A Journey by Tony Blair
Hutchison, London, 2010
Pages 718, Rs. 999
A Journey by Tony Blair
Apologia for a war
Given that 92,000 copies were sold in the first four days, Tony Blair has felled a large number of trees to argue a case that is seriously flawed.
By sheer coincidence, as soon as the reviewer finished the book, the new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband came out with a categorical statement that the Iraq war was “wrong, wrong, wrong”. I had always thought that Tony Blair was really Tory Blair. I felt vindicated after reading the book written in the style of Christian apologetics to defend a position, not primarily to narrate what happened, how and why.
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November 10th,2010 category:
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A JOURNEY,
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The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power
Bantam Press, London 2009
Pages 498, Rs. 500
The Inheritance
Difficult Legacy
There is a frank admission that Bush messed it up. There is hope that Obama will undo the mess if he can get his act right. Is he getting it right?
DAVID E. SANGER is eminently qualified to write about what President Barack Hussein Obama has inherited from his predecessor. As the chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times, Sanger accompanied President George W. Bush on his official visits abroad and has had access to many of the world leaders Bush met with during his tenure.
Candidate Obama’s words “Yes, we can”, symbolising the paradigm shift he would make as President, resonated not only through the United States but also the rest of the world. The subtitle of the book reads The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.
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Let us learn our lessons .Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that any one who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent or arrogant Commanders ,untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations-all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war.(Winston Churchill, My Early Life,1930).
Whether Churchill was President George Bush’s favorite author or not, it is obvious that he disagreed totally with the British Prime Minister. However, what was written in 1930 applies with painful pertinence to the wars started by the 43rd President of the United States in his eight years of office.
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Edited by Antony F.Lang, Jr. and John Williams
Palgrave Macmillan, New York
2005, pages 236
There are nine papers in all, written by six scholars, two of whom double up as editors. All the writers are university teachers, with four of them teaching International Relations(IR). Hannah Arendt never wrote on IR as such. But, the editors believe that it is possible to gain insights of value in IR from philosophers even if they do not directly theorize on IR. So far no attempt has been made to find out to what extent the ideas of Arendt can be invoked into IR. This book is the first such attempt.
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