Rating: 
Summary: Very Detailed
Review: This book is the step by step discussion of the major foreign affaire issues that took place during first Bush presidency. To say this book is detailed would be to say the Battan Death March was a "tough hike". The book covers the years 1989 to 1991, more specifically (only) the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, and the Gulf War. The book is written in an interesting way - Bush and Scowcroft give their views on each of the issues and then combine for a third voice that gives more of a back ground commentary. We also get some of Bush's "dear diary" entries, which given he wrote the book, I wonder if we saw the original entries. This style does make the book more readable, although Scowcroft's writing could compete in excitement with watching grass grow. Bush does come across as an excellent statesman in dealing with world leaders. He presents a warm down home type of President that worked with some of the leaders he dealt with. The reader also gets an interesting insight into some of the leaders that Bush dealt with (Hussain, Gorbachev and Kohl) to name a few. In the details of the Gulf War, he also comes off as being a skillful negotiator that kept the war effort together. I think it also shows that to be a good world leader you must develop personal relationships with other world leaders. Bush comes off as such a good foreign policy man that it almost adds to the impression that he had no clue what was going on at home. Again, the book was full of details - - too much dry detail at times. Some of the talk about how minor issues were resolved could have been left on the cutting room floor and the book would have been the better for it. I did feel that we were short-changed on the Tiananmen Square uprising in China. I also felt that there was just too much time spent on Russia that could have been spent covering the Panama Invasion or the start of the Somalia effort. Overall, the book was very detailed and interesting. As it was almost a memoir, I would look to a few other books on the topics to form of full opion of the issues, as the author's may have been a bit bias.
Rating: 
Summary: Not now, not ever
Review: This reminds me of the "high performance car, low performance driver" thoughts I have as I watch some bad guy on those reality based TV shows wreck as they are chased by the police. Way too much dry, casual information, not enough human emotions in these pages, was my first thought upon finishing this book. A bit too much time is spent on Russia, not nearly enough time spent on things here at home. Left me thinking that maybe there wasn't too much energy focused on internal problems (US) and there was way too much energy spent on the rest of the world's problems. I read Bush's "All the Best" just prior to reading this book, and I highly recommend it over this book. I'm not even sure how useful this book will be to those of us who are historical buffs.
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