An eye-opening, if occasionally meandering, account of intelligence work.
A debut memoir of a memorable 27-year career as an intelligence officer in the Canadian military.
Fletcher entered the Canadian Armed Forces as an infantryman in the late 1970s and was later recruited to join the intelligence section, partly on the basis of his artistic prowess, as he served both as an intelligence operator and the unit’s graphic artist. He would spend the remainder of his impressive career working in intelligence in all three of its principal disciplines, which he calls the “Holy Trinity”: imagery (reconnaissance photography), human intelligence, and signals intelligence. Over the course of this book, the author’s remembrance is an admirably candid one; he concedes that he was wholly unprepared for his appointment as a Middle East analyst,“an admittedly somewhat pretentious designation in both title and capability, considering my qualifications.” He served in Germany and Afghanistan, among other places, and was uniquely positioned within the intelligence community to master its internal machinations; his memoir is brimming with astute aperçus about NATO, the problematic interrogation of “uncooperative” people, such as prisoners of war, and the Canadian Armed Forces’ particularly difficult experience during the 1990s. Along the way, he provides an astute insider’s peek into a world in which, the author says, a few of the people he met “should have been issued a straightjacket instead of a uniform.” He never overdramatizes his experience and instead offers an unvarnished, realistic view of military bureaucracy: “The overarching lesson here was that if anyone still believed that the military was a wholly selfless organization, free from the political machinations and self-interest that is encountered in other government departments, they were in for something of a shock.” Fletcher’s narrative can get lost in a haze of professional detail, though; he often detours into territory that won’t arouse casual readers’ interest, such as the politics of naming units or the “contentious politics and policies surrounding health and fitness.”
An eye-opening, if occasionally meandering, account of intelligence work.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5255-5716-3
Page Count: 360
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.
Immersion journalism in the form of a graphic narrative following a Syrian family on their immigration to America.
Originally published as a 22-part series in the New York Times that garnered a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the story of the Aldabaan family—first in exile in Jordan and then in New Haven, Connecticut—holds together well as a full-length book. Halpern and Sloan, who spent more than three years with the Aldabaans, movingly explore the family’s significant obstacles, paying special attention to teenage son Naji, whose desire for the ideal of the American dream was the strongest. While not minimizing the harshness of the repression that led them to journey to the U.S.—or the challenges they encountered after they arrived—the focus on the day-by-day adjustment of a typical teenager makes the narrative refreshingly tangible and free of political polemic. Still, the family arrived at New York’s JFK airport during extraordinarily political times: Nov. 8, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was elected. The plan had been for the entire extended family to move, but some had traveled while others awaited approval, a process that was hampered by Trump’s travel ban. The Aldabaans encountered the daunting odds that many immigrants face: find shelter and employment, become self-sustaining quickly, learn English, and adjust to a new culture and climate (Naji learned to shovel snow, which he had never seen). They also received anonymous death threats, and Naji wanted to buy a gun for protection. He asked himself, “Was this the great future you were talking about back in Jordan?” Yet with the assistance of selfless volunteers and a community of fellow immigrants, the Aldabaans persevered. The epilogue provides explanatory context and where-are-they-now accounts, and Sloan’s streamlined, uncluttered illustrations nicely complement the text, consistently emphasizing the humanity of each person.
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30559-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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