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| Looking For Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World | 
 enlarge | Author: Ralph Peters
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $17.00
You Save: $10.95 (39%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (16 reviews)
Sales Rank: 13588
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 339
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0811734102
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4092
EAN: 9780811734103
ASIN: 0811734102
Publication Date: June 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Ugly American remembers September 11, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
I cannot understand how the ten previous reviewers gave this book five stars. If I had to guess, I would say that either they are all friends of the author, or that they appreciate his far right perspective on the world. Although I prefer to write short reviews, there are so many examples of the book's flaws, that merely listing examples will take considerable space and words.
A short review, without examples, would list the following flaws:
1. The generally negative and nasty tone of the author.
2. The superficial nature of his observations.
3. An awful writing style, which can only be described as a modern day Bulwer-Lytton trying to write like Raymond Chandler.
The author does have some valid and interesting points to make on missing POW/MIA's, the drug trade in third world countries, and the political situation in the Pakistani military.
Unfortunately these small points are embedded in a narrative where the author (usually accompanied by an amusing and amazing side-kick) is traveling in awful cars/planes/trains to awful places, full of awful people, eating awful foods, drinking too much disgusting alcoholic beverage of one kind or another, experiencing awful smells, and sleeping in awful hotels with awful service, before moving on to more of the same. All too infrequently, the narrative is brightened by some sentimental and touching observations about some sympathetic women or some not awful architecture. I am generally at a loss to understand how a person who has enough intelligence and musical understanding to contrast the difference between the suave subtleties of Maria Joao Pires and the spikey vigor of Martha Argerich in the performance of Beethoven sonatas could have written this book; but that's the nature of the human mind.
If you are interested in learning about the countries of central Asia, formerly included in the Soviet Union, I would recommend reading either Robert Kaplan The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century or Colin Thubron The Lost Heart of Asia (P.S.).
Examples of Col. Peter's dislikes:
Istanbul: Istanbul may "look West," but it does so over one shoulder as its spirit staggers east. Having killed or driven out the Armenians, Greeks and Jews who supplied it with genius....P. xi
Take your pick: Russian men are hopeless, Arab in their assumption of male privilege, medieval in their appetites, Celtic in their weakness for daydreams, and Persian in their disdain for honest work. P.30
Our State Department: ...the embassy in Moscow, a hen-house of bureaucrats who loved to peck their own kind. P.78 (See also P.172 & 224)
Belgrade: Belgrade was a pit. ... The people I met were surly and fearful - unless they were drunk, ... P.87
Intellectuals: The least savory human being is the "man of ideas." P.88
Serbs: That was my first introduction to the lethargy of the Serb mind. P.93
Scandinavians: Rhodes, one of those islands where Scandinavians pack in like sardines and boil themselves like lobsters. ... boisterous drunkards ... bred north of the Alps. P.101
Anybody associated with the Clinton administration: See P. 146, 263, 286, 315, 316, 317 & 326
Tajikistan & Kyrgyzstan: Tajikistan is chronically broken, while Kyrgyzstan's chronically bumbling. P. 149
Peoples of the Caucasus: The Azeris welcome foreigners eagerly, wondering what they can gain from the acquaintance. Erratic Muslims, they then get drunk and forget to ask for the favor. Georgians are hearty, but lapse visibly into their calculations when the think you aren't watching. ... [Armenians], too, would gladly profit from knowing you ... but they're too proud to beg. P.173
Saudis: Everywhere, the Saudis took an interest in human suffering only if it offered them an entry point for missionary activities. P. 204 In my experience, no power on earth has done more harm to civilization over the past generation than Saudi Arabia. P.205
Bolshoi ballerinas: ...backstage at the Bolshoi, where the decay was as startling as the vulgarity of the pimply ballerinas. P.225
Pakistani tastes in architecture and interior decoration: ...West-aping furnishing and knickknacks that can best be described as trailer-court neo-classical. ...the Paks [sic] chose the worst of the West. Even the huge Faisal Mosque ... owes more of its design to shiny trinkets won at an amusement park, than to Islam's building heritage. Islamabad is a geometrically plotted concentration of ostentatious mansions as unbalanced in design as they are in morality. P.253
Urdu: Urdu, a congealed barracks language, ... P.256
English as spoken in America's inner cities: ... our own inner cities, where competitive English is no longer spoken and the inchoate victims of an indulgent educational system find themselves unable to share in the wealth of a society that demands English-based literacy ... P.256
British officers : ...the Pakistanis officer corps traditionally has been an educational elite, as well, which is an accusation impossible to level at British officers. P.258
U.S. flag officers [Generals & Admirals]: The [Pakistani] generals in power now speak better English than do most U.S. flag officers and understand the world beyond their borders with broad sophistication. P.258
India: ...no friend of U.S. interests, and a country that has dismembered Pakistan in a series of wars. P.261
Islam: The Islamic world between Morocco and Pakistan is so fraught with male fear, self-doubt, self-loathing, and reality avoidance that it has condemned itself to endless mediocrity. P.280
Arabs, Persians and Paks [sic]: The levels of civilizational [sic] performance are so disparate that the self-aggrandizing fantasies of Arabs, Persians and Paks constitute their only sources of dignity. Like children, they make it all up. P.287
Examples of Col. Peter's writing style:
Moscow survived centuries of misrule, invasion, and lethal philosophy by hunching its shoulders and plodding onward, never without a worried backward glance. P.28
With a long-dead writer. P30
Measure the difference between an enemy's mundane existence and his self-image, and you arrive at the shortest distance your bullet need travel. P.45
The green hills seemed sloppy drunk in their lushness,... P.72
Grimy and shabby though it was before Margaret Thatcher spanked it and gave it a scrub, London was good to me. P.85
July grimed the air. P88
We talked about the United States and its disinterest in soccer, ... P.89
We rode through the poor country in evening light, throbbing over the rails. P.90
The landscape was visual cocaine. P.96
Dusty and inert, the town outside the main gate sprawled across the desert like an old dog in a coma. P.96
Refusing to look back. P.110
Congealed heat settled on our cots like winter blankets. P.138
Moscow in winter smelled of armpits and crotches and automobiles exhaust. P.225
As light as a flirt's fingertips, evening soothed the bare skin of our forearms. P.227
We flew on through a clear sky on a skillet afternoon. P.236
...the brown valleys had the look of skin around an old man's eyes. P.263
What a discovery! September 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I had never heard of--much less read--Ralph Peters before this book. And, although I was a Military Intelligence officer 35 years ago, I never served with him or anyone else mentioned in the book or in the other reviews. Only through a recent review of this book in The Denver Post was I introduced to Ralph Peters and his writings (some of us are apparently still rather isolated from New York periodicals out here in the Wild West despite Hunter Thompson having lived, and died, in "Glitter Gulch").
So, I was more than surprised to find a former OCS-trained, Russian-speaking spook from a coal mining town in Pennsylvania to be so incredibly literary. Talk about a soldier who squeezed every drop of juice from his military career; Uncle Sugar should be proud. And, not only literary, he had me going from hilarious laughter to tears at the turn of a single page. What a life he has created for himself! Rudyard Kipling had nothing on Ralph Peters.
Peter's word pictures of the areas he has traveled through often reminded me more of Edward Abbey's descriptions of the Canyonlands region than of Kipling's of India. He also expresses Abbey's disdain for "alphabet soup" agencies of the Federal government, although he had to deal with a considerably different portion of the alphabet than did Abbey. However, Abbey didn't particularly like people (an understatement, I know), which certainly can't be said of Ralph Peters, who is as keen a participant in life as he is an observer of his fellow man.
This book fascinated me so much that, even before finishing it, I downloaded and read his prescient 1998 Army War College article on "Our New Old Enemies." Now I have one of his early fiction books on order. Already I can tell that this is going to be a "Ralph Peters" autumn!
The Real Thing August 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Each chapter could be a magazine feature, but the age of insightful magazine articles is almost over. If you liked PJ O'Rourke's pieces for the Rolling Stone-of-old on Cuba and Albania, then Ralph's book will really wind your clock. Full disclaimer: I served with Ralph in three or four military places and assignments. Since then, I've been an advertising copywriter. I'm passing this book around to the younger writers on my team to learn from. And damn, it's funny. Hunter Thompson called himself a gonzo journalist, but Ralph's the real thing.
Looking for Trouble August 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
LtCol Peters has a way with words that I envy. If only I could speak as he writes! Loved the book. Chaplain Leo J. McDonald
Candid and Relevant July 12, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
LTC Peters' best work thus far---and I've followed his writings (fiction, non-fiction, columns---and the Army War College Quarterly, Parameters) for years. Peters lays bare the world as it is (or was during the late 80's/early 90's) warts and all. This isn't a collection of columns but a record of travel to places most people will never, nor would ever want to see.
I spent a great deal of time in the Former Soviet Union in the early 90's and can vouch for the conditions Peters' describes and the crack-pot/thug/mafia wannabes that rushed into the vacuum the communists left behind (in most cases---the communists changed hats/affiliations). One story which mirrors Peters experience in the FSU was during a humanitarian aid mission in the early 90's in Kazakhstan. We were delivering food-stuffs and medical supplies, but had no idea "what" was in the delivering railcars before the railcars appeared. One car was full of canned pork---and concerned about the Muslim populations dietary restrictions, we informed our counterpart---he quickly assured us that the product would be described as "American "white beef"". We laughed at the time, but truth is, we had no idea what happened to any of the "relief" supplies after our Kazak counterpart signed for custody----but we all guessed the materials ended up on the black-market and there was subsequent evidence to bear this out.
Back to Peters---great story of reflections/impressions and clear judgements. If policy-makers still did their own reading---this book would be high on the list. Perhaps someday, Peters will return to government as a SECDEF or CIA Director---now, that would be interesting.
Many thanks to LTC Peters for a great read. Highly recommended!!
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