- Paperback: 9999 pages
- Publisher: Picador; 2 edition (10 Nov 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330331779
- ISBN-13: 978-0330331777
- Product Dimensions: 13 x 19.7 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 435,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
‘Easily his best book yet’ Time Out
Book Description
‘O’Rourke is not really a travel writer (see Holidays in Hell) or a right-wing apologist (see Republican Party Reptile ) or even a responsible journalist (see passim), but something far more valuable than any of these. Fuelled on duty-free Scotch, he is America’s greatest prose comedian . . . Nobody tells or times a gag better, even when – especially when – he fetches up in a place as unfunny as Somalia’ Anthony Quinn, Sunday Times ‘O’Rourke has picked up the title of champion gonzo journalist of the world. He’s been there and done twice as much of it . . . [the book] is aimed like a guided missile straight up the liberal nostril . . . a splendid antidote to the modern fever of artificially-induced compassion’ Literary Review ‘O’Rourke can write more compellingly than almost any of those he writes about and he is funnier than almost anyone writing in America today’ John Diamond, The Times ‘In the politically-correct wastes of American journalism, P. J. O’Rourke stands out like a naughty deed in a good world’ John Naughton, Observer ‘Mr O’Rourke is the only writer in the world who can make foreign trade funny’ New York Times Book Review
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful
O'Rourke is now a weathered participant of the battle against received ideas, and this book finds him in cynical but good-humoured middle age. He pulls off a rare combination of entrenched conservatism and high comedy. One reason he fails to offend (at least this liberal reader) is his self-denigration. He never sets himself up as an authority, always referring to other sources when he needs to back up his arguments with facts. He's also happy to show himself as the biggest joke of all in a world of folly and absurdidty. Although the book claims to survey the four great troubles of the acopalypse, it is really a roaming, foreign correspondent's view of poverty and disaster round the globe. O'Rourke claims that his conclusions are modest, but in fact his views are clear though the book; international aid is rarely a solution to national poverty; deep poverty comes from bad local government not distant individual selfishness; mistrust evangelists of global apocalypse. Throughout he pokes fun at received political wisdom at the same time as providing a wealth of fascinating detail. Hilarious and thought provoking.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
This is PJ O'Rourke's best book. It's as amusing as his earlier ones but bursting with enjoyable facts.
Since this book, it's been downhill for PJ - but this one makes me laugh and discover new things every time I pick it up.
Buy it.
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