Books

War Junkie by Jon Steele

Few people know the main players in Red October, the Russian parliamentary siege of 1993 and even fewer people know why in 1994 the Hutu Tribe went on a killing rampage of Tutsi civilians. The fact is that few people in the wider world really care. Jon Steele, however was at both of these places…

Book Review: “Setting the East Ablaze” by Peter Hopkirk

(Oxford University Press – 252 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown Having seized power of Russia in the 1917 Revolution and being subsequently disappointed that it didn’t have a snowballing effect on Europe, the murderous, tyrannical, communist dictator Lenin decided that it was through the East that he could hope to conquer the West. As Britain…

Book Review: “The Great Game” by Peter Hopkirk

(Oxford University Press – 562 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown Posted: 15 September, 2003 Although the phrase “The Great Game” was immortalised in Rudyard Kipling’s turn of the century adventure novel, Kim, it originated decades earlier, its source Captain Arthur Conolly, one if its early players. The phrase refers to that period in Central Asian…

Book Review: “See No Evil” by Robert Baer

(Crown Publishers – 284 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown The momentous failure of intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA, to prevent the horrors of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon is obvious, certainly with the benefit of hindsight. For Robert Baer, an ex-CIA field officer in its Directorate…

Book Review: “Karma Cola” by Gita Mehta

(Penguin – 193 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown Sometimes a book is published that is virtually unreviewable. Not because it is a mess, but rather because one can not do it justice. Published in 1979 and still being reprinted, Karma Cola is one such work. Recommended to me by someone who had just left India,…

Book Review: “Shah of Shahs”

Ryszard Kapuscinski (Vintage Books – 152 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown The reporter studies a photo of a group of men standing on a street in Teheran, waiting for a bus to arrive. Nothing really unusual at first glance; a typical scene full of weary and tired people, that could be of anywhere. Our reporter…