Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 2007, 448 pgs.) The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes (W.W. Norton, 2008, 192 pgs.) As the boondoggle in Baghdad grinds into another year of disaster, it...
Splashed along the walls of Caracas’ Parque Central metro stop, billboards advertise all manner of consumer goods: beauty creams, thirst-quenching Polar Beer, the latest movies. As I stand waiting for the next train headed downtown, a row of three ads catches my attention. Bookending...
The Sierra Nevada mountains, where coca is grown openly, and in abundance. As my host proudly shows off his cocaine factory, deep in the mountains of Colombia’s northeast department of Magdalena, I realize that I stand at a frontline in America’s War on Drugs. The small lab...
Book Review Works discussed in this essay: Sin Patrón by the Lavaca Collective (Haymarket Books, 2007: 243 pages) Before his recent stint as intellectual arm candy to Bono on the rock star’s crusade to save the world, Jeffrey Sachs made his name as a leading proponent of...
Book Review: •Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks. (New York: Penguin, 2006. 482 pp.) •The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn. (London: Verso. 229 pp.) Having witnessed firsthand the devastation wrought on the French Empire by Napoleon’s prosecution of the Peninsular War, Arthur...
