultural differences) in a broad and superfluous Central America chapter. The book can not be rated above a conventional tourist guide where you get a brief summary of the conutry's history and current situation. Waste of paper.