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 enlarge | Author: George Packer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $3.53
You Save: $11.47 (76%)
New (34) Used (56) from $3.53
Avg. Customer Rating:  123 reviews
Sales Rank: 38747
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.4
ISBN: 0374530556
Dewey Decimal Number: 327
EAN: 9780374530556
ASIN: 0374530556
Publication Date: September 19, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Significant Tears to spine,warping or missing dust jacket /price sticker on cover . In-Stock NOW FAST Secure Packaging & Delivery
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| Customer Reviews:
 Intellectual history with a bite March 6, 2008
Packer begins by exploring the intellectual roots of the invasion of Iraq in relationship to American ideas of democracy. In analyzing ideology and realism in foreign policy thinking, Packer shows how an essentially mild liberalism transforms into the core of neocon thinking. He has a fine sense of the complex interplay of dominant and subdominant intellectual themes. Packer's own view, a slightly left of center stance informed by the thinking of an Iraqi scholar, undergoes a slow evolution from mild approval of America's rationale to concern over its misperception of circumstances in country. Packer's theoretical introduction frames the rest of the book. Most of the rest of the book represents the kind of reporting that finds universals in stories of individual Iraqis and Americans and keeps a close account of the gathering tragedy of the invasion. Told with with sympathy, a clear leitmotif, and an eye for telling detail, Packer's work provides the clearest picture of life outside The Assassin's Gate through 2006.
 Best Book on the Iraq War (so far) February 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Packer was an earlier supporter of the war in Iraq, who has, in the last couple of years, changed his tune. He is also an incredible writer, and Assassin's Gate is the best written book I have read on the war. Packer moves between DC and Iraq from the beginning of the plans for the war, including fascinating profiles of Anti-Saddam Iraqi and U.S. liberal who supported the war to the (almost) present. You can feel his disgust with the Bush administration grow and his hope for Iraq fail as the book progresses.
Assassin's Gate is an excellent read, and a good primer on the basic outline of the lead up to the war, but where the book really shines is in the profiles of people caught up by the whole disaster. Whether that's anti Saddamist Iraqi exiles, US soldiers, or young women in Baghdad, all of the people written about in this book really do come off the page as fully realized people caught up in a horrible situation they didn't ask for. This is a popular book, written for a mass audience, so you're not going to get all that much depth, but the personal stories and the inside the beltway backstory, make this book well worth the read.
Mandatory reading for all politicians and citizens December 17, 2007
Long after "the tumult and the shouting dies, the captains and the kings depart," I suspect this book will remain. Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly" is another such book. Mr. Packer has done a tremendous job in opening the curtains. We now see the real "Wizard of Oz."
It would have helped if he had provided a list of the many people he refers to, rather than digging through the index. But that is a small gripe, indeed. Writing this review requires a little organization, writing "The Assassins' Gate" required a lot of organization, but invading Iraq required no organization, at all. Mr. Packer shows that, chapter and verse.
"If you want to know about Iraq, The Assassins Gate is the book to read." November 1, 2007
The title of this review is a quote from a friend, an US Army Brigadier General who has done a couple of tours in Iraq. And he is right. As Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury fame has said, "The Iraq War has been chronicled by some great literature." I agree that Cobra II, Fiasco and Imperial Life in the Emerald City all are good reads and paint vivid pictures of both the glaring mistakes and overshadowed successes that have made up the invasion and first years of the occupation. In this book, George Packer does it at a level that seems to breathe Iraq itself. At times incredibly painful to read, this book can give one a nuanced understanding of the country that the others don't often attempt. For the most part, their focus is on the actions of Americans. Mr. Packer takes it all in.
 Bit of a plod September 26, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am not sure but this was probably, the first book which outlined the growth of the insurgency in Iraq and the break down into choas which followed the American invasion. The weakness of the book is that it is a personal journey. Rather than talk about what happened in general or abstract terms the author does it by talking about the experiance of large number of Iraquis he meets in his trips to the county. He also talks about his initial luke warm support for the war to a realisation that all was not well.
There are now quite a number of books about what are till now the failed attempts of America to build a democracy in Iraq. Both Fiasco and Inside the Emerald City are easier to read as they just concentrate on a factual anylsis rather than the approach of this book which is more journalistic. That is not to say that this book is bad. It explains the various mistakes the Americans made. The disbanding of the security forces the ideological nature of the initial occupation authority.
The problem is that the others do so free of the personal agonizing which occurs in this book. Inside the Emerald City also has more jokes.
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