Breathe To Read

Breathe To Read

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Read The World - Iraq - Imperial Life In The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

Book: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
Author: Rajv Chandrasekaran
Pages: 336
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: NO
I have visited: NO


This is my 48th read for the year.

I have slowed down a bit.  The nice weather and upcoming vacation readiness has made this last week not a good week for reading for me.  It needs to rain so I can read.


This is the story about the US occupation of Iraq and life inside the Green Zone.  It was a walled off city in Baghdad where Americans lived, worked, and relaxed - completely cut off from Iraq.

The author - who was The Washington's Post bureau chief - goes into the zone and reports on what he finds there.  He does hundreds of interviews and scours countless documents to piece together a story about the occupation.  He focuses heavily on the viceroy, Paul Bremer and his ideas on how Iraq should be run.  Bremer ignores what Iraqis want persues what he thinks Iraq needs, and in the end angers the local people.

This was a good book.  I knew very little of the occupation, and what an insight I gained by this author's findings.  It made me shake my head at some of the things that happened during this time.  Intelligent people with seemingly good intentions who made a very big mess.  How so many people who were in jobs in the Green Zone didn't have the expertise they needed for the position they were assigned.  A lot of lessons that (hopefully) were learned.

Check it out.  It will be worth your time.

Stars: 4 1/2







2 comments:

  1. This book sounds interesting but it seems like a heavy read. Is it? I'll be checking it out and adding to my TBR!

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    Replies
    1. You know, it wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be. I did this one as an audio book and I think that was the way to go. The person who read this book was very good, and it held my attention.

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