Rating: 
Summary: cynical and arrogant
Review: Mr. Maren's view of international aid is insightful yet significantly handicapped by his cynical and arrogant style which infuses the text. With a very broad brush, he paints all international aid as a self-serving tool of hardened bureacracies staffed by incompetent individuals only interested in colonial lifestyles. That notwithstanding, the author clearly highlights some of the limitations of foreign development and international aid
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Summary: Thought provoking case study of aid business in Somalia
Review: The author, based partly on his personal experience in the business, argues how aid (through UN and NGO's) was more evil than good in the case of Somalia. His writing is quite persuasive and illuminates a side of the story which is seldom documented. For this reason, I recommend this book. It is quite thought provoking since one tends to give and forget, or give to forget.In my view, the book has two main shortcomings: The book is well written in its own way and quite readable. However, from chapter to chapter, the book jumps to and fro both in time and place. This seems disorganized and makes it tedious to keep track of things. Second, the book has almost no constructive criticism; I think a short note on what should have been or should be done, is in order, especially since the author seems to be insightful.
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Summary: michael maren, thank you for writing such shocking truths
Review: The truth can be pretty shocking sometimes but I feel very glad I've read this book. I've always wondered about these aid organizations and their real purpose. It's unbelievable how far human beings can go as far as profiting from other beings' suffering. What's more shocking though is that there was no concern to check before aiding what the consequences of these aid procedures would be to the people that were supposed to be aided. The results? Even more suffering, a shocking waste of money, resources and last, but not least, human lives. Will human beings ever learn? - I keep asking myself. The more powerful are always trying to keep their territories safe and clean at all costs. Where are the human rights they brag so much about? It seems that they think they're the only ones who have rights. This book opens up our eyes for first world countries procedures concerning third world countries. Thanks to Michael Maren, who had the guts to speak out and uncover all those dirty lies
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Summary: More harm than good
Review: There are very few books that can claim to fundamentally change the way you see the world; this is one of them. Michael Maren brutally exposes the hypocrisy, corruption and inefficiency that will destroy forever the reader's attitude about foreign aid and charitable work overseas. A reader who wants to retain his belief in the myth that the billions of dollars we spend on foreign aid actually benefit the poor and starving of the world should NOT read this book - it will shatter your illusions forever. After reading about how aid to Third World countries ends up perpetuating the very conditions it is supposed to eradicate, how it enriches the corrupt elites of those countries and helps them consolidate their often violently dictatorial rule, and how a surprisingly large proportion of it ends up in the pockets of those actually running the charities, it becomes clear that foreign aid and charity to the Third World is part of the problem rather than the solution.
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Summary: Recommended Reading!
Review: This book has changed the way I think about foreign aid. Maren shows how much of our so-called help is really the effort to control other cultures or make a little money. I thought that this book was fast pased and well-documented. Maren is obviously a caring and thoughtful person who was disturbed by what he saw in Africa and did his best to discover the truth about foreign aid. Unlike most authors, he does not even attempt to suggest a solutions to the problems he uncovered. Though he does not actually say so, he implys that there is really nothing we can do about many of the problems of the world and that our interference only makes matters worse. He ends the book with a disturbing experience which shows how all our attempts to play God and fix the world crumble in the face of the awesome reality of human tragedy.
Rating:
Summary: A superb expose.
Review: This book is a superb expose of why aid programs are bad. Maren shows how these well intentioned programs make the problems they purport to address much worse, and highlights the destruction, death and famine that they cause. A must read for any bleeding heart liberal who thinks that the theft of their tax dollars is especially legitimate when it goes to help allegedly starving Africans. Sure, some Africans starve, but the book suggests and shows multiple instances where the aid programs prove quite harmful. The book also highlights the political nature of aid, the bureaucracies that have long abandoned any genuine desire to help, in addition to speaking to a great deal of corruption- both within foreign governments and aid organizations. This book is well organized and a quick read, but it is not an academic publication. It is a collection of personal experiences ripe with many foreign policy implications, but it isn't, and never claims to be a systematic piece. However- in this instance Maren uses these experiences to firmly grasp the reader/taxpayer, and thus convince them that they are being shafted and lied to.
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Summary: Revealing book that tells it all
Review: This book is not very well written, and is very crude and poorly organized. It often goes back over the same incidents and it is at times difficult to know which event the author is talking about. Nevertheless, it is a good book because it is effective in trying to bring about the author's purpose: to expose the problems in the aid industry. It discusses the root causes of the problems with aid, such as incompetent governments that siphon off much of the aid money given, and aid organizations that are more concerned about perpetuating themselves than in helping people. This is a good book because it is so revealing. Much of the research presented is original. As a result, it seems on the surface to be poorly researched, due to the sparcity of quotations from other sources. In reality, it is based on the author's own experience and research. The book also reads like a grandparent telling his grandchildren what it used to be like. It reads more like a bedtime story than an essay. As such, many stories from his own experience and from that of native Africans is included. This book overall is good, but due to the structural problems, can not be considered great.
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Summary: Understanding how "help" can harm...
Review: This book shows, in an uncompromising way, how people with the best of intentions to help others end up doing more harm than good. Specifically, Maren takes his first-hand experience, the anecdotes of others and the words and records of the organizations he criticizes, to show how international charity, aid organizations and the United Nations are less set up to help poor people than they are to further their own bureaucracies. As an aid worker himself and later a correspondent, Maren examines 19 years of foreign aid in Kenya, Burkina, Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia and the U.S. to show how foreign aid did far from improving situations in these countries; instead, these organizations made things worse, far worse. Aid organizations, Maren concludes, end up epitomizing ethnocentric colonialism at the expense of the poor people they allege to help. Maren's unforgiving research paints a picture the commercials of Sally Struthers are incapable of and stridently resistant to telling. Humanitarian intervention, as Maren pens it, is a destructive force preying on the guilt of those who appear to be better off--middle class, American consumers . As Maren convincingly shows, however, the road to hell is paved with the illusions of modern civilization. The overt victims are evident while the less-obvious victims remain naïve and in denial. With any luck, The Road to Hell will change that.
Rating: 
Summary: The Self Licking Ice Cream Cone
Review: This chapter title speaks to how this book was written. It has excellent material to write 3 different books bur the author combined it all under 1 title. This then presented a jumbled, disjointed type of reading. The first part of the book deals with foreign aid and its devastating effects. The problem is that he really is writing more about Save the Children and USAID then any other charities. He mentions others but gives no details about them. The book's title would have better reflected his thesis if he stated the devastating problems of charities and USAID. This to me was a great disappointment because I had expected read details of case histories that involved a vast majority of the NGO's. The second section was much more centered on Somalia and the Black Hawk Down setting and the reasons for this catastrophe. It almost seems that the Charities and NGO's were an after thought. This section gave a very good insight of who was who and the warlords were in power but no real specifics on any NGO. The 3rd. and final part which covers approximately 80 pages of 280 page book is much more a reflection of the authors personal political beliefs. This is a significant part for a book of this size to go off on a tangent. On a personal note I found it quite disturbing how often the "F" word had to be used either in describing a situation or repeating people's feelings. This was senseless and not required in a book of this type. I am glad that I read it because it opened a door for me to research further.
Rating:
Summary: Written with passion and accuracy
Review: This is an angry book that has been written with considerable passion. The author worked in Somalia for some time and later became a journalist. In that capacity he has followed the history of the area and the collapse of Somalia as a state. The book is about Somalia and it is about how foreign aid made things worse. The book is to some extent journalist and fragmented. It looks at the stories of different characters. One Chis Cassidy for instance was an aid worker who headed a project to irrigate some land. He has to battle rampant corruption, the incredibly poor planning of the project and continual attempts to undermine it. In the end despite his talent and passion for the job he fails and the money put into the project is simply lost. Millions and dollars whose only achievement is to enrich some aid workers and government officials. Cassidy is a tragic case and in the end he leaves Africa after one of his children is murdered to warn him off. The book also looks at how private charity works. How much of it goes to the charity organisation and how little to the target population. What aid that does go to the target population is so poorly distributed it achieves nothing. The main work of the book is to look at the overall situation in Somalia and the mechanics of aid. The story which was revealed to the public was that due to a war between Somalia and Ethiopia large numbers of ethic Somalias had been forced to flee from their homes and were starving in refugee camps. As a result international agencies sent in huge amounts of food. The author reveals how the crisis was engineered by the then corrupt Somali government. That the numbers of refugees was at all times exaggerated. That the motive of the government in creating the crisis was to be able to steal large amounts of the food aid and to make money out of selling it. That the image of starving refugees was created by photographing children who were victims of dysentery and other diseases rather than facing starvation. How the importation of food distorted the economy and broke apart the relationships which used to keep Somalia to some extent a unified society. The book is a devestating portrait of how flawed the aid industry is and the sorts of reasons why it is useless. It is also an interesting book to read along side Black Hawk down the recently released popular history of the military adventure which went so badly wrong. This book provides the political background to understand how flawed that entire mission was. A worthwhile book to read but one that it gripping like a novel and hard to put down.
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