Imperial Life in the Emerald City
Inside Iraqs Green Zone

Rajiv Chanrdasekaran - Image from Citizen University Baghdad’s Green Zone is a world unto itself, with its own power supply, water, restaurants. One need never leave, and many never do. The author describes the separateness of the place but uses that as a base from which to foray out to related sub......more

Alternate Titles for this book could have been: 1. How not to rebuild a nation you just bombed the sh*t out of 2. How to F*ck up everything you touch, the Neocon way 3. Corruption, cronyism and good old fashioned incompetence on an unforeseen scale 4. Southern Efficiency in the Middle East 5. A Confedera......more

The short take: bad organizational structure and writing that is really just mediocre journalistic prose. Although Chandrasekaran begins with a narrative "I," he never really identifies himself, and then launches into details about things like relationships between State department members and Pentag......more

A brilliant satire on the occupation of a Middle Eastern country....well it would be, if it weren't true. This gives the reader a fairly shocking insight into the incompetency, arrogance and corruption involved in the Iraq occupation. The Coalition Provisional Authority sets up shop in one of Saddam'......more

This was a well-researched and shocking look at the attempt to provide Iraq with a democratic, capitalistic government and way of life after its US invasion/liberation. That such a massive undertaking was began without a clear idea of the next step is a strange truth that is drilled home again and a......more