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booksny 's review for:
informative
medium-paced
I'd really wanted to read this book for a very long time, but sadly it did not end up an enjoyable experience for various reasons, e.g.
1. I found the chapters where he focused on only one country to be more interesting to read than when he focused on a whole region, as the latter felt quite info-dumpy
2. I would've liked more exploration of alternatives. For example, he emphasized how Putin would've liked mountains specifically in Ukraine. Why would he not want mountains in Poland instead? I might be missing something very obvious about why the Carpathian mountains continuing into Poland wouldn't benefit Russia, but that's where I would've expected the book to provide a more thorough discussion of alternative maps
3. In the China chapter, he mentions that there are 500 peaceful protests in China a day. Where did he get that stats from?!
4. He emphasized how the presence of large numbers of muslims in Europe impacts free speech+women's rights. Less than 8% of European population is Muslim last I checked - is he saying that if there were no Muslims in Europe, there would be a lot more unity around those topics? I'm doubtful of that - abortion and how to deal with hate speech are difficult topics that would be debated irregardless of the religious demographic in Europe
5. He referred to alawites as backwards hill people. Would have liked more detail on what backwards means exactly to him
6. He said that the US is the greatest fighting force the world has seen. I would have liked some citations/metrics on that - is it based on success rate of conflicts fought?
7. The last couple pages of the Middle East chapter felt like an opinion piece unrelated to the rest of the chapter, it seriously needed more concrete examples of how western liberals misunderstand the Middle East
I gave up engaging critically with the book after the Middle East chapter, as it just felt like there were too many things lacking citation or explanation. Ultimately, while I learned some things, this was overall a disappointing read.
1. I found the chapters where he focused on only one country to be more interesting to read than when he focused on a whole region, as the latter felt quite info-dumpy
2. I would've liked more exploration of alternatives. For example, he emphasized how Putin would've liked mountains specifically in Ukraine. Why would he not want mountains in Poland instead? I might be missing something very obvious about why the Carpathian mountains continuing into Poland wouldn't benefit Russia, but that's where I would've expected the book to provide a more thorough discussion of alternative maps
3. In the China chapter, he mentions that there are 500 peaceful protests in China a day. Where did he get that stats from?!
4. He emphasized how the presence of large numbers of muslims in Europe impacts free speech+women's rights. Less than 8% of European population is Muslim last I checked - is he saying that if there were no Muslims in Europe, there would be a lot more unity around those topics? I'm doubtful of that - abortion and how to deal with hate speech are difficult topics that would be debated irregardless of the religious demographic in Europe
5. He referred to alawites as backwards hill people. Would have liked more detail on what backwards means exactly to him
6. He said that the US is the greatest fighting force the world has seen. I would have liked some citations/metrics on that - is it based on success rate of conflicts fought?
7. The last couple pages of the Middle East chapter felt like an opinion piece unrelated to the rest of the chapter, it seriously needed more concrete examples of how western liberals misunderstand the Middle East
I gave up engaging critically with the book after the Middle East chapter, as it just felt like there were too many things lacking citation or explanation. Ultimately, while I learned some things, this was overall a disappointing read.