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Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

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Item specifics

Condition
Good: A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including ...
Release Year
2006
ISBN
9781400044870
Book Title
Imperial Life in the Emerald City : inside Iraq's Green Zone
Item Length
9.6in
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication Year
2006
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Item Height
1.3in
Author
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Genre
History, Political Science
Topic
Corruption & Misconduct, Military / General, Military / Iraq War (2003-2011), American Government / General
Item Width
6in
Item Weight
21 Oz
Number of Pages
336 Pages

About this product

Product Information

An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad s Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq. "The Washington Post" s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the Zone: into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot- em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country. In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency. Chandrasekaran details Bernard Kerik s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical travesties: the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons scientists from defecting to Iran; Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on "Roe v. Wade; "people" "with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer s ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule. This is a startling portrait of an Oz-like place where a vital aspect of our government s folly in Iraq played out. It is a book certain to be talked about for years to come."

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN-10
1400044871
ISBN-13
9781400044870
eBay Product ID (ePID)
52427059

Product Key Features

Book Title
Imperial Life in the Emerald City : inside Iraq's Green Zone
Author
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Corruption & Misconduct, Military / General, Military / Iraq War (2003-2011), American Government / General
Publication Year
2006
Genre
History, Political Science
Number of Pages
336 Pages

Dimensions

Item Length
9.6in
Item Height
1.3in
Item Width
6in
Item Weight
21 Oz

Additional Product Features

Lc Classification Number
Ds79.769.C53 2006
Reviews
"Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched." Samantha Power, author ofA Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide "This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book." Steve Coll, author ofGhost Stories "This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situation worse." David Maraniss, author ofThey Marched Into Sunlight "An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco.Imperial Life in the Emerald Cityis an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned to chaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has." Rick Atkinson, author ofThe Long Gray Line, "Extraordinary . . . Indispensable . . . Full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq . . . [Chandrasekaran ] has a keen eye for the small detail that illuminates larger truths . . . [he] documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transforms a difficult mission into an impossible one . . . Chandrasekaran does not set out to score partisan points or unveil large geopolitical lessons; he is, essentially, a reporter telling readers what he saw. Yet it is impossible to read his book without thinking about the larger implications of the story he tells." -Moisés Naím,The Washington Post Book World "This is a devastating account of the American occupation of Iraq. It shows how Americans arrived in Iraq full of big plans (and/or lucrative contracts) to help the country become more like the United States, but wound up living an isolated existence while the lives of Iraqis deteriorated around them. No other book has described so well what Iraq looked like and felt like in the aftermath of the invasion." James Mann, author ofRise of the Vulcans "Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched." Samantha Power, author ofA Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide "This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book." Steve Coll, author ofGhost Wars "This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situation worse." David Maraniss, author ofThey Marched Into Sunlight "An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco.Imperial Life in the Emerald Cityis an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned to chaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has." Rick Atkinson, author ofThe Long Gray Line, "Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched." -Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" "This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book." -Steve Coll, author of "Ghost Wars" "This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situation worse." -David Maraniss, author of "They Marched Into Sunlight" "An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco. "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned to chaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has." -Rick Atkinson, author of "The Long Gray Line", "Extraordinary . . . Indispensable . . . Full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq . . . [Chandrasekaran ] has a keen eye for the small detail that illuminates larger truths . . . [he] documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transforms a difficult mission into an impossible one . . . Chandrasekaran does not set out to score partisan points or unveil large geopolitical lessons; he is, essentially, a reporter telling readers what he saw. Yet it is impossible to read his book without thinking about the larger implications of the story he tells." -Moisés Naím,The Washington Post Book World "Mr. Chandrasekaran's book, while nonfiction, is as chilling an indictment of America's tragic cultural myopia as Graham Greene's prescient 1955 novel of the American debacle in Indochina, "The Quiet American." -Frank Rich,The New York TimesOp-Ed "Chandrasekaran's detail-rich reporting and firsthand, candid narrative is what sets his contribution apart [from other books about the Iraq war] and bolsters his withering assessment . . . Using nearly two years of reporting in the country for the Washington Post and an impeccable eye for the tragic and outrageous, Chandrasekaran unveils the occupation authority compound as a Middle East Oz, grossly out of touch with the harsh realities of the real Iraq . . . The book is an eye-opening tour of ineptitude, misdirection and perils of democracy-building" -Andrew Metz,Newsday "With acuity and a fine sense of the absurd, the author peels back the roof to reveal an ant heap of arrogance, ineptitude, and hayseed provincialism" -Amanda Heller,Boston Globe "A devastating indictment of the post-invasion failures of the Bush administration." - Jay Freeman,Booklist "InImperial Life in the Emerald City[Chandrasekaran] draws a vividly detailed portrait of the Green Zone and the Coalition Provisional Authority (which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004) that becomes a metaphor for the administration's larger failings in Iraq . . . His book gives the reader a visceralsometimes sickeningpicture of how the administration and its handpicked crew bungled the first year in postwar Iraq, showing how decisions made in that period contributed to a burgeoning insurgency and growing ethnic and religious strife . . . The picture Mr. Chandrasekaran draws in these pages often reads like something out ofCatch-22or fromMASH." - Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "Extraordinary . . . Indispensable . . . Full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq . . . [Chandrasekaran ] has a keen eye for the small detail that illuminates larger truths . . . [he] documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transforms a difficult mission into an impossible one . . . Chandrasekaran does not set out to score partisan points or unveil large geopolitical lessons; he is, essentially, a reporter telling readers what he saw. Yet it is impossible to read his book without thinking about the larger implications of the story he tells." -Moisés Naím,The Washington Post Book World "This is a devastating account of the American occupation of Iraq. It shows how Americans arrived in Iraq full of big plans (and/or lucrative contracts) to help the country become more like the United States, but wound up living an isolated existence while the lives of Iraqis deteriorate, "This is a devastating account of the American occupation of Iraq. It shows how Americans arrived in Iraq full of big plans (and/or lucrative contracts) to help the country become more like the United States, but wound up living an isolated existence while the lives of Iraqis deteriorated around them. No other book has described so well what Iraq looked like and felt like in the aftermath of the invasion." James Mann, author ofRise of the Vulcans "Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched." Samantha Power, author ofA Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide "This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book." Steve Coll, author ofGhost Wars "This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situation worse." David Maraniss, author ofThey Marched Into Sunlight "An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco.Imperial Life in the Emerald Cityis an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned to chaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has." Rick Atkinson, author ofThe Long Gray Line, "Extraordinary . . . Indispensable . . . Full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq . . . YChandrasekaran ? has a keen eye for the small detail that illuminates larger truths . . . Yhe? documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transforms a difficult mission into an impossible one . . . Chandrasekaran does not set out to score partisan points or unveil large geopolitical lessons; he is, essentially, a reporter telling readers what he saw. Yet it is impossible to read his book without thinking about the larger implications of the story he tells." -Moises Naim, "The Washington Post Book World" "Mr. Chandrasekaran's book, while nonfiction, is as chilling an indictment of America's tragic cultural myopia as Graham Greene's prescient 1955 novel of the American debacle in Indochina, "The Quiet American." -Frank Rich, "The New York Times" Op-Ed "Chandrasekaran's detail-rich reporting and firsthand, candid narrative is what sets his contribution apart Yfrom other books about the Iraq war? and bolsters his withering assessment . . . Using nearly two years of reporting in the country for the Washington Post and an impeccable eye for the tragic and outrageous, Chandrasekaran unveils the occupation authority compound as a Middle East Oz, grossly out of touch with the harsh realities of the real Iraq . . . The book is an eye-opening tour of ineptitude, misdirection and perils of democracy-building" -Andrew Metz, "Newsday" "With acuity and a fine sense of the absurd, the author peels back the roof to reveal an ant heap of arrogance, ineptitude, andhayseed provincialism" -Amanda Heller, "Boston Globe" "A devastating indictment of the post-invasion failures of the Bush administration." - Jay Freeman, "Booklist" "In "Imperial Life in the Emerald City "YChandrasekaran? draws a vividly detailed portrait of the Green Zone and the Coalition Provisional Authority (which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004) that becomes a metaphor for the administration's larger failings in Iraq . . . His book gives the reader a visceral-sometimes sickening-picture of how the administration and its handpicked crew bungled the first year in postwar Iraq, showing how decisions made in that period contributed to a burgeoning insurgency and growing ethnic and religious strife . . . The picture Mr. Chandrasekaran draws in these pages often reads like something out of "Catch-22 "or from" MASH."" - Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times" "Extraordinary . . . Indispensable . . . Full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq . . . YChandrasekaran ? has a keen eye for the small detail that illuminates larger truths . . . Yhe? documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transforms a difficult mission into an impossible one . . . Chandrasekaran does not set out to score partisan points or unveil large geopolitical lessons; he is, essentially, a reporter telling readers what he saw. Yet it is impossible to read his book without thinking about the larger implications of the story he tells." -Moises Naim, "The Washington Post Book World" "This is a devastating account of the American occupation of Iraq. It showshow Americans arrived in Iraq full of big plans (and/or lucrative contracts) to help the country become more like the United States, but wound up living an isolated existence while the lives of Iraqis deteriorated around them. No other book has described so well what Iraq looked like and felt like in the aftermath of the invasion." -James Mann, author of "Rise of the Vulcans" "Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly r, "This is a devastating account of the American occupation of Iraq. It shows how Americans arrived in Iraq full of big plans (and/or lucrative contracts) to help the country become more like the United States, but wound up living an isolated existence while the lives of Iraqis deteriorated around them. No other book has described so well what Iraq looked like and felt like in the aftermath of the invasion." -James Mann, author of "Rise of the Vulcans" "Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched." -Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" "This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book." -Steve Coll, author of "Ghost Wars" "This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situationworse." -David Maraniss, author of "They Marched Into Sunlight" "An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco. "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned to chaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has." -Rick Atkinson, author of "The Long Gray Line", "In "Imperial Life in the Emerald City "ÝChandrasekaran¨ draws a vividly detailed portrait of the Green Zone and the Coalition Provisional Authority (which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004) that becomes a metaphor for the administration's larger failings in Iraq . . . His book gives the reader a visceral-sometimes sickening-picture of how the administration and its handpicked crew bungled the first year in postwar Iraq, showing how decisions made in that period contributed to a burgeoning insurgency and growing ethnic and religious strife . . . The picture Mr. Chandrasekaran draws in these pages often reads like something out of "Catch-22 "or from" MASH."" - Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times " "Extraordinary . . . Indispensable . . . Full of jaw-dropping tales of the myriad large and small ways in which Bremer and his team poured fuel into the lethal cauldron that is today's Iraq . . . ÝChandrasekaran ¨ has a keen eye for the small detail that illuminates larger truths . . . Ýhe¨ documents the way that an avalanche of unjustifiable mistakes transforms a difficult mission into an impossible one . . . Chandrasekaran does not set out to score partisan points or unveil large geopolitical lessons; he is, essentially, a reporter telling readers what he saw. Yet it is impossible to read his book without thinking about the larger implications of the story he tells." -Moises Naim, "The Washington Post Book World " "This is a devastating account of the American occupation of Iraq. It shows how Americans arrived in Iraq full of big plans (and/or lucrative contracts) to help the country become more like the United States, but wound up living an isolatedexistence while the lives of Iraqis deteriorated around them. No other book has described so well what Iraq looked like and felt like in the aftermath of the invasion." -James Mann, author of "Rise of the Vulcans" "Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched." -Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" "This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book." -Steve Coll, author of "Ghost Wars" "This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situation worse." -David Maraniss, author of "They Marched Into Sunlight" "An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco. "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned tochaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has." -Rick Atkinson, author of "The Long Gray Line"
Table of Content
Map of the Green Zone Prologue PART ONE-BUILDING THE BUBBLE 1 Versailles on the Tigris 2 A Deer in the Headlights The Green Zone, Scene 3 You're in Charge! The Green Zone, Scene II 4 Control Freak The Green Zone, Scene III 5 Who Are These People? The Green Zone, Scene IV 6 We Need to Rethink This The Green Zone, Scene V 7 Bring a Duffel Bag The Green Zone, Scene VI 8A Yearning for Old Times PART TWO-SHATTERED DREAMS 9 Let This Be Over The Green Zone, Scene VII 10 The Plan Unravels The Green Zone, Scene VIII 11 A Fool's Errand The Green Zone, Scene IX 12 We Cannot Continue Like This The Green Zone, Scene X 13 Missed Opportunities The Green Zone, Scene XI 14 Breaking the Rules The Green Zone, Scene XII 15 Crazy, If Not Suicidal The Green Zone, Scene XIII 16 Lot Left to Be Done Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Index
Copyright Date
2006
Target Audience
Trade
Lccn
2006-041014
Dewey Decimal
956.7044/31
Dewey Edition
22
Illustrated
Yes

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