Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #824242 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Who said Republicans can't do satire?
Peace Kills is the latest book from the pen of P.J. O'Rourke. Here O'Rourke returns to the topic of security and international politics in the post-modern world through a series of funny but thought provoking essays based on his travels both before and after 9/11 to Kosovo, Egypt, Israel, Iraq and elsewhere.

O'Rourke is a Republican with a fine eye for the absurdities of the situations and places he finds himself, delivering witty lines in almost every paragraph, but each essay also has serious political points to make underneath. His analysis comes from the libertarian right of centre (the well meaning but naïve come in for a particularly hard time) with a strong anti-ideological (right or left) slant, but this is not a theoretical political tract. O'Rourke's pragmatism and humanity comes through from his technique of getting to know different individuals in each country and listening to what they say, often bonding with them in the task of finding, acquiring and consuming alcohol. His companions range from harassed peace keepers in Kosovo, to world weary tour guides in Israel, to lecturers in post-Sadam Iraq. Throughout the book he looks to people finding the workable solution, not the utopian ideal.

O'Rourke is not, therefore, simply a right wing version of Michael Moore, though he shares with Moore the willingness and ability to poke fun at himself. Moore is a polemicist; O'Rouke's writing in general, and particulary in this book, is calmer, subtler, and frankly more informed about the wider world outside the USA. He allows the absurdity of his targets' language and actions to sink in before hitting the reader with a wry one-liner. It is the difference between being constantly bludgeoned with a sledgehammer and being subtly skewered by a rapier.

This is both a serious, intelligent book and very funny. A little more subdued than his pre 9/11 books, I believe he is still the wittiest Republican around and the most accessible to non-Americans. You may not agree with his politics, but all but the most narrow-minded should find plenty in this book to amuse and, perhaps, ponder over.

Flashes of Brilliant Writing amid Endless Ironies
Peace Kills is a collection of mostly previously published writing by P.J. O'Rourke as he looks at America's progression from a peace keeper under President Clinton to a democracy implanter under President Bush with an interlude as a target of terrorist violence in the United States.

Here are the sections:

Why Americans Hate Foreign Policy; Kosovo (November 1999); Israel (April 2001); 9/11 Diary; Egypt (December 2001); Nobel Sentiments; Washington, D.C. Demonstrations (April 2002); Thoughts on the Eve of War; Kuwait and Iraq (March and April 2003); and Postscript (Iwo Jima and the End of Modern Warfare).

The book is deeply skeptical about how well any human activity can succeed, whether its purpose is noble or not. Perhaps the most telling section is about ancient and modern Egypt in which Mr. O'Rourke postulates that people have always been crazy . . . with the pyramids as lasting evidence of that observation.

Most of the essays take an ironical cast. First, the official purpose of an activity is described. Second, a counter-example is presented to show the purpose is being undercut. Third, a segue-way occurs into a further irony relative to the counter-example. You have left shaking your head in wonder. These sections are most interesting when they provide local color that you didn't know before. I loved all of the examples from Egypt of the antiterrorist safeguards being ignored in favor of either religious observances or advancing tourism.

What makes the book special to me is the incredibly fine writing that shows up in each essay in explaining a complicated event and circumstance in terms of our American perspective. These are real gems and show careful rewriting. One yearns in vain for more of this type of writing in the essays . . . rather than having one more point, counter-point, segue-way example of irony.

If you already think that war doesn't make sense, you won't need this book to convince you.

But if you love fine, witty writing and don't mind slogging through too many ironic examples to find it, this book will reward you with ten or so remarkable paragraphs.

Back on form...
I wasn't that impressed by 'CEO of the Sofa' - his last. I am a massive PJ fan and while I thought that it was good by anyone else's standards, it wasn't his best. This marks a return to form - it's not the greatest but a relief to read as once again his particularly pointed diatribes against all and sundry lend a refreshing blast of reality to abounding PC views...

Definitely a great read, and good to have him back.

As a footnote, "Peace Kills" is what he wrote in my autographed copy of 'Age & Guile' a few years ago after my girlfriend explained that I was abroad with the Army so couldn't attend the signing in person... ;)