Posts Tagged ‘Islam’

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The Looming Tower

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

I picked up a copy of Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage) this weekend in Santa Fe.  Started reading it just to fill in a few minutes, then couldn’t stop reading it.  Apologies to all those who’s earlier recommendations of this book to me went unheeded until now.  You were all correct.  The Looming Tower is an amazing, revolting, fascinating and terrifying recounting of the life of Osama bin Laden, the history of al-Qaeda, the consequences of the broader Middle East Conflict and the tragically inefficient efforts of the U.S. intelligence community.

For me, aside from the detailed explanations of exactly how the repeated lack of inter-agency cooperation made the U.S. blind to first bin Laden, then to al-Qaeda, then to their plans, the main benefit of the book was gained from understanding part of the life of bin Laden.  To see how he started off in life, where he went, how he reacted to events in his life, who he listened to, how he changed and how he changed al-Qaeda was amazing.  The book would have been great in that sense even if it had stopped prior to 9/11.

Other than some Truthers who claim the USG destroyed the World Trade Center, the book is very favorably reviewed.   I, too, highly recommend it for anyone looking for an accessible explanation of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

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The World Is Flat

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

Our book club is discussing Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (TWIF) this month.  I read the 2005 edition of the book, so I’m not sure about the contents of the 2.0 and 3.0 updates.  The first half of the book describes ten “flatteners” that have caused this flattened world and defines the effects of the convergence of the most important flatteners.  By the way, the whole flat earth metaphor is derived from the image of a leveled playing field, not from our old understanding of geography.  The third quarter of the book covers the consequences that affect America, the risks that face America, and suggestions on what America can do to thrive in the flattened world.  As energizing as the first half of the book was, this part was terrifying.  The last part of the book covers the responses and challenges of the rest of the world to a flattened world, reviews general business approaches to a flattened world, warns of the danger of the presence of unflattened parts of the world, and closes with recommendations on how to keep peace in a flattening world.

This book and its author are very popular, and there are lots and lots of web resources about them both.  The TWIF‘s Wikipedia page is a nice place to start if you’d like to learn more about the contents and read Friedman’s critics too.  Friedman’s website includes product plugs and links to many NY Times articles.  To jump right into the world of those not enamored with Friedman, see this review of the first edition.   Meanwhile, Fareed  Zakaria’s review is probably much easier to swallow for Flatheads.

It’s nice to finely get around to TWIF, after the digs taken at it and at Friedman by Amy Chua in her World on Fire.   Considering last fall’s discussion of Chua, the enthusiasm of Friedman’s Fan Club, the critical responses to TWIF and the importance of the core issues, we should have a very interesting discussion this month.  My general response to TWIF is similar to my response to Nye’s Soft Power:  I learned something from it, but the greater value probably lies in knowing more about what everyone is talking about and the potential mental stimulation that comes with that.

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Inevitable Surprises

Monday, December 15th, 2008

The friend who recommended Peter Schwartz’s The Art of the Long View lent me his copy of Schwartz’s  Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence.   This book was not about scenario planning, but it provided data for a scenario planning view.  You do not have to have read The Art of the Long View to appreciate and learn from this title.

The first third of the book covered some of the things that are going to happen due to demographic changes.  These few chapters spooked me and made me worry about our lack of planning, but I’ll probably put those problems on the back burner……and keep watching to see which way things shake out. The issue of the rapidly rising number of elderly people is a good place to learn to deal with scenario planning and Schwartz’s take on the future.  There are some big changes coming that have to happen, based on what’s happened so far.  What we don’t know is how governments and cultures and individuals will respond to those changes.  So you have to keep your ear to the ground or keep scanning the horizon (choose your metaphor) to be able to react appropriately once things head down a certain path.

The last two thirds of the book were much more interesting to me, given my recent readings.  Schwartz covers his view on the Long Boom, which will return.  Then he moves into the econo-political problems of today’s world and covers some of the ways those conflicts may be resolved or may get worse.  He ends the book with a scenario planning view of global climate changes and our responses to it, followed by some general strategies which anyone can apply to their life to make them more aware of what’s going on and to help them respond more effectively to the inevitable surprises which are coming down the pike.

I told someone at work today that reading this book is very much like being at a seminar and listening to a very engaging speaker.  I would like meet Mr. Schwartz one day.

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The Dust of Empire

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

For months, I have been scavanging the shelves of my area’s largest used book store, trying to find a copy of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia.  I finally broke down and ordered a new copy (pre-reading thanks to Dan C. and Meghan B. for the ringing endorsements).  During my last search though, I found Karl E. Meyer’s The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in The Asian Heartland.  Turns out, this was a great book to read right after the Genghis Khan title (see previous entry).  Meyer and his wife Shareen Blair Brysac  also authored the larger, more detailed Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (which I’ll eventually read, to complement The Great Game), but Dust was written to provide an introductory survey of the histories of the five Central Asian republics, the Caspian and the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Russia.

Meyer begins with a review of the British Empire’s method of rule, contrasted against American foreign policy trends.  In the prologue, he states that “the thesis of this book is that the moral and diplomatic dilemmas confronting Washington today differ in degree but not in kind from those that confronted Britain before World War I (emphasis added).“  He then spends a chapter on each of the countries/regions listed above, beginning though with Russia and the “long talons of memory.”  Meyer closes the book (in the winter of 2002 I think), with his thoughts on the direction that America should take, post 9/11.  He is a big fan of NATO and consensus-building, and makes a fairly strong argument (that looks much stronger in retrospect) regarding the American responsibility to take actions with consideration of other countries.

Whether or not one agrees with Meyer’s conclusions, I think he meets his objective of introducing the unconcerned American reader to the historical drama, tragedy and importance of these countries.  Also, his references to other works on the countries, regions and issues are extensive and useful.  If I was re-ordering the reading sequence of my books, I would place this one a little earlier in the program.

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Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Monday, November 17th, 2008

Back in late 2004, a friend gave me his copy of Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and told me that the story was fascinating.  I’ve been not reading it ever since then.  I picked it up again a few weeks ago to find out more about the man and his Empire which both disrupted Islam so terribly.  Over the last year, I have read a few histories of Islam.  I remember all of them lamenting the Invasion of the Mongolian Horde, but I don’t remember any of them pointing out that in 1217, when he was in his sixties and had already conquered a huge swath of the world, Genghis Khan sent an envoy to the Sultan of Kwarizm (center of Islam at the time), offering to be a peaceful trading partner.  The Sultan agreed.  Genghis Khan sent a caravan of 350 merchants and their merchandise into Kwarizm to open the market.  The Muslim ruler of the first state they entered had them all murdered.  Oops.  So Genghis Khan changed his mind and invaded Kwarizm.  Thus the Mongolian Horde disrupted Islam.

The good news for Kwarizm and for most of the other lands conquered by Genghis Khan and his descendants is that the Mongols did not demand that any country change religions or languages or much really, just that they let the Mongols rule them.  His sons and grandsons were not as good at leadership as Genghis Khan, but they did end up ruling parts of the world that he could not get around to conquering before he died.  There was even a peaceful period in parts of the 13th and 14th centuries called the Pax Mongolica. Then the Bubonic Plague arrived, destroying (amongst other things) the lines of communication and commerce which bound together the four Khanates that ruled the Mongol Empire.  With the individual Khanates weakened and with fear and trembling brought on by the Black Death, the Mongol Empire began to crumble.  Fast-forward a few centuries and the very civilizations which benefited immensely from the Pax Mongolica began to demonize Genghis Khan and the Mongols.  Ingrates.

Well, I’ll stop my elementary review of world history (for now).  I thought this book was very informative.  Between his admiration of Genghis Khan, his love of the Mongolian people (today Weatherford lives in Mongolia at least half of each year), the time he’s spent researching the work and the accurate targeting of a lay audience, this is just the book I needed to learn about Genghis Khan and his effect on the modern world, and more specifically his effect on the Orient during the 13th century and onward.

Update: while trying to research an uptick in readership of this particular post (still unexplained), I ran across this interesting refutation of much of Weatherford’s scholarship.

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