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The Assassins' Gate
America In Iraq
by George Packer
The New Yorker journalist covers both the politics leading up to the Iraq war as well as events in Iraq since the U.S. invasion, his accounts based in part on his four trips to the turbulent nation in the past few years.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 480 pages
10/15/2005
$26.00
ISBN: 0374299633
Nonfiction
Current Events & Politics
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Salon Gary Kamiya
"The Assassins' Gate" is almost certain to stand as the most comprehensive journalistic account of the greatest foreign-policy debacle in U.S. history.
The Guardian Jay Parini
A riveting tale of mixed motives, wilful connivance, skewed ideology and sheer incompetence.
Sydney Morning Herald Richard King
What history needs is a good first draft. It needs good journalism. And this is as good as journalism gets.
The Spectator James Astill
A superb first history of the Iraq venture, from its intellectual origins to the mercifully peaceful elections last January.
Washington Post Gideon Rose
Packer's sketch of the prewar debates is subtle, sharp and poignant. His book truly picks up, however, once the wheels of history have been set in motion.
Christian Science Monitor Peter Grier
If you're looking for one book on Iraq that expands on the daily news, and gives a sense of the US enterprise there as a whole, you probably can't do better than this.
The Guardian Peter Beaumont
Packer's strengths in telling this story are fastidious research and his parallel career as a novelist.
The Independent Roz Kaveney
This is a bitter book that could not have been written as sincerely by someone who was right all along -- the sort of book that helps to ensure that people won't be fooled again.
Bookslut Sarah Statz
[Packer's] book may not be pleasurable or easy to read, but it should be read nonetheless.
New York Review Of Books Peter W. Galbraith
Packer's book is written with great clarity and draws on his experience as one of The New Yorker's more perceptive reporters.
San Francisco Chronicle Yonatan Lupu
George Packer, a staff writer for the New Yorker, has succeeded in creating a book that is not only relevant but discerning and provocative.
The Economist
George Packer's brutal analyses and trenchant on-the-spot reportage for the New Yorker magazine over the past two years provide the core of this devastating critique.
The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
What "The Assassins' Gate" may lack in freshness ... is more than made up for by its wide-angled, overarching take on the Iraq war and Mr. Packer's lucid ability to pull together information from earlier books and integrate it with his own reporting from Washington and Iraq.
Booklist Jay Freeman
This is a troubling but deeply moving examination of a struggle that seems far from resolution. [15 Sep 2005, p. 22]
Boston Globe H. W. Brands
For much of his tale of the intellectual genesis of the Iraq War, Packer relies on the work of others. He summarizes well but adds little to what is already known. By contrast, his own reportage of the effects of the war on the individuals involved is much fresher and more compelling.
Chicago Tribune Samuel G. Freedman
Packer is just plain a better writer than anyone else chronicling the war--lucid, reasoned, compassionate, quietly authoritative. He comes as close as possible to making this inquest into a quagmire into a page-turner. [4 Dec 2005]
Kirkus Reviews
As memorable as Michael Herr's Dispatches, and of surpassing immediacy. [1 Aug 2005, p. 834]
Library Journal John Riddick
Although it has been said that truth is the first thing to disappear in war, Packer meets head on the failings of Washington policy as implemented by those administrators and soldiers on the ground in Iraq. [1 Sep 2005, p. 158]
Los Angeles Times Daniel Kurtz-Phelan
Although [Packer] works in snapshots and anecdotes, every time an image might allow him to settle into a simple conclusion about the war's worthiness, he turns his attention--and his considerable powers of description and dramatization--to another image that points to the opposite conclusion. The cumulative effect is a wrenching cognitive dissonance. [6 Nov 2005, p. R12]
Publishers Weekly Christopher Hitchens
The Iraq debate has long needed someone who is both tough-minded enough, and sufficiently sensitive, to register all its complexities. In George Packer's work, this need is answered. [6 Jun 2005, p. 50]
The New York Times Book Review Fareed Zakaria
Packer's book lacks a tight thesis or structure and as a result meanders at times, petering out in its final sections. But this is more than made up for by the sheer integrity and intelligence of its reporting.
 The average user rating for this book is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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