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Rating: 
Summary: Chaos on the Brain
Review: As anyone whose ever read a "Complete Idiots Guide" can tell you, they are definetly not all created equal; some are, infact, garbage, while others I have found to be, suprisingly, excellent, and indispensable. This one, "World Conflicts," I have found to be in the latter category. I have devoured this book since I bought it recently, underlining and scribbling all over it, eager to pick it up and continue reading it; its the thrill of learning, see. It comes down to this-yeah yeah, its a skeletal framework of history, but it gives you enough information so that you now have the power to know "what" you would like to investigate furthur. For instance, one gets a brief synopsis on a countries history, like say Sudan, it runs down some of its cutural history; who ran the country, who imperialized it, etc; what cou de tas have occured; whos fighting for what and what happened when; and, of course, all the gory details of histories sanguine epochs. In order to have obtained this amount of information about these many countries, one would have to scoure through stacks of history books assembling some info here and some there for ever. Now, I can rattle of some incredble strange information in casual conversation going through all of Egypts wars and leaders leading up to modern times and feeling quite pleased with myself and broadening the range of my world view and my capacity to interact in meaningful dialogues. OK, I have had the hardest time putting together what exactly happened in the Balkans some time now. It seems like all books start in the middle, like everyone knows exactly whats happened and why and they are just going over the details. I couldn't for the life of me find something or someone that could exaplain the big picture, anything that could satisfactorly explain what when down: Croations, Serbs, Ethnic Albanians, and how did these events have their roots in the First World War? The book expained it to me, simply and consisely...ahhhhhh. Now, I know what questions I'd like answered and can persue them in other places. Having trouble understanding who the Sunnies are? The Shiites? The Kurds? Are they religions or nationalities or both and what happened in Ruwanda and why this that and the other and whats the deal with Kashmire or Bangladesh or Korea or Sierre Leone or even the King of wars ourselves, the US, just how many wars have we had? This book is great, it puts history in perspective so that the present can be more clearly comprehended. I by no means agreed with everything the author wrote philsophically, but I respect his work and am thankful for having found it. Definetly Five Stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what I hoped for.
Review: I picked up this book in my constant quest to expand my base of knowledge as a high school teacher of World Studies. I was rather surprised at the lack of depth and glaringly obvious omission of key details. For example, the section on North Africa does not even mention Libya or Morocco, and the multi-page description of the Sudan conflict never mentions oil, a critical factor in the tug-of-war between the Arab north and African south. I found the maps to be irrelevant, and there sometimes even simple grammatical errors. Most disturbing was the slanted writing. I have no problem with a viewpoint from an author, but for a book purporting to be a factual description of world conflicts, the bias was evident. Some chapters are well-written, such as the Indonesia chapter, although a correctly-labeled map of all the separatist regions
described in the text might be helpful! I gave this book three stars because it does provide many clear, concise details, but for a much better book along the same lines, check out WHAT EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointingly Slanted
Review: I skimmed this book in a bookstore and thought it would be a great volume to inform me for debating current political issues with better regard to their historical foundations. I bought the book on Amazon and upon reading it, I was disappointed in the author's leftist slant. He blames most world problems on the United States in any spurious way he can derive. There are some useful facts here, but read this book with a grain of salt if you have it, or buy a better book if you do not. It is one thing to take a position and justify it, like Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs and Steel", an excellent book, though I disagree with his premises. It is another thing to do as Strauss does in this book and lbindly take a slant, possibly even unaware of the slant, and meander through a supposedly historical acocunt whilst rewriting it to suit your tastes. I wish there was more consistency in the quality of "Complete Idiot's guide to..." books.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointingly Slanted
Review: I skimmed this book in a bookstore and thought it would be a great volume to inform me for debating current political issues with better regard to their historical foundations. I bought the book on Amazon and upon reading it, I was disappointed in the author's leftist slant. He blames most world problems on the United States in any spurious way he can derive. There are some useful facts here, but read this book with a grain of salt if you have it, or buy a better book if you do not. It is one thing to take a position and justify it, like Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs and Steel", an excellent book, though I disagree with his premises. It is another thing to do as Strauss does in this book and lbindly take a slant, possibly even unaware of the slant, and meander through a supposedly historical acocunt whilst rewriting it to suit your tastes. I wish there was more consistency in the quality of "Complete Idiot's guide to..." books.
Rating:
Summary: Informative... but lacking some key facts
Review: Mr Strauss's book is quite informative and its an able introduction to some of the world conflicts but definately not the best with regards to detailed information on certain topics. With regards to the section regarding the Turkish-Kurdish conflict Strauss does not devote enough time on the subject. Instead he babbles on how Turkey has been systematically denying the Kurds their rights...blah...blah...blah...Mr. Straus you claim to be an expert on these world conflicts but you obviously take the Kurds' side and disregard the whole conflict for what its worth. There is always two sides to a story and you only seem to be inetrested in the Kurds. Your biased opinions make this a 2 star selection. And even that is generous grade for a work of this nature.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book is quite good. It covers a lot of ground, is even-handed, and deals with issues fairly by giving both points of view. It's amazing to read what people do to each other, and the book endeavors to succinctly explain the varied reasons humans are so often in conflict. Well-written and excellent.
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