Strategically irrelevant and expensive, Guantánamo has become a political icon, so suggestions that U.S. officials...
A relentlessly critical history of America’s oldest naval base and the only one in a hostile country.
Hansen (Social Studies/Harvard Univ.; The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920, 2003) reminds us that Cuban rebels had been holding their own for three years before Americans arrived in 1898, ostensibly to save them from Spanish tyranny. After an easy victory, American forces excluded rebels from surrender ceremonies and peace talks and demanded that their new constitution include the right to intervene in Cuban affairs, plus a lease on Guantánamo. As a result, ambitious leaders routinely declared that opponents were endangering American lives, and Marines from Guantánamo obligingly came to their aid. Under Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. government stopped intervening but continued to support leaders who promised order and, after 1945, anticommunism. Even before Fidel Castro’s arrival in 1959, Guantánamo was no longer an important base; since the ’60s, it has served mostly as a holding area for refugees and prisoners. Hansen devotes an angry chapter to American treatment of Haitian arrivals (almost all returned) compared to Cubans (almost all admitted to the United States), and a final, equally angry chapter covers events after 9/11. The Bush administration sent suspected terrorists to Guantánamo because it seemed beyond the reach of journalists and, according to advisors, American legal protections. Officials proclaimed that such fanatics were immune to traditional interrogation, but enhanced techniques would reveal information vital to save American lives. The only result has been a persistent public-relations disaster.
Strategically irrelevant and expensive, Guantánamo has become a political icon, so suggestions that U.S. officials leave—common during past administrations—are no longer heard, but Hansen’s distressing history may revive the idea.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8090-5341-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
In 1989, The National Interest published "The End of History?" by Fukuyama, then a senior official at the State Department. In that comparatively short but extremely controversial article, Fukuyama speculated that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and hence the "final form of human government." Now Fukuyama has produced a brilliant book that, its title notwithstanding, takes an almost entirely new tack. To begin with, he examines the problem of whether it makes sense to posit a coherent and directional history that would lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy. Having answered in the affirmative, he assesses the regulatory effect of modern natural science, a societal activity consensually deemed cumulative as well as directional in its impact. Turning next to a "second, parallel account of the historical process," Fukuyama considers humanity's struggle for recognition, a concept articulated and borrowed (from Plato) by Hegel. In this context, he goes on to reinterpret culture, ethical codes, labor, nationalism, religion, war, and allied phenomena from the past, projecting ways in which the desire for acknowledgement could become manifest in the future. Eventually, the author addresses history's presumptive end and the so-called "last man," an unheroic construct (drawn from Tocqueville and Nietzsche) who has traded prideful belief in individual worth for the civilized comforts of self-preservation. Assuming the prosperity promised by contemporary liberal democracy indeed come to pass, Fukuyama wonders whether or how the side of human personality that thrives on competition, danger, and risk can be fulfilled in the sterile ambiance of a brave new world. At the end, the author leaves tantalizingly open the matter of whether mankind's historical journey is approaching a close or another beginning; he even alludes to the likelihood that time travelers may well strike out in directions yet undreamt. An important work that affords significant returns on the investments of time and attention required to get the most from its elegantly structured theme.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 1992
ISBN: 0-02-910975-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Johnstown Flood was one of the greatest natural disasters of all time (actually manmade, since it was precipitated by a wealthy country club dam which had long been the source of justified misgivings). This then is a routine rundown of the catastrophe of May 31st, 1889, the biggest news story since Lincoln's murder in which thousands died. The most interesting incidental: a baby floated unharmed in its cradle for eighty miles.... Perhaps of local interest-but it lacks the Lord-ly touch.
Pub Date: March 18, 1968
ISBN: 0671207148
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968
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