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November 04, 2006

Saturday Night Reading

I'm supposed to go to another girly gathering tonight but I just can't bring myself to brave the cold weather. As well, I'm reading two very interesting books at the moment. The first one is Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a detailed account of life in the Green Zone after the Iraq invasion. I've mentioned it before, if only to complain about the media hype, but the book itself is fascinating. As expected, the author spends a lot of time describing poor decisionmaking by hilariously incompetent political appointees, but he also notes that the CPA wasn't entirely staffed by green 20-something Republicans. Unfortunately, the experienced post-conflict veterans were often stymied by bureaucracy, inter-agency squabbling, lack of resources and overly optimistic commitments made by Bremer and the White House.

None of the anecdotes are terribly surprising (most were reported in the news), but it's enlightening to see the events arranged as part of a larger narrative that includes US domestic politics, foreign policy, public perception (Iraq and American), etc. Ties everything together rather nicely.

The chapter I'm currently reading focuses on the massive push to privatize state-owned industries and abruptly replace Saddam's socialist model with a free market utopia. Most of the state-owned factories were grossly inefficient, overstaffed (government jobs were essentially guaranteed salaries for life) and unprofitable. Official importers were allowed to use the pre-1991 currency rate (~1 dinar = $3US), and the difference between that and the actual rate (~$1US = 2000 dinars) was covered off by the Ministry of Finance.

Now there are all sorts of problems with selling off assets to foreign investors immediately occupying a country, but the team responsible for assessing the factories and preparing them for sale was grossly unprepared for the scale and difficulty of the task. A road to hell paved with good intentions and unrealistic commitments.

Of course, I've always found intricate bureaucratic nonsense interesting, and Imperial Life is full of it. If only there were footnotes.

The second book I'm reading is an account of the reign of Emperor Alexius I of Byzantium, written by his daughter Anna Comnena. It's called The Alexiad and was recommended to me by a friend who shares my disdain for fiction and recognizes my abiding interest in long-dead empires, intrigue, war and politics.

Truly, there are few people in this world who know my passions well enough to make such spot-on recommendations. A mark of real friendship, I think.

Posted by eerie at November 4, 2006 06:51 PM
Filed Under: Personal , Reviews

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Comments

I've always meant to read The Alexiad.

Along the same line have you tackled The Baburnama, the autobiography of the founder of the Mughal state? Fascinating stuff, despite the flaws common to all autobiographies by famous political figures.

Posted by: Tamerlane at November 5, 2006 11:02 AM

Alexiad is brilliant so far, very detailed. Perhaps I'll read the Baburnama next.

Hey, remember when we had dinner in that indoor-outdoor restaurant in Marbella with the fake trees?

Was thinking about that the other day.

Posted by: eerie [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 5, 2006 05:11 PM

The little open courtyard place with the tasty minestrone and what looked like an adjoining quasi-toystore shop?

Neat place :). Marbella may be as touristy as all get out, but I have to admit the Old Town is cute.

Posted by: Tamerlane at November 5, 2006 09:17 PM

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