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    Interventions: A Life in War and Peace
    Unavailable
    Interventions: A Life in War and Peace
    Unavailable
    Interventions: A Life in War and Peace
    Audiobook14 hours

    Interventions: A Life in War and Peace

    Written by Kofi Annan and Nader Mousavizadeh

    Narrated by Dominic Hoffman

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A candid memoir of global statecraft during one of the most consequential eras of recent history

    Interventions is the inside story of a world at the brink. After forty years of service in the United Nations, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan shares his unique perspective of the terrorist attacks of September 11; the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; the wars among Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon; the humanitarian tragedies of Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia; and the geopolitical transformations following the Cold War. With eloquence and unprecedented candor, Annan finally reveals his unique role and unparalleled perspective on decades of global politics.

    The first sub-Saharan African national to hold the position of secretary-general, Annan has led an incredible life, an amazing story in its own right. Annan's idealism and personal politics were forged in the Ghana independence movements of his adolescence, when all of Africa seemed to be waking from centuries of imperial slumber. Schooled in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Europe, Annan ultimately joined the United Nations in Geneva as the lowest level civil servant in the still young organization. Yet Annan rose rapidly through the ranks, and by the end of the Cold War he was prominently placed in the rapidly changing department of peacekeeping.

    As Annan shows the successes of the United Nations around the world, he also reveals the organization's missed opportunities and ongoing challenges-thwarted actions in the Rwanda genocide, continuing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, the endurance of endemic poverty, and much else. Yet Annan's great strength in this book is his ability to embed these tragedies within the context of global politics; demonstrating how, time and again, the nations of the world have retreated from the UN's radical mandate. Ultimately, Annan shows readers a world in which solutions are always available, in which all we lack is the will and courage to see them through.

    A personal biography of global statecraft, Annan's Interventions is as much a memoir as it is a guide to world order -- past, present, and future.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 4, 2012
    ISBN9781101579497
    Unavailable
    Interventions: A Life in War and Peace

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    Reviews for Interventions

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    • 5/5
      This book is part biography, and part the story of the UN over the last few decades. As a biography, it confirms what most of us already knew: viz that Kofi Annan is a thoroughly decent chap who guided the UN through extremely difficult times when, under a lesser leader, it might have degenerated into an irrelevant dinosaur of an organisation. As a history of the UN, it shows the interesting way in which America has taken Europe's role as the bossy boots of the World.Look back on the history of the World through the period from the sixteenth to the mid twentieth century and you will find Europe educating the poor savages of Africa, America, Australia and Asia at the barrel end of a gun. There was a genuine belief that domination by mainly Britain, France or Russia, with a little help from Spain, Portugal and Germany, would civilise the ignorant savages of other continents. Too late, we have realised the error of our ways and now, we do not have the power to stand up to the United States who, having once been in the strange place of part exerting and part suffering this patronising oppression, now dish it out with gay abandon. Nobody can really believe that the Western Alliance had authority to invade Iraq, or that the many thousands of deaths have achieved any increase in World security. Guantanamo Bay and the overt use of torture by America but with implicit British agreement was, and still is, an absolute disgrace: and I say that as a supporter of Tony Blair! Kofi does not take sides, he tries to build bridges, even whilst being steam-rollered by those who see no one's view but their own. I was not there when these decisions were made so, I can only read the account of George Bush, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan and give credence to the most believable version. To my mind, this is it. For that alone, this book is well worth reading - and there is so much more.