A World Transformed

Rating:
Summary: The definitive account of the end of the Cold War
Review: A vital part of understanding the end of the Cold War. The book is at its most vivid and engaging during it's description of the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany and the Gulf War. Bush and Scowcroft tag team throughout the book and complement each other well. Bush's knack for incorporating anecdotes and his personal relationships with other world leaders serves him well here. However, the book is lacking in some areas, and I couldn't quite bring myself to give it 5 stars. While billed as a major part of the book, the section on the Tianamen Square uprising in China was not particularly detailed or illuminating. The book could have benefited from Bush and Scowcroft's perspective on the Panama Invasion, Somalia, and especially on the crucial decisions on US policy towards the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began on Bush's watch. Still, this is an amazing book and it was easy to feel swept up in events that many did not believe we would see happen in our lifetime, myself included. On par with the great books of international relations such as Kissinger's "A World Restored" and Acheson's "Present at the Creation."

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Summary: At Least He Could Define What "Is" Is
Review: Columnist Eric Alterman of "The Nation" recently and sneeringly labeled former President George Bush a "do nothing patrician."

Alterman and others who believe that might or might not change their views if they read "A World Transformed," an excellent history of an administration that squarely faced and carefully guided this country through one of the most difficult and tremendous events in history--the ending of the Cold War on the West's terms, with all of the broad social, philosophical and political ramifications that it implied. But they would be wise to open this book. They might learn something.

Bush and former administration national security adviser Brent Scowcroft commmunicate in a easygoing, thoughtful but dignified and decisive manner, about everything from Mikhail Gorbachev to Desert Storm to the economy, an approach that has practically disappeared amid the spectacle of a White House now dominated by a politically correct spoils system, perpetual poll-driven indecision and celebrity-obsessed pandering.

Bush and Scowcroft freely admit their shortcomings and mistakes without rationalization, rancor or excuse and their work should, if nothing else, reaffirm the truth of Bush Labor Secretary Lynn Martin's 1992 campaign statement, "You can't be one kind of man and another kind of President."

Reading this book has really awakened me to how dangerously high a price we are now paying for not heeding those words.

Rating:
Summary: Jumpy...skip to better alternatives
Review: I tried to force down "A World Transformed" after reading George H. W. Bush's outstanding letter- and note-based memoir "All the Best." As much as I wanted to like it, I just couldn't trudge through the entire thing. Mostly, it's the format that's at fault. You get Bush's pieces & Scowcroft's pieces interspersed with a 3rd-party disembodied voice attmepting to tie the segments together. I can appreciate that Gen. Scowcroft was a major player and needs his own voice here. But the resulting patchquilt of a book makes it tough on the reader to develop any semblance of continuity.

The other thing is that 'All the Best' introduced you to this charming, delightful, all-too-human side of our 41st President, the charasmatic guy who shows you - through his dedicated letter-writing and human touch - how to build and sustain life-long friendships. I wanted that guy to star in this book. Instead, the guy that wrote "A World Transformed" is a caricature of the tone-deaf (to the US Economy) internationalist we voted out of office in 1992.

A better route than "A World Transformed" would be to pair "All the Best" with David Halberstam's "War in a Time of Peace."