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This book doesn't just recite facts, it gives you a personal picture of the lives of several individuals at the heart of the subject--Islam and its relation to American culture and policy--not just policy makers, but exchange students and sponsor families, children of immigrants, and the way they interact with the culture and biases around them--both positive and negative. Combined with the usual laudable journalistic integrity and insight, this humanistic flare was enough for this reader to pore through the volume in nearly a single sitting--something fairly rare for me. I could go into depth here, but I'll leave that for other, more competent reviewers and just tell you that if you are considering reading this book, you should most definitely do so. Having read Suskind's History of the CIA, I was expecting something equally dry. However, I was blown away by his narrative flourish in this book.
The journeys of the people in the book - geographic, intellectual, spiritual and moral - explain a great deal about why this is such a hard problem even to label or define.Suskind's argument is that his protagonists illustrate some of the most praiseworthy things about the United States, and I'd certainly agree with him. This is not a recipe for internal stability.
Suskind may have higher expectations for the US government than will ever be fulfilled; his use of the Marshall Plan to argue for American unselfishness doesn't quite hold up. The Marshall Plan did send messages about US commitment, but that's not the only reason it happened.
Ron Suskind's The Way of the World is, as you'd expect, wonderfully researched and vividly written. It was a way to keep US jobs for returning servicemen - if the governments of Europe had no buying power, then the US economy might go right back into depression, with millions of ex-soldiers now unemployed.
The people he's interviewed clearly *are* on the side of the good, but it's not clear the US government will ever be motivated only by that. His stories about how torture infected a whole society, not just isolated prisoners, made me shake my head with disgust.
But his motif of the Marshall Plan doesn't work - the Marshall Plan was not, or not only, a shining example of American altruism.
Instead, he argues, we are facing certain catastrophe as nuclear weapons become increasingly available to terrorists, whose whereabouts and activities are largely unknown and will remain so, as long as mutual distrust dominates the foreign policies of all the nations that are their likely targets.In a way that grabbed my interest from page 1, the book starts out by telling the stories of a number of individuals during the years 2006-2007. Part of the story of those years includes the return of Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan, which Suskind recounts in a day-by-day description of the last days leading up to her assassination.Before it's done, the book returns to the stories of the individuals, catching up with the changes that have taken place - including the "Americanization" of the exchange student, now back in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court decision that restored the rule of habeas corpus for foreign detainees, the gathering of a family for a wedding in Pakistan, where the president, Musharraf, continues to accrue dictatorial powers to himself.
Without hope of that, we are lost. The "way of the world" Suskind argues in these last pages is that human progress occurs when foes try to save each other, which can only happen when a nation with the moral authority can lead the way.
I wish the thesis of Suskind's book were more persuasive. Thrust into the center of these stories is an account of high-level officials in the CIA, DHS, British Intelligence, the State Department, and the White House and the roles played by each in the manipulation and misrepresentation of intelligence (as we now know) to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq.
Suskind, as a former journalist for the Wall Street Journal, knows how to cover a lot of ground with a cast of many characters, producing a virtual snapshot of the nation, in which we can see critical issues being played out to political ends by decision makers whose choices have had an impact on the lives of millions. He seems to think that the "way of the world" is not what 90% of his evidence points to - that power corrupts and the kind of power exercised in Washington over recent years has not only corrupted absolutely, but squandered the moral capital of the nation at a time when its authority and credibility might lead the war-torn world toward peace.
One of them is a lawyer for an Afghan detainee in Guantanamo, another a young Afghan exchange student adapting not too successfully to American life in Colorado, another a Pakistani with a US education and a job at a consulting firm in Washington DC who becomes a terror suspect, another a man with connections in intelligence obsessed with the lack of official concern over the global black market in uranium, another a woman whose work has taken her to refugee camps in desperate parts of the world.
The host mother then asks him what Suskind calls "the transforming question" -- the question that guides a country based on the notion that the people are sovereign, the question that exposes "the hairline crack between censure and compassion." She asks the young Afghani, "But what do YOU think.""The Way of the World" is a powerful book. Thirteen hours of listening at one pace was difficult and I don't recommend it. There are stories of operations by the CIA and by ex-CIA personnel; of Benazir Bhutto in her attempt to regain power and how the United States stood back from the effort to protect her; of the prisoners, lawyers and litigants involved in the case to establish habeas corpus rights for prisoners held at Guantanamo as enemy combatants (leading to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2008 that prisoners have the right to file for habeas corpus). I DO recommend reading the book, though, if you are interested in the role of the United States in world events. Each of the threads contributes to the analysis of how the U.S. A refugee in his own country, Ibrahim was chosen to spend a year in the U.S. There is nothing linear here.
The story at the core of this book is the flawed basis on which the United States brought war to Iraq. Staying with a host family in a depressed area of Pennsylvania, he is befriended by a girl from his high school. as part of a cultural exchange program. Yes, he says, but we'd have to kill her. The content of the book is an indictment of the backroom politics that led to the Iraq invasion, and in that regard I expect that, as usual, it confirms the beliefs of those who already believe it (it had that effect on me) and fails to impress those who believe otherwise. But it also explores the historical and cultural background that led to today's dichotomy between what Suskind calls "the axis of divinity and authority" and countries that live by "the earthly sacraments of inalienable rights and informed consent." There is a lot of informative and persuasive material here that is well worth reading. Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind develops and documents the circumstances leading to President Bush's statement that Iraq was known to have weapons of mass destruction; a deliberate lie, according to The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Along the way, Suskind covers a lot of ground and takes an unusual approach to the construction of his book, which was published in August 2008.
On the other hand there were sections so opaque to me that I would probably have skimmed them to gather some small sense of their content, knowing they would never truly speak to me. Eventually he finds out that she has a baby at home and assumes that she is married. Suskind gives us our culture through the lens of Ibrahim's experience. "Does that ever happen in your country, Ibrahim." she asks him. It's an effective structure for a suspense novel but I found it somewhat disorienting here.
For one thing, there were passages so emotively written, so epigrammatically perfect, that I would have liked to linger over them. You may not agree with all of Suskind's premises, but I guarantee that you will find a lot to think about.Linda Bulger, 2009 I listened to the audio production, which was not entirely successful. There are a number of story threads that illustrate the dichotomy between our culture of individualism and the fundamentalist cultures with which we find ourselves so at odds: "the fault line between faith and reason," as he calls it. He discusses it with his host mother who explains that Jillian is NOT married.
The story that will stay with me is that of young Ibrahim, a Muslim teenager from Afghanistan. gave up its claim to moral authority in the campaign against WMD. I wonder how the book would look and feel if the author had devoted a section to each story, rather than pulling the puliing the strands apart and playing them out inch by inch.
Every chapter and sometimes, even between pages, I got the feeling that I'm reading different books and often wondered one question "hmm. I should also say, this is my first book of Ron.But, as I was reading through two things became very clear - One, Ron has lot of information to tell us and he is all over the place, unfortunately.Weaving might not be the right word, but "jumping" all over the place and trying to stich didn't really work. what's the connection, context here."This just stopped me to not proceed beyond the third chapter ( of the four ) and I stopped reading.I wish Ron took some time to see this disparateness and have some continuity, as it'd have dramatically improved the case, that the book is trying to make. I should say, I picked up the book with a lot of expectations. I've heard about book, heard Ron's interviews, read few reviews as well and I know the topic very well.
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