A powerful work of investigative journalism, one that speaks volumes about the business of war and of human slavery alike.
How war profiteering in the Middle East tore apart a village in the Himalayan foothills.
In 2004, writes London-based Businessweek senior international correspondent Simpson, not long after the U.S. invaded Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, a recruiter came calling in Kathmandu, ostensibly looking for workers at a luxury hotel in Jordan. In fact, those who answered the call were placed in the hands of people such as a former dry cleaner who ran a so-called body shop in Amman: “If you needed the ‘bodies’ of menial laborers, you went to Ali al-Nadi.” So it was that American military contractors in Iraq found their way to al-Nadi’s door to fill their ranks, and a dozen men from that Nepali village found themselves on the way to enriching everyone but themselves—but briefly, for on their way to the contractor’s camp within a vast U.S. air base, they were kidnapped by Islamist militants who declared the Nepalis “infidels” inasmuch as they were working in the service of the “Crusaders.” The Nepalis were executed, leaving it to their survivors to wonder how they had ended up in an American war zone in the first place. The answer, untangled by Kamala Magar, the widow of one of the Nepalis—whom the author interviewed numerous times in 2005, 2013, 2014, and 2016—came to implicate the largest American military contractor in Iraq in a sordid chain of human trafficking. Of course, the contractor continually denied the allegations throughout a long process of legal discovery, parts of which went all the way to the Supreme Court. Suffice it to say that, given the choice of ruling in favor of an utterly commendable Nepali widow of questionable legal standing but with an unflagging commitment to justice or a multibillion-dollar corporation with unlimited legal funds, the courts did not often honor the ideals of the law.
A powerful work of investigative journalism, one that speaks volumes about the business of war and of human slavery alike.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-244971-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Caro’s skill as a biographer, master of compelling prose, appealing self-deprecation, and overall generous spirit shine...
At age 83, the iconic biographer takes time away from his work on the fifth volume of his acclaimed Lyndon Johnson biography to offer wisdom about researching and writing.
In sparkling prose, Caro (The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, 2012, etc.)—who has won two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and three National Book Critics Circle Awards, among countless other honors—recounts his path from growing up sheltered in New York City to studying at Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia to unexpectedly becoming a newspaper reporter and deciding to devote his life to writing books. Thinking about his first book topic, he landed on developer Robert Moses, “the most powerful figure in New York City and New York State for more than forty years—more powerful than any mayor or any governor, or any mayor and governor combined.” After Caro received a book contract with a small advance from a publisher, he, his wife (and research assistant), Ina, and their son struggled to make ends meet as the project consumed about a decade, much longer than the author had anticipated. The book was more than 1,300 pages, and its surprising success gave Caro some financial stability. The author explains that he focused on Johnson next as an exemplar of how to wield political power on a national scale. Throughout the book, the author shares fascinating insights into his research process in archives; his information-gathering in the field, such as the Texas Hill Country; his interviewing techniques; his practice of writing the first draft longhand with pens and pencils; and his ability to think deeply about his material. Caro also offers numerous memorable anecdotes—e.g., how he verified rumors that Johnson became a senator in 1948 via illegal ballot counting in one rural county.
Caro’s skill as a biographer, master of compelling prose, appealing self-deprecation, and overall generous spirit shine through on every page.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-65634-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
An intriguing examination of the complexity of female power in a variety of relationships.
A collection of personal journal entries from the feminist writer that explores power dynamics and “a subject [she] kept coming back to: women strong in public, weak in private.”
Cultural critic and essayist Roiphe (Cultural Reporting and Criticism/New York Univ.; The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End, 2016, etc.), perhaps best known for the views she expressed on victimization in The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism (1994), is used to being at the center of controversy. In her latest work, the author uses her personal journals to examine the contradictions that often exist between the public and private lives of women, including her own. At first, the fragmented notebook entries seem overly scattered, but they soon evolve into a cohesive analysis of the complex power dynamics facing women on a daily basis. As Roiphe shares details from her own life, she weaves in quotes from the writings of other seemingly powerful female writers who had similar experiences, including Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, and Hillary Clinton. In one entry, Roiphe theorizes that her early published writings were an attempt to “control and tame the narrative,” further explaining that she has “so long and so passionately resisted the victim role” because she does not view herself as “purely a victim” and not “purely powerless.” However, she adds, that does not mean she “was not facing a man who was twisting or distorting his power; it does not mean that the wrongness, the overwhelmed feeling was not there.” Throughout the book, the author probes the question of why women so often subjugate their power in their private lives, but she never quite finds a satisfying answer. The final entry, however, answers the question of why she chose to share these personal journal entries with the public: “To be so exposed feels dangerous, but having done it, I also feel free.”
An intriguing examination of the complexity of female power in a variety of relationships.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2801-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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