book news & reviews

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret Olwen Macmillan, Richard Holbrooke (Random House)

An honest and engaging history revisiting those fateful months after World War I when the maps of Europe were redrawn. Between January and July 1919, after “the war to end all wars,” men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and wildly idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the larger-than-life characters who fill the pages of this extraordinary book. Macmillan refutes preconceived ideas about the path from Versailles to World War II and debunks the widely accepted notion that reparations imposed on the Germans were to a great extent responsible for the Second World War. A milestone of narrative history, Paris 1919 is the first full-scale treatment of the Peace Conference in more than a quarter of a century. It offers a scintillating view of those momentous days when much of the modern world was sketched out, when countries were created — Iraq, Yugoslavia, Israel — whose troubles haunt us still.

French Food at Home by Laura Calder (William Morrow & Co)

When most people think of French food, they anticipate “complicated to make” or "too fancy" dishes requiring “hard-to-find ingredients.” In French Food at Home, Laura Calder demonstrates that great Gallic fare doesn't have to be any of that. Showing that France’s cuisine can be fun and easy to do, the Paris-based correspondent of Vogue Entertaining and Travel shares 100 recipes she has personally created. For Calder, cooking is a key aspect of everyday life here: lighthearted, accessible and suited to modern tastes. It's about creating a meal using easy-to-find local produce. And, above all, it's about slowing down and savoring culinary delights, wherever you live.

Saddam Hussein An American Obssession by Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn (Verso)

A coherent and accessible survey of Iraq and the West's relationship to it. Patrick Cockburn was one of the few journalists to remain in Bagdad during the Gulf war. His brother has written on the Middle East for the New Yorker. Their book asserts that it was the CIA that helped to organize the Baath party's coup against the nationalist General Abd al-Karim Qassim in 1963, after he nationalized the western-owned Iraqi Petroleum Company and took the country out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. Updating the current crisis the authors conclude "if the US invades Iraq to install its own government it will be taking direct physical control of an area containing more than half the world’s oil reserves. It will look like the founding of a new American empire based on physical force and will be deeply resented... It would outrage the Arabs at a moment when the Israel-Palestine conflict is in a particularly bloody phase. America could find that it has overplayed its hand, just as Saddam did when he invaded Kuwait twelve years ago."

"America and Political Islam," Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests by Fawaz A. Gerges (Cambridge University Press)

A look at the historical, political and cultural issues surrounding America's preoccupation with Islam and Muslims. This book written before 9/11 has little to say concerning international networks of militant islamic terrorists, yet it is a well researched study of American foreign policy in the islamic world from the Carter to the Clinton administration. This Arab-American scholar should be required reading for anyone keen to understand how Washington responded to the rise and spread of political Islam at the close of the 20th century.

War on Iraq , What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know by Scott Ritter and William Rivers Pitt (Profile Books)

This mini book provides insights into the current situation and an extensive interview with former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, dismantling a number of myths about Iraq's present weapons program and uncovering the forces behind the White House's push for war. The interview with Ritter is the most comprehensive independent analysis of the state of knowledge about Iraq's weapons programs until the new team of inspectors went back. Point by point, Ritter deals with every suspicion, and concludes that any chemical or biological weapons Saddam might have concealed from the UN inspectors before they pulled out would by now have become degraded and useless. Any attempts to build nuclear weapons or missiles and aircraft to deliver them would have been detected by satellites.

“Shortfuse” edited by Todd Swift & Philip Norton (Rattapallax Press, New York)

The editors call it “fusion poetry” — defining it as verse which is meant to be “heard” as well as “read.” If possible both at the same time... In fact, these days, this urban creative phenomenon is better known as “slam.” Featuring around 200 poets, “Shortfuse” anthologizes this spontaneous streetwise poetic genre, giving it paradoxical permanency. Some people might think a book combined with live readings on an accompanying CD runs counter to slam poetry’s transient attitude, but this format actually provides a remarkable introduction to “slamming” for those who’ve yet to experience or take part in it. MH