The Fall of Baghdad

Author - Jon Lee Anderson ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Penguin Press HC, The was reviewed on 30-Jul-2008.

Search ISBN:1594200343 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. The Fall of Baghdad Reference Book. Classifications : General United States Americas History Subjects Books Mid-Atlantic State & Local United States Americas History Subjects Books General Middle East History Subjects Books Iran Middle East History Subje . Click the following link to view the cover of The Fall of Baghdad.

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1) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. It´s important for all of us in the U.S. to know about this country that we´ve just invaded, for heaven´s sake!! Good on the coverage of Saddam, and military affairs. Only wish there could have been more about the day to day existence of living in this country, from the point of view of an average citizen. Well written.¤

2) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. Jon Lee Anderson has written a book on the War in Iraq. He´s a journalist, like pretty much everyone else who´s written books about the current conflict. The difference is that while most of the rest of the writers were embedded with American Army or Marine units, and so saw the war from the perspective of the U.S. military, Anderson was reporting on the lead-in to the war from Baghdad, and partly by choice, partly by circumstance, he stayed in the city throughout the war. This gives him a very different perspective on what was occurring while the shooting was going on.

The book itself spends a lot of time covering the nation of Iraq prior to the start of the war, and then has a couple of lengthy chapters dealing with the fighting and the aftermath of the American entry into Baghdad, followed by a very long epilogue that details the author´s further adventures in the country. The whole thing is well-told, and for the most part interesting.

The author doesn´t show much bias, either. He clearly despises Saddam and what he did to the country, and doesn´t think much of the other extremist leaders there either. One interesting sidenote: he expresses considerable contempt for Peter Arnett, who wanders into a hotel towards the beginning of the book, before the war. Usually, the one person a journalist won´t say anything negative about is another journalist.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. It covers the war from a pretty unique perspective, and I would recommend it.¤

3) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. A well-crafted report of the unique milieu of totalitarian Baghdad. Anderson expresses a deep humanity in the stories he tells. Without grasping for explanations or theories, he writes about the people he met and befriended and his own experiences as a journalist. His eye for the richness of the particular lives he encounters makes the bleakness of Saddam´s cruel and absurd system all the more clear.¤

4) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. This work depicts the reality of the latest Iraq war, rather than the hyperbole often used to sell and maintain the conflict. It would be worth reading if only as a vaccination against media that enthusiastically markets simple slogans in lieu of lethal reality. It stands as a prudent warning to those who think poly-sci term papers can painlessly remake the world.¤

5) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. This is by far one of the best books that I have ever read about a city on the brink of war. It delves into the sentiments of the people of Iraq, Baghdad and the Bathists....I really felt like I was there, at times it took me a few seconds to realize that I was in New York City in Central Park reading this great book and not in Baghdad or Falluja. An amazing read...in fact I have bought two more of his books.¤

6) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. For every great historical event, seemingly, at least one reporter writes an eyewitness account of such power and literary weight that it becomes joined with its subject in our minds-George Orwell´s Homage to Catalonia and the Spanish Civil War; John Hersey´s Hiroshima and the dropping of the first atomic bomb; Philip Gourevitch´s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories of Rwanda and the Rwandan genocide. Whatever else is written about the Iraqi people and the fall of Saddam, Jon Lee Anderson´s The Fall of Baghdad is worthy of mention in this company. No subject has become more hotly politicized than the toppling of Saddam Hussein´s regime, and so a thick fog of propaganda, both from boosters of the war and its opponents, has obscured the reality of what the Iraqi people have endured and are enduring, under Saddam Hussein and now. For that reason alone, The Fall of Baghdad is a great and necessary book. Jon Lee Anderson has drawn on all of his reserves of stamina and personal bravery to create an astonishing portrait of humanity in extremis, a work of great wisdom, human empathy, and moral clarity. He follows a remarkable and diverse group of Iraqis over the course of this extraordinary time: from the all-pervasive fear that comes from living under Saddam´s brutal, Orwellian rule to the surreal atmosphere of Baghdad before the invasion; to the invasion´s commencement and the regime´s death spiral down into its terrible endgame; to America´s disastrously ill-conceived seizure of power and its fruits. In channeling a tragedy of epic dimensions through the stories of real people caught up in the whirlwind of history, Jon Lee Anderson has written a book of timeless significance.¤

7) Hardcover Book The Fall of Baghdad by Penguin Press HC, The. The press coverage of the second Iraq war was notable for the American military´s program assigning journalists to be "embedded" with specific military units. While this afforded more personal coverage, the reportage was inherently narrow, missing out on the larger perspective of a sprawling and complex situation and telling stories only from the American troops´ point of view. Such is not the case in The Fall of Baghdad, journalist Jon Lee Anderson´s harrowing account of the Americans´ capture of the Iraqi capital. Anderson was not embedded but on the ground in Baghdad and recounts the increasing anxiety and dread of Iraqi citizens as they try to prepare as best they can for a seemingly inevitable invasion. Not only were the Iraqis fearing for their lives, dwelling as they did in what they knew to be the largest target city in the nation, they also lived in fear of Saddam Hussein while he was still in power and so projected a facade of desperate optimism and unfailing loyalty. Anderson chronicles the collapse of this feigned allegiance and the Iraqi people´s joy of being free of Saddam but also reports hints of the kind of anti-American sentiment that would come to deadly fruition in the months following the end of conventional fighting. Additionally, Anderson tells of the journalists covering the war, who struggled with the conflict between their drive to tell the story of what was happening and their desire to stay alive. Anderson keeps the scope of his book limited to the situation within Baghdad, omitting any mention of the larger political issues related to the war, which means that the book is not only non-partisan and highly focused but also incredibly claustrophobic, capturing the feeling of being trapped in a city about to be devastated. --John Moe¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 27-Aug-2008, 15942003439781594200342, 320-870-540-431-TGB-Y6B-8

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