Peace Kills

New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. James Kegley (Author photograph). xvii, [3], 197, [3] pages. Inscribed by the author on the half-title page. Inscription reads To Joe, Do not go in peace! P J O'Rourke June 22, 2004. Stamp of previous owner on fep. One of the nation's most controversial journalists and humorists offers another hard-hitting survey of the foibles of American foreign policy, recounting his experiences among consumers in Kuwait, in security obsessed airports around the globe, and in Kosovo, where "NATO tried to start World War III without hurting anyone." Patrick Jake O'Rourke (born November 14, 1947) is an American political satirist and journalist. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Since 2011, he has been a columnist at The Daily Beast. In the UK, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s. He is the author of 20 books, the best known of which are Holidays in Hell, a compilation of O'Rourke's articles as a free-lance foreign correspondent, and All the Trouble in the World, an examination of current political concerns such as global warming and famine from a libertarian perspective.
The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 states, "O'Rourke's original reporting, irreverent humor, and crackerjack writing makes for delectable reading. He never minces words or pulls his punches, whatever the subject." O'Rourke was a proponent of Gonzo journalism. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: O'Rourke has made a career out of telling people off. As a foreign correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone, he has demonstrated a flair for sarcasm and an aptitude for making people laugh. In his 11th book, this provocateur par excellence presents a more sober take than usual, this time in essays on American foreign policy, including visits to several important countries on the international scene. Starting with Kosovo, he comments on the Serbian-Albanian conflict, then makes his way to Israel, Egypt, Kuwait and Iraq. Other entries look at the effects of September 11 on the U.S. home front, which includes poking fun at airport search techniques and a clever deconstruction of a 2001 statement on peace and social justice signed by 103 Nobelists. O'Rourke's book does many of the things a bestseller is supposed to do: it's irreverent, in-your-face and often offensive. Yet O'Rourke seems less interested in humor here than in slightly skewed reporting. His articles on Israel and Egypt, for example, are basically descriptive, a diary account of where he went, what he saw, the hotels he stayed in interrupted every so often by O'Rourke's trademark non sequitur humor. The author's fans probably won't mind the slight shift in direction; O'Rourke is one of the most popular authors around and this book, like his others, should find a happy nest on national bestseller lists.