Germs
Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad
This book was recommended to me by a friend, but I can't say I was very impressed. I expected something like the blurb on the back: a fast-paced and informative narrative concerning a rising threat. What I got was a long and almost incomprehensible list of names and acronyms that was unable to hold a train of thought for over a page and a half. The book has serious consistency issues. In fact, there was one entire paragraph that came out of nowhere, relating to nothing before it or after it. I read it twice just to see if I could get some sort of context, but to no avail.
I think that the reason I didn't like the book too well was because it's inherently a lengthy journalistic account of the history of germ warfare. It is scatterbrained at best, introducing the most minor of characters with elaborate narratives (are birthdates really necessary here?) and then subsequently forgetting about them for a few pages, where they are duly reintroduced, often with the original phrasings. This is shoddy work at best, meant for those with a very limited attention span and almost no memory.
Even if one can move past the glaring inconsistencies, the book never goes anywhere. There is no master outline, no general idea of where the book is headed. The afterword contains the phrase "we conclude" far too many times, but the reasons for these conclusions are hardly to be found in the actual preceding text, if at all. It's like the authors wanted to show off how much research they had done regarding top-ranking officials and the CIA, wrapping it up with an editorial of a quality not usually reached by the lowly Grand Rapids Press.
This book is a flip-flopper of the worst sort, inconsistent and often downright confusing, almost as if it were written just to seem impressive and add to a resume. I fear the American public, which apparently launched the book to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Unfortunately, I don't know how to feel about President Clinton, who is alternately extolled and degraded. I'm not even sure the blurb-writer read the same book I did. Had this book been the book promised on its covers, I'm sure it would have been a good and englightening read. What's contained within these pages, though, is far less, a general waste of time.
Grade: D
Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad
This book was recommended to me by a friend, but I can't say I was very impressed. I expected something like the blurb on the back: a fast-paced and informative narrative concerning a rising threat. What I got was a long and almost incomprehensible list of names and acronyms that was unable to hold a train of thought for over a page and a half. The book has serious consistency issues. In fact, there was one entire paragraph that came out of nowhere, relating to nothing before it or after it. I read it twice just to see if I could get some sort of context, but to no avail.
I think that the reason I didn't like the book too well was because it's inherently a lengthy journalistic account of the history of germ warfare. It is scatterbrained at best, introducing the most minor of characters with elaborate narratives (are birthdates really necessary here?) and then subsequently forgetting about them for a few pages, where they are duly reintroduced, often with the original phrasings. This is shoddy work at best, meant for those with a very limited attention span and almost no memory.
Even if one can move past the glaring inconsistencies, the book never goes anywhere. There is no master outline, no general idea of where the book is headed. The afterword contains the phrase "we conclude" far too many times, but the reasons for these conclusions are hardly to be found in the actual preceding text, if at all. It's like the authors wanted to show off how much research they had done regarding top-ranking officials and the CIA, wrapping it up with an editorial of a quality not usually reached by the lowly Grand Rapids Press.
This book is a flip-flopper of the worst sort, inconsistent and often downright confusing, almost as if it were written just to seem impressive and add to a resume. I fear the American public, which apparently launched the book to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Unfortunately, I don't know how to feel about President Clinton, who is alternately extolled and degraded. I'm not even sure the blurb-writer read the same book I did. Had this book been the book promised on its covers, I'm sure it would have been a good and englightening read. What's contained within these pages, though, is far less, a general waste of time.
Grade: D
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