Rating: 
Summary: An Awakening
Review: I just recently read this book when I went on vacation and realized I had left my book behind. I picked this little book up thinking it would at least be interesting to see how the rest of the world views Americans. I had no idea the impact this book would have on me. I never expected myself to become so involved in this book that I can honestly claim that it has changed my life - at least in a small way.I am in college, so it is unusual for a non-political science major to actually read and enjoy a book such as this, but it has truly become a favorite book of mine and I encourage all my friends to read it. I think it is vitally important for my generation to read this book and recognize what is happening in the world and in their country. We have become so complacent that we are not speaking out for ourselves or going against anything the government does because we think we cannot make the slightest difference. This book has made me go searching for the other side of the news stories that I see on CBS or CNN, etc. I have become more politically aware and feel the need to speak out on issues that I previously would have left alone and let the "adults" take care of. The Eagle's Shadow has had quite an impact on me and at the very least, this book will give you cause to stop and reflect. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Author Seams to Have Aggravated a Few People
Review: This topic is one that interests me, particularly that I am an American who lives out side of the states. I have read a few other books along these same lines and this book has been the best written that I have found. I would agree that the book does not lay out in a very easy to grasp method a number of exact quotes from people all over the world as to why they dislike American. I assumed that the author, as he alluded to in the opening chapter, talked to a number of people during his travels and the chapters of the book is a combination of his thoughts and the thoughts of the people he interviewed. Would the book have been better with more direct quotes from people around the world - maybe? The many benefit of more quotes would have to lessen the argument a number of people have with the book in that it is just the authors point of view. Overall I found the book very interesting and fair. Even though I found it disagreeable to read many unflattering things about my country, they were all the true historical record. After reading the book do I have a better understanding for the dislike of America? To be honest I do not think a book can really detail out for the average American how the country looks to the rest of the world. You really need to go outside and take a look back to see that many of the authors comments are not sour grapes or mindless complaining, but accurate comments on the current state of play. Does it all matter? It is good to be the King and as America is the top of the heap, then for the average American I do not think it matters at all. When you are in America the rest of the world seams very small and far away. I enjoyed the book and there were a number of interesting comments. I thought the author was fair and did not have an ax to grind. If you are looking for a book covering this subject you could do a lot worse.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST read!!
Review: As a mexican reader, this book helped me understand a lot things better. I fully recommended it, to better understand americans instead of just judging them. We have to learn how to see the world with different views and not expect to see as others do, this book helped me better understand "America", as you say it, but the United States, from everyone else's point of view.
Very good book indeed! We ALL can learn a lot from it!
Rating: 
Summary: simple and unintersting
Review: My opinion about "The Eagle's Shadow by mark Hertsgaard is unusual in that I don't disagree with his criticism of the United States; but I find this book to be poorly written and not very informative. It's unusual to agree with what a writer is saying but at the same time not appreciate how they are saying it. As many other reviews have noted, he does not tell us much about what other countries think of the U.S. He just has a few stories and than launches into his criticisms. His writing might have impressed me if I was still still a high school student, but not as an interested adult. There is not one original idea in this book. And the writing is so simple and shallow I couldn't wait to get it done.
Rating:
Summary: Dressed-Up Diatribe
Review: Ostensibly based on a valid and intriguing concept -- using qualitative research from the author's travels around the world to illustrate perceptions of America at home and abroad -- this book begins well. But by chapter seven (just over halfway through the book), it digresses into a full-on diatribe, railing against all things right, republican and, most importantly, Reagan. Many of the quotes he uses echo comments I've heard in my own experience living in Europe through much of the 1990s. Yet the author's own extreme political stance -- probably some morphed version of a European social democrat, but possibly closer to a traditional communist -- leads him to take every comment from an outside observer as the ideal the US should live up to, or more likely to only choose those comments that reflect his own opinions of what the US should be. Again, the conceptual basis would be magnificent, if properly executed. But that would require much greater restraint and objectivity than Hertsgaard can muster. As it is, all the quotes and the research and the "perspectives" he offers are little more than window dressing for what progressively reveals itself as a personal diatribe against today's US society for not being more leftist, more like Europe, and more like Hersgaard. I do personally agree with the author on many of his main points about what is ailing America. But I chose the book because I was interested in hearing the world's opinions about America. Not Hertsgaard's. I don't believe the book delivers on its premise. I cannot recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: The title is STILL misleading...
Review: I wrote the "Great Idea, But Poorly Executed" review of this book some months ago. After recently reading over some of the criticisms of my review, I think many reviewers missed my point. I DON'T necessarily disagree with at least some of Mark Hertsgaard's opinions in "The Eagle's Shadow". At times Americans can be overly greedy and materialistic, we probably should be paying more attention to our environment, and compared to most of Europe, our political instincts are definitely more conservative and "right-wing". I don't agree with some of his other statements, but the point of my review was that the subtitle of Hertsgaard's book, "Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World" is inaccurate and misleading. Hertsgaard is essentially guilty of false advertising. I bought this book believing - as the cover title and introductory chapter indicates - that it is an account of how foreigners view the United States. What I got instead was a book with (at most) twenty quotes or comments from foreigners about the USA, and the remaining ninety percent of the book is all about Mark Hertsgaard's opinions of the USA. I'm all for learning about how Europeans, Africans, Asians and Latin Americans view our nation - but I don't really give a flip about what Mark Hertsgaard thinks - if I did, I'd have bought another book. As I wrote in my first review, Hertsgaard should have advertised this book for what it truly is - a platform for his personal (and, yes, generally left-wing) views of America. Maybe Hertsgaard thought that no one would buy a book about his personal views of what ails America - I know I wouldn't have. If your idea of learning about why many foreigners distrust and resent America is to study one guy's opinions on the subject, then by all means read "The Eagle's Shadow". As for myself, I'd rather hear the comments of, you know, actual foreigners. Not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Essential read
Review: It amused me to read one of the other reviewers complaining about this book. The reviewer complains that non American views on America as "Horribly negative and preposterously ill-informed: they never visited the States". I am sure that the author would wholeheartedly agree that non Americans have some negative views of the USA (the author also stresses the positive as well). I would urge all Americans to read this book and find out what those are, rather than as the reviewer seems to want to ignore this and attack people who wish to talk about it. I am sure the author would also agree with the reviewer that lack of travel to a place does encourage horribly negative and preposterously ill-informed views. Read this book to realise the importance to America/Americans of being informed about other parts of the world .. just as it is important that the rest of the world should be informed about the USA. I and alot of other non Americans will find nothing in this book surprising or outrageous. I found this book to be a nice collection things we already knew with some interesting facts and history to back it up. For Americans, I am sure some things in this book will make slightly uncomfortable reading, but I urge you to buy this book and find out how a sizable percentage of the world views you and why.
Rating:
Summary: The Eagle's Shadow
Review: A necessary read. If we don't make changes now, the world will make them for us. And I doubt that we'll like them. U.S. corporate, military, and political greed and agendas must not continue to be ours. We have to read, learn, talk and take action. Many thanks to Mark Hertsgaard who informs in an articulate, direct, riveting way. A great book to buy and to share with friends and family members.
Rating:
Summary: Never take medical advice from an auto mechanic!
Review: Having spent four years working in a foreign country, I had the opportunity to talk at length with foreigners of many flags about their own countries and their personal feelings about the U.S. Here is something I learned very quickly, which Mr. Hertsgaard evidently has not learned at all: If you want to get someone's opinion on hamburgers, first make sure they have eaten one. If you want to get someone's opinion on the U.S., first make sure they have visited the place. While living in Saudi Arabia, I met Britons galore (generally nice people) and they ALL had opinions on the U.S. Here's how their opinions fell into place: Horribly negative and preposterously ill-informed: they never visited the States.
Generally positive, with some reservations, but at least reasonably accurate: They had visited the States. What Hertsgaard is selling in his delusional little diatribe are the rantings of a bunch of people who have been spoon fed a bunch of leftist cant about the U.S., filtered through foreign media that has NOTHING TO GAIN by saying anything positive, or even accurate, about the U.S. I mean seriously, if the only things you "knew" about the U.S. came from the BBC, you'd want to bomb Washington, D.C., yourself! This book just goes to show you don't have to have any kind of common sense to get published these days. If I were a foreigner, I'd cite this book as a classic example of America's intellectual decline.
Rating:
Summary: Two is for Effort
Review: I hate to crown any writer with a 2-star review, being that I also earn my living the same way; I do so on the technical writing issue of failing to connect with an audience. It may be that Mr. Hertsgaard enamors the liberals of San Francisco, Los Angeles, SoHo, where ever it is those people hang out. I'm just your average American, hanging out in one of our average suburbs, doing my daily writer's battle with the IRS and General Electric, looking to understand "why they hate us" like so many others; and it appeared this book is directed most especially at naive heads like my own. I also had a father when growing up, who, like so many American suburbanites, used to whip off his belt and tan my naive head when he felt like it. I don't think I ever learned a ...thing from my dad until I was 40, and now I'm 45, and don't need Mr. Hertsgaard's Yale/Harvard remonstrances to pick up where my father left off. This book is a beating, if your average American is the audience. Mr. Hertsgaard may in fact be right in his points, as my father often was, but like my father, he's more concerned with what he thinks and what he wants than understanding the mindset of his would-be victims and meeting them on fertile ground. We Americans are crude, insensitive, self-centered, boorish, ill-traveled, and likely to shock a much more cultured and civilized world when we do travel, non-voting, ill appraised. We don't know how to drink wine in France, tip a cab driver in Africa, don't know how to pick up after ourselves (we are environmentally unconscious), self-absorbed, well-intending-but-dirty. He throws us the bone of "I love my country," and "Americans handled Milosevic well" every nine or so pages, so that we don't lose sight of the fact that he, like Dad, has our best interest at part. Congratulations, Mr. Hertsgaard. You are a back-handed Republican who might enjoy a beer with the good old boys at the VFW after all. I'm afraid to see who this publisher is, so I haven't look on the copyright page. But if my editor got such a work from moi, she would have said, "Darling...rethink this. You're supposed to be connecting with people. Lots of people. Meet them on the ground where they can hear you." That is the most difficult, most demanding task of the writer: identifying the mindset of the reader, empathizing with it, and starting one's little diatribes on their turf. It's the true nature of love 'n diplomacy in the Land of Free Speech, and nobody ever said the job of a writer would be easy. However, America, unlike many other countries, promises a few easy rides. I would love to be convinced and encouraged to march for Greenpeace. The only thing I'm convinced of at this point is that the author could take a lesson from Olympia D. in ~Moonstruck~ when she told the bad-boy lover about himself in the restaurant: "What you don't know about people is a LOT." And I'm smirking about as much as she was.
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