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Title: The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan by Jon Lee Anderson ISBN: 0-8021-1723-6 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: November, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.78 (9 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: a waste of money
Comment: Mr. Anderson got into Afghanistan at the beginning of the war, talked to anybody who would talk to him, and recorded his conversations. That's it. Out of this he got a couple articles for the New Yorker, but not enough to make the requisite inch and a quarter book thickness, so he filled in with emails between him and his editor. I'm not kidding, this is all there is to the book. No American who knew what was going on (by his admission) would talk to him, and the Afghanis who knew what was going on gave him their boilerplate PR spiel. You would learn more about the latest afghani war by watching the network news sound bites, and MUCH more by reading the reportage and think pieces that came out of Afghanistan from NYT, Washington Post, and LA Times (hey guys, what about an anthology of this stuff?). Don't waste your money and time.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Lion's Grave, Dispactches from Afghanistan
Comment: The Lion's Grave, Dispatches from Afghanistan by Jon Lee Anderson takes you inside the first few weeks of the war in Afghanistan as American forces moved across the country. Several reporters followed the soldiers into combat, expect Anderson covered the war from the perspective of the Afghani Northern Alliance and the newly freed people. Anderson is one of the first reporters into the country after September 11th. Using several connections he manages to attain a passport into the country through the Russian embassy. The moment he enters the country Anderson places his life in danger. He is on the front lines reporting the war, expect he has no safe haven like the American reporters did in Operation Iraqi freedom. There are no American troops to protect him if he comes under attack, and the only other people around that spoke English were his translator and his photographer, who was from Germany.
The book is a collection of all the pieces Anderson wrote while covering the war for "The New Yorker" magazine. He has worked for the magazine for 20 years, and has covered hot beds of conflict around the globe.
Connecting each separate story is a series of emails that Anderson wrote to his editor who was back home in the states. I believe their intended purpose was to help connect each story and create a time line of events that helps lay the groundwork for Anderson's stories. But the emails end up feeling more like they are just their filling up space and padding the content to create a book. Plus more often then not they swing and miss. While some are very revealing and show the hardships Anderson endured while covering the war, "Another big dust story today, and a cold front. Visibility is almost nil, and the sat phone transmission is very bad. I've been trying for several hours to download two emails that are in my system," others seem to be just boring exchanges in which you only hear one end of the conversation.
I will admit that since I was not familiar with Afghani history I did have trouble keeping up with some of his stories. Several names might be thrown at the reader all a once making it hard to keep track of who was who. Then you throw city names into the mix and you could easily find yourself very confused.
Overall I would have to recommend the book. It is an interesting look into recent history from a non-American viewpoint of the world. And anyone interested in the Middle East should definitely give this book a try. I give it 4 stars.
Rating: 3
Summary: Bullets Whizzing?
Comment: A quote on the top of this paperback reads "raw combat reportage... it's easy to miss the bullets whizzing by". I was surely taken in by this and just as surely disappointed.
At one point Mr. Anderson describes how a Mujahideen soldier reaches under his chair and steals his can of Pepsi. Mr. Anderson snatches the can back and this is the level of wartime action you can expect to find in this pedestrian account of Afghanistan after September Eleventh.
This is reporting from behind enemy lines - WAY behind them. It is a series of articles written about interviews the author conducts with the major players in Afghanistan. Each article is "framed" by not particularly interesting emails describing the difficulties involved with travelling to and around in the country, and the challenges of communicating with satellite phones.
The Lion's Grave serves as a readable introduction to the history of Afghanistan through the eyes and ears of those who shaped it and lived through it. It fills in a lot of face-to-face detail about the larger-than-life characters jostling for power in the remains of a smashed country that has undergone one major upheaval after another. It is also a chilling account of how bad things are in that part of the world, and how its people are indivisibly split by a common religion, and united by a hatred of the U.S.
It is NOT raw combat footage. For that, try Black Hawk Down and/or ChickenHawk.
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Title: The Sewing Circles of Herat : A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb ISBN: 0060505265 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 03 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics by Martin Ewans ISBN: 0060505079 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 19 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile ISBN: 0871138549 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: An Unexpected Light : Travels in Afghanistan by Jason Elliot ISBN: 0312288468 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban by Stephen Tanner ISBN: 0306811642 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 02 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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