Joseph Braude

I'm mixed about this book. I love non-fiction and what I'd call literary true crime - a book where a crime is placed in context. TJ English does this really well, particularly in his new book, The Savage City. This was also appealing because of the setting and the broader context of crime in the Arab world. It does this admirably, but left me cold.

There is a good explication of Arab culture and the rules of Moroccan societies, but it seems to float underneath larger and more Western judgment - that we all want justice, define justice in the same way, and seek it in the same ways - that justice is one thing no matter what your cultural definitions or context.



I'm uncomfortable with the easy ways it is possible to filter the actions, institutions, and values of another culture through the lens of the West without an acknowledgement or awareness of the bias that this represents. We cannot come together nor come to understand each other without accepting that these concepts are deeply rooted in culture and history and that others' values about these concepts are - not necessarily right nor wrong - just different; they exist and have a right to do so. By assuming that we all define the world in the same ways we arrogantly deny others the right to believe in ways that are different from our own and this denial is firmly rooted in outmoded imperialist thought.

Good story well-written, but I have problems with the telling and the perceived bias so it just didn't work well for me.… (mehr)

I'm giving this book a low rating and I'm not sure it should be. The only reason is because there were few pages and little meat about an old and mostly honorable country. Mr. Braude feels Iraq can be rebuilt if the Iraqis turn to a new distribution of wealth, a re-establishment of truth and power. All of which are true but should probably each take up a whole book by themselves and not squished into less than two hundred pages.
Mr. Braude gets the two point rating for giving a good general overv iew of the country. I think I was looking for more.… (mehr)