Our Man

Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites Admired and detested, he was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America s greatest diplomatic achievement in the post Cold War era His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage But his sharp elbows and tireless self promotion ensured that he never rose to the highest levels in government that he so desperately coveted His story is thus the story of America during its era of supremacy its strength, drive, and sense of possibility, as well as its penchant for overreach and heedless self confidence.In Our Man,drawn from Holbrooke s diaries and papers, we are given a nonfiction narrative that is both intimate and epic in its revelatory portrait of this extraordinary and deeply flawed man and the elite spheres of society and government he inhabited. Best Download Books Our Man by George Packer – kino-fada.fr This is a fitting elegy to an iconic statesman of the late American empire, but it is also a book about the virtues and flaws of the United States during its brief period as lone superpower George Packer is a writer I greatly admire and he was probably one of the only people able to write this book He had access to some of the most powerful people in the world and their perspectives come across here Some of it felt like elite inside baseball, but in fairness this is what the history of power This is a fitting elegy to an iconic statesman of the late American empire, but it is also a book about the virtues and flaws of the United States during its brief period as lone superpower George Packer is a writer I greatly admire and he was probably one of the only people able to write this book He had access to some of the most powerful people in the world and their perspectives come across here Some of it felt like elite inside baseball, but in fairness this is what the history of power tends to be I was struck by the mix of glamo...Our Man is a warts and all bio of Richard Holbrooke, of one of the few modern diplomats who understood American power through the lenses of both Wilsonian moralism and Kissingerian Realpolitik.I loved Packer s The Unwinding, but in The Unwinding he was an observer with empathy reporting on stories that merited the reader s empathy Here, Packer inserts himself as a narrator who knew Holbrooke, who can deliver apersonal view of the subject, and who wants to tell apopulist story than t Our Man is a warts and all bio of Richard Holbrooke, of one of the few modern diplomats who understood American power through the lenses of both Wilsonian moralism and Kissingerian Realpolitik.I loved Packer s The Unwinding, but in The Unwinding he was an observer with empathy reporting on stories that merited the reader s empathy Here, Packer inserts himself as a narrator who knew Holbrooke, who can deliver apersonal view of the subject, and who wants to tell apopulist story than to get bogged down in the boring details of a diplomat s life or diplomatic efforts And Holbrooke is not a subject who evokes empathy and it is not clear from the biography that empathy was something he craved rather, he wanted to be heard but also involved in, if not leading, the policymaking of Democratic Administrations The upside of that approach is that the book is an entertaining read, which is no easy feat given that as much as Holbrooke could be entertaining, he could also be unreliable...Perhaps the most colorful and able diplomat in American history has been Richard Holbrooke The possessor of an irascible personality who was not the most popular individual with colleagues and presidents that he served but was a highly effective strategic thinker and negotiator with a number of important accomplishments to his credit The success that stands out the most is his work that produced the Dayton Accords in 1995 that brought closure somewhat to the civil war that raged in the former Perhaps the most colorful and able diplomat in American history has been Richard Holbrooke The possessor of an irascible personality who was not the most popular individual with colleagues and presidents that he served but was a highly effective strategic thinker and negotiator with a number of important accomplishments to his credit The success that stands out the most is his work that produced the Dayton Accords in 1995 that brought closure somewhat to the civil war that raged in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s But he should also be given credit for his work as Ambassador to the United Nations, Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs, and his last position as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan for which he gave his life.Holbrooke exhibited a powerful ego that did not always play well with others be they friend or foe, but in the end, he was at the center of ...This was fun, but not quite what I hoped it would be I liked the tone a lot It was interesting to read this and Directorate S in the same year Lots of Holbrooke I think I m done reading about Holbrooke for now, though Anyway, recommended ...I read this book right when it came out and then I read all the reviews and the hype and I guess I don t get the hype The book is really well written and Packer s insights are fully loaded, hilarious, and razor sharp The book is about Holbrooke, but only so far as he is the thread that runs through American foreign policy It s a book about foreign policy bureacrats and their relationship to the world Holbrooke is not an admirable hero, but he s not awful The true gems of insight are about w I read this book right when it came out and then I read all the reviews and the hype and I guess I don t get the hype The book is really well written and Packer s insights are fully loaded, hilarious, and razor sharp The book is about Holbrooke, but only so far as he is the thread that runs through American foreign policy It s a book about foreign policy bureacrats and their relationship to th...There is so much good to say about Richard Holbrooke, and also so much that is bad. He negotiated the Dayton Accords that ended the awful slaughter in the former country known as Yugoslavia, he badgered Jimmy Carter into increasing the number of refugees taken into the US from Southeast Asia by about a factor of 5, and her personally lobbied Congress to get the US to pay their share of the funding for the United Nations.On the minus side he was vain, ambitious, a suck up to those higher than hi There is so much good to say about Richard Holbrooke, and also so much that is bad. He negotiated the Dayton Accords that ended the awful slaughter in the former country known as Yugoslavia, he badgered Jimmy Carter into increasing the number of refugees taken into the US from Southeast Asia by about a factor of 5, and her personally lobbied Congress to get the US to pay their share of the funding for the United Nations.On the minus side he was vain, ambitious, a suck up to those higher than himself in government, a womanizer and a pretty terrible father His main goal in life was to be Secretary of State, and he never realized that final ambition, mostly due to his own faults And in the end, he died while tryin...A well written book that humanizes Richard Holbrooke, who, according to the author, represented the best and the worst impulses of American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century With access to his diaries and personal correspondence, Packer often lets Holbrooke speak for himself, seldom editorializing his protagonist s actions It s also clear that Packer like me is fascinated by the scale of Holbrooke s ambitions, his tenacity, commitment to human rights, and, above all, a co A well written book that humanizes Richard Holbrooke, who, according to the author, represented the best and the worst impulses of American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century With access to his diaries and personal correspondence, Packer often lets Holbrooke speak for himself, seldom editorializing his protagonist s actions It s also clear that Packer like me is fascinated by the scale of Holbrooke s ambitions, his tenacity, commitment to human rights, and, above all, a complete devotion to the cause at hand mixed with a sense of personal destiny, of course That said, the description of Holbrooke s myriad failings are unsparing, right down to his repeated attempts at flirting with the attending doctor while she diagnosed him with a ripped aorta shortly before his h...I couldn t put this down I encountered Holbrooke from a distance when he was SRAP No matter what he told others, he seemed to love having his office off the busiest corridor and the most important meeting room in the State Department outside the cafeteria, near the ATM and the snack shop He d bring his Hollywood friends like Natalie Portman at a table where everyone would walk by and see him He d have an aide trail him with Blackberry in hand to the men s room where the great near great c I couldn t put this down I encountered Holbrooke from a distance when he was SRAP No matter what he told others, he seemed to love having his office off the busiest corridor and the most important meeting room in the State Department outside the cafeteria, near the ATM and the snack shop He d bring his Hollywood friends like Natalie Portman at a table where everyone would walk by and see him He d have an aide tra...George Packer is a great American chronicler His biography of Richard Holbrooke is both illuminating and heartbreaking This story of almost greatness gives an inside glimpse of 50 years of American Diplomacy and the man who insinuated himself into a lot of it Holbrooke was a big man with big appetites and big ambitions From his admission into the foreign service in 1962 until his death in 2010 from an exploding aortic valve, Holbrooke strove to solve the bigggest diplomatic problems of his George Packer is a great American chronicler His biography of Richard Holbrooke is both illuminating and heartbreaking This story of almost greatness gives an inside glimpse of 50 years of American Diplomacy and the man who insinuated himself into a lot of it Holbrooke was a big man with big appetites and big ambitions From his admission into the foreign service in 1962 until his death in 2010 from an exploding aortic valve, Holbrooke strove to solve the bigggest diplomatic problems of his day He served in the foreign service in Vietnam during the Kennedy administration, worked for, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama He was Assistant Secretary of State twice, US Embassador to Germany, America s chief envoy to The Balkans and Afganistan during two wars He negotiated an end to the bloody Bosnian War His accomplishments were as numerous as his flaws but most Americans wouldn t recognize his name because his ambitions were always thwarted by his overbearing personality His goal of becomin...I enjoyed this book very much I knew little about Richard Holbrooke and it was interesting learning about the man and his life The Audible narrator was good The author interjects himself into the book from time to time It could have been irritating but I found...A great read Insight to a man who tried so hard to make the world better, to settle international problems, and to advance his own standing in the diplomatic world frustrating, domineering, caring, nakedly ambitious, Holbrooke was complicated Contradictory, not an easy person to like w...A well written biography of a diplomat who is as much an antihero as a protagonist While using Holbrooke s life and career as the story, it s as much about US foreign policy over the last 50 years Packer ...A novelistic portrait of one America s most ambitious, relentless diplomats a larger than life character at the very center of some of post WII America s greatest foreign policy quagmires Vietnam, Bosnia, Afghanistan Hardly a hagiography, Packer ...George Packer has done a superb job in unfolding America s modern military and foreign policy through the eyes of a single egotistical, ambitious and fractious diplomat Richard Holbrooke who failed to ever win the top job he craved but left a trail of admirers, lovers and crushed careers that merited this fine book Holbrooke s single one achievement was the 1995 Dayton peace agreement which ended to Bosnian war, but Packer tells the story in such a way that we are flies on the wall for many George Packer has done a superb job in unfolding America s modern military and foreign policy through the eyes of a single egotistical, ambitious and fractious diplomat Richard Holbrooke who failed to ever win the top job he craved but left a trail of admirers, lovers and crushed careers that merited this fine book Holbrooke s single one achievement was the 1995 Dayton peace agreement whi...

• English
• 05 December 2018
George Packer
• Hardcover
• 608 pages
• 0307958027
• George Packer
• Our Man