Rating: 
Summary: Arundhati takes on nthe big guns...
Review: In this collection of essays, Arundhati takes on the big guns and war profiteers of past and present in short... Her thoughts on government in India can be echoed around the world most easily...My favorite lines being:
"Right now we're sipping from a poisoned chalice - a flawed democracy laced with religious fascism. Pure arsenic"... I like that she brings it on to all those who are opressing the people's around the world, commiting genocide (past and present) with a sense of compassion, honesty and truth... Plus she not only says what's wrong in the world today, but makes thoughts on how it can be made better in a real way - not some utopia out there in neverland... I look forward to reading more of what she writes, past and future, as this is the first book I picked up of hers... Which I thoroughly not only for it's content, but for it's sense of writing style - very eloquent and poetic - Savannah Skye...
Rating: 
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: It seems to me that there are two kinds of people in the world today. One : the government-loving 'law-abiding' citizen who is willing to jump off the cliff for his superiors just because they 'said so'. Two : The person who questions authority and who will not succumb to any amount of media-induced brainwashing. Thankfully for us all, Arundhati Roy is the second sort of person. 'War Talk' is so mesmerizing in its' analysis of the world today, and indeed, of all of us, that when she stops to point out to us our flaws, we are humbled and awestruck at how she is able to put into words what most of us can only passably conjure up as ideas. This is not a book for an 'American' or a 'Pro-Palestinian'. Instead, Arundhati's message is to think beyond the little cocoons we have woven around our identities and to think of oneself as a 'global citizen'. Now if only we could get more people to listen to her. People like Arundhati Roy are the ones I would gladly leave the world in charge of. The only thing she'd want to bomb into oblivion are our hardened egos, xenophobia, and our inability as a species to put ourselves in the others' shoes. What an eye-opening book!! Buy multiple copies and raise your kids on it. Its the only hope we have left.
Rating: 
Summary: Please stick to fiction, Ms Roy.
Review: No doubt that the author is a master of prose and interweaves words poetically like no other. I'm a big fan and I picked up this book seeing her name on the cover.
But presenting real facts is completly another ball game. I'm a liberal and against war too, but this book goes to such an extreme in left-liberalism and presenting half cooked facts, that I was grossly disappointed.
This book is a collection of essays which has been written a while ago and only a couple are recent, some of them lifted directly from her previous book, power politics. It is nothing but an attack on American policies and BJP, the ruling party of India. Factwise, this book presents nothing new. It is very much the thoughts of the author coming out from her narrow perspective with no alternatives or solutions. And considering she was arrested once by the ruling party in India, the venom outpouring against them is quite obvious.
On the other hand, I appreciate her courage to bring up the topic of inherent injustice of globalization and development and the travails of war. But I would advice others to spend their money elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: 5 out of 5 for bravery, but.....
Review: Roy deserves 5 out of 5 for bravery, but alas she does not live in the real world! America is a far more complex nation than she allows - witness the presence of so many reviews in favor of her book! America is divided fairly equally between liberal and conservative, so to lump all Americans together as people of her view seem to do is surely rather unfair to those Americans of different views. Christopher Catherwood (a British reviewer), author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE
Rating:
Summary: 5 out of 5 for bravery, but.....
Review: Roy deserves 5 out of 5 for bravery, but alas she does not live in the real world! America is a far more complex nation than she allows - witness the presence of so many reviews in favor of her book! America is divided fairly equally between liberal and conservative, so to lump all Americans together as people of her view seem to do is surely rather unfair to those Americans of different views. Christopher Catherwood (a British reviewer), author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE
Rating:
Summary: an essential alternative to the mass media
Review: Roy's essays are not only a passionate rejection of sugar coated rationalizations for war, genocide, Imperialism, and ecological destruction - she is empirical, concise, and honest on issues every one of us should be aware of, from the equation of dissent to treason, to the hypocritical involvement of various governments in terroristic acts, to the pathetic media indulgence and promotion of government lies. Her comparisons of George Bush, Jr. to Saddam Hussein are bold and frighteningly accurate. She warns us that "...The American Way of Life is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America." Roy's words are scary, and therefore motivational. She reminds us that our citizenship is separate from the State and any of its corruptions. Power is ultimately the peoples'. This is a guide to waking up to our power and using it.
Rating:
Summary: Brave voice against U.S. aggression
Review: This beautiful voice speaks out against the U.S. war against the people of the world, and how the so called "war on terrorism" is really a war against the rights of the people by the Bush administration and their rich corporate masters. In the rest of the world, she is a well respected voice against the growing aggression of the brutal Bush regime, while here in the U.S., the press won't even print her statements. Buy this now and read it, before the Ashcroft machine in Washington decides to ban it in the U.S. or make possession a felony. You know that is coming soon, as the Bush regime wants to fully emulate their predecessors in spirit, the Third Reich.
Rating:
Summary: Misfactualism at its best
Review: This book has been widely acclaimed as a 'dissent' against the evils of globalization and militarism but the truth remains veiled behind an enigma. Here are essays that 'confront' large corporations and so-called 'pogroms' against the Muslims of India. First the corporations are the only reason India isn't poorer then it is. If it wasn't for the millions of jobs provided by American corporations like Intel India would be a largely agrarian state with nothing to offer and even more starving poor. In the issue of militarism the essays are totally misfactual. Roy looks at the attacks on Muslims but she totally ignores the mass murder of Hindus in Bangladesh or the Sikhs in Pakistan and she ignores the massacres of Hindus daily in Kashmir who are simply trying to go to their holy places. Thus the arguments seem to say that the communal violence is only one sided when the reality is that it goes both ways and the essays simply ignore one entire side, a terrible dishonest distortion which betrays its subjects and betrays India.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful analysis combined with great eloquence.
Review: This book has been widely acclaimed as a `dissent' against the evils of globalization and militarism but the truth remains veiled behind an enigma. Here are essays that `confront' large corporations and so-called `pogroms' against the Muslims of India. First the corporations are the only reason India isn't poorer then it is. If it wasn't for the millions of jobs provided by American corporations like Intel India would be a largely agrarian state with nothing to offer and even more starving poor. In the issue of militarism the essays are totally misfactual. Roy looks at the attacks on Muslims but she totally ignores the mass murder of Hindus in Bangladesh or the Sikhs in Pakistan and she ignores the massacres of Hindus daily in Kashmir who are simply trying to go to their holy places. Thus the arguments seem to say that the communal violence is only one sided when the reality is that it goes both ways and the essays simply ignore one entire side, a terrible dishonest distortion which betrays its subjects and betrays India.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful analysis combined with great eloquence.
Review: This book is a collection of 6 essays by Arundhati Roy. The topic differs in each "talk" although a common thread is maintained throughout the book: a courageous and honest look at intolerance and violence fomented by religious and racist believes, a straight forward and very insightful denunciation of human greed which has reached new heights through globalization and "American Imperialism" . I welcome such a book and salute Arundhati Roy for her courage, her eloquence, and above all for her passionate heart. Unfortunately she doesn't offer any alternative to what is happening to our planet and the life that it has so generously sustained for millenniums, although in her very own country have blossomed beings of the likes of Buddha, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, just to name a few. These individuals have addressed the root cause of each and every human problem: namely the 'ego' and they offer, in a detailed and scientific manner, the only solution: transcendence of the 'ego'.
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