A lively and entertaining but sometimes nasty journalistic look at modern soldiers-for-hire.
Unsettling accounts of private, quasi-military organizations that played a surprisingly important role in countless post–World War II conflicts and then flourished to become front-page news after 9/11.
Veteran British war correspondent Geraghty identifies three traditions of freelance soldiering: the “traditional mercenary,” common during the chaotic days of postcolonial Africa; the “plausibly deniable warriors,” who carry out covert missions for legitimate governments; and “modern private security operators,” which include Blackwater, DynCorp and dozens of others prospering in Iraq and Afghanistan. Caught up in the anarchy in Congo in the 1960s after the sudden Belgian withdrawal, white mercenaries received rare positive PR by rescuing large numbers of whites from the widespread massacres. Soon the United States, South Africa, Cuba and the Soviet Union supported mercenary armies, both black and white, in a vicious bloodbath in Angola lasting into the 21st century. America’s not-so-covert ’80s support of the Contras fighting the leftist Nicaraguan government is an example of “plausibly deniable” warriors, but Britain enjoyed greater—and less publicized—success sending men to Yemen in the ’60s to frustrate Egypt’s efforts at control, and to Oman to stabilize the government. Readers may be surprised to learn of Britain’s leading role in the plausibly deniable aid to mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Geraghty also notes that the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan produced a vast expansion of private security services. Despite well-publicized episodes of trigger-happy behavior, such services remain essential in chaotic nations with ineffective police. Because Britain enjoyed more success in keeping its covert operations covert, the author’s British viewpoint offers a unique perspective on the role of mercenaries in modern warfare.
A lively and entertaining but sometimes nasty journalistic look at modern soldiers-for-hire.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-60598-048-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
