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George Packer

The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq Hardcover – 22 Sept. 2005

by George Packer (Author)

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The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq recounts how the United States set about changing the history of the Middle East and became ensnared in a guerrilla war in Iraq. It tells the story of the people and ideas that created the Bush administration's war policy and led America to the Assassin's Gate--the main point of entry into the American zone in Baghdad. The consequences of that policy are shown in the author's vivid reporting on the ground in Iraq, where he made several tours on assignment for The New Yorker. We see up close the struggles of individual American soldiers and civilians and Iraqis from all backgrounds, including returning exiles, thrown together by a war that followed none of the preconceived scripts.

The Assassin's Gate also describes the effect of the Iraq war on American life, including the ordeal of a fallen soldier's family and the shortcomings of a political culture too impoverished in its knowledge of the world and too bitterly polarized to debate complex moral and strategic questions. George Packer's intimate first-person narrative navigates this journey through the landscapes of America and Iraq while tracing the author's own evolving views, bringing to the page the full range of ideas and emotions stirred up by our most controversial foreign-policy venture since Vietnam.

Print length

467 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Farrar Straus & Giroux
Publication date

22 Sept. 2005
Dimensions

16.51 x 3.18 x 22.86 cm
ISBN-10

0374299633
ISBN-13

978-0374299637
See all details

Richard Osman
73,993
Hardcover
65 offers from £0.67

Product description

About the Author

George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of several books, most recently Blood of the Liberals (FSG, 2000), winner of the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Award. He is also the editor of the anthology The Fight Is for Democracy. He lives in Brooklyn.

George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of several books, most recentlyBlood of the Liberals (FSG, 2000), winner of the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Award. He is also the editor of the anthologyThe Fight Is for Democracy. He lives in Brooklyn.

George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar Straus & Giroux (22 Sept. 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 467 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374299633
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374299637
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.51 x 3.18 x 22.86 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,559,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 80,835 in Government & Politics

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4.4 146 ratings

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Easily the best book on the Iraq mess - disturbing, stunning

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2006

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I have a whole bookcase of books about the Iraq business and this is far and away the best - and that is saying something! I would agree with everything that the previous reviewer wrote, and so I won't repeat his detailed summary; suffice it to say that the story is alarming, the writing amazing, the breadth and the depth are awe-inspiring. If you have to read only one book on Iraq, make it this one. (All my friends got compulsory copies).

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andrew pettitt

delivered as advertised

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 May 2015

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Robert Morris

Significant and Disturbing But Valuable Revelations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 December 2005

Like many others, I receive my news from a variety of electronic and print sources and almost always in small portions. One of few exception is The New York Times. Another is The New Yorker magazine to which I have also subscribed for decades. I vividly recall articles written by Elizabeth Drew, for example, who brought uncommon intelligence and sensitivity to sometimes highly controversial issues in the 1973-1992 period. Today, I read with special appreciation articles written for The New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg and George Packer. I mention all this by way of suggesting why I was so eager to read Packer's The Assassins' Gate and then having done so, why I now hold it in such high regard. Actually, there are several reasons. First, Packer provides convincing, indeed disturbing answers to questions such as these:

1. What were the intellectual origins of the Iraq war? Who were its principal advocates? Why?

2. How do these origins explain initiatives and events which preceded and then followed the invasion and subsequent occupation by American troops?

3. What are are Packer's own eyewitness observations of the consequences?

4. Which of the Iraqi dissidents does Packer consider most significant? I was especially interested in what he has to say about Kanan Makiya.

5. What did Packer learn while traveling within Iraq, especially from conversations with Iraqis now living there who had personally observed and experienced (for better or worse) the regime of Saddam Hassein? Of special interest to me is what Packer observed (and shares) during a visit to the northern city of Kirkuk.

Also, Packer makes every effort to acknowledge as fairly as he can a remarkably wide range of political opinions, extending from Far Left Liberals to Far Right Conservatives. He even notes the nuances of difference between Vice President Cheney's realism and Paul Wolfowitz' neoconservatism. Of course, Packer has opinions of his own, several of which were changed -- some significantly -- by what he personally experienced while in Iraq.

Also, Packer reveals a great deal about current day-to-day life there for Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. He seeks (and welcomes) their opinions, respects their aspirations, and shares their concerns. Certain ideas led to the war. Which ideas will prevail as Iraq now struggles to achieve self-determination, in whatever form that eventually proves to be? What do the Iraquis themselves think about all this?

Finally, in this volume Packer demonstrates skills of the highest level both as an exceptionally astute reporter and as an erudite interpreter of what he has observed. That is to say, his reader is provided with both a wealth of detailed information and a frame-of-reference within which to understand that information.

Like a gate, Packer's book offers a point-of-entry. He guides his reader to a broader and deeper understanding of both a complicated process and the consequences, to date, of that process. Now what? Where is the gate which provides an acceptable point-of-departure?

Meanwhile....

13 people found this helpful

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James

Yet another American Invasion

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 August 2010

Having just reread after a 2 year break George Packers "The Assassins Gate" I find it an excellent read showing that he pulled no punches writing this in depth look at yet another American invasion of a neutral country in their search for control over the worlds oil resources,dressed up as a move to introduce democracy [US style] in a country still living mainly in the middles ages.

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M.I.Ahmad

Vertical Journalism at its Worst

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 March 2008

This book by a prominent cheerleader for the war is one of the worst examples of what Eduardo Galeano refers to as 'vertical journalism'. Following the recent trend, this book takes the war as a noble mission which was only undermined by its flawed execution. Packer is a person who is more than willing to buy the Brooklyn bridge, so long as it is the Iraqis who are underwriting it with their lives. He parachutes down into a region about which he knows little, and then goes about finding people who confirm his own prejudices. Kanan Makiya, the flaky Iraqi exile who shilled for Ahmad Chalabi, receives a starring role and the author seems not in the least bothered by the gap between his 'ideas' and actions. Every American in the book is driven by high-minded ideals, whereas on the other hand Iraqis, unless they accept Packer's 'democracy promotion' rationale, are imputed suspect motives. Several oblige Packer's 'white man's burden' cravings with statements like 'we are uncivilized', 'we are animals' etc. Packer likes to see himself as a man with an appreciation for 'ideas', although he seemed blithely unconcerned whether they carry any substance. Despite all the contradictions between their actions and proclamations, Wolfowitz and Makiya remain respectively a man of 'conscience' and 'too idealist'. The cynicism of Wolfowitz and Makiya knows no bound, and neither does Packer's credulity. On the other hand he is harsh on those who challenged the wisdom of the war, such as Edward Said. Graham Greene is pronounced 'anti-American'. To cut it short, this book is a waste of time. The one star it merits is only for the first couple of chapters where he describes neocon machinations in the lead up to the war (which incidentally Packer echoed himself in the lead up to the war). Craig Unger and Jim Bamford how covered the subject in a much more serious way. As for Iraq itself Patrick Cockburn's The Occupation and Dahr Jamail's Beyond the Green Zone offer a far less ideological account.

13 people found this helpful

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