A highly critical, honest, and opinionated chronicle by a top United Nations official of the period that saw the UN’s transformation from peace-keeper to peace-enforcer. During the spring and summer of 1995, Corwin served as the UN’s chief political officer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A firm believer in the UN’s historic mission as international peacekeeper, he strove for impartiality in his work and expected the same of his employer. But as peace finally appeared possible, Corwin witnessed the UN’s disturbing transition to the role of active combatant. His book, comprised of 1995 diaries and later commentaries, directly addresses this specific phase of the Bosnian war, which the author considers a turning point of lasting significance for the UN and international affairs. Corwin makes no attempt to disguise either his clear sympathy with the UN or his outright and direct criticism of—in fact, contempt for—other parties, foremost among them the international press (for their unobjective pro-Bosnian stance), the Bosnian government (for provoking NATO to enter the conflict and for rude treatment of the UN staff), and NATO (for fighting under the UN flag rather than its own and destroying “UNPROFOR’s integrity as a peacekeeping force”). Corwin does not mince words. “The leaders of all the various factions in Bosnia were merely gangsters wearing coats and ties,” he writes. Jocular and disdainful comments about the press are frequent: the UN staff dubbed the press the International Order of Reptiles; Corwin refers to CNN in his official faxes as Certainly Not Neutral; and reporter David Rohde, later held hostage by Bosnian Serbs, is described as an “ambitious, peripatetic opportunist.” Despite occasional descriptive excess, Corwin gives an honest account, clearly and succinctly explains his biases, and provides useful insight into key figures, episodes, and encounters during this pivotal phase. Trenchant observations on the Bosnian war of particular interest to those trying to make sense of the latest events in the Balkans.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8223-2126-2
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Duke Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
