Brian

Badly named, but pretty good overall

Reviewed: 02-20-20

I appreciated this book. I haven't spent much time reading about the last few decades of US foreign policy. I think it was really beneficial for me to zoom out from the daily/weekly news cycle that has been electrifying my nerves for the last few years now. Granted, I disagree with Bacevich's take on various events that he describes. But I never struggled to distinguish from what he describes as recent US historical facts, and his opinion. While I don't always follow his views on events, I didn't find them to be frustratingly skewed from reality at any point. I also don't agree with Amazon ebook reviewers that took umbrage to his conclusion about climate change being a potential catalyst for political/societal change. He only touches on the topic briefly in the last chapter, so why fixate on that one point? I didn't start reading this book expecting to find all of our answers by the end.

I'll also disagree with the positive reviewers that describe this book as any more than a historical brief. There are events in this book that are briefly touched on, and that I now wish to read much more about. The actual aim of the book is to frame what the 2016 election was really about. On that side of things, I found the book agreeable.

While I was reading I wondered if the book misunderstood the concept it describes as the "Emerald City." I couldn't help but think of Steven Pinker's book Enlightment Now. That book makes the point that the wider society, including those of us not doing well financially, have more and better access to creature comforts than ever before. He describes modern day life for a person with modest income having features and benefits that higher classes didn't have many decades ago. Point being, if we were already in the Emerald City, would we even know it? Perhaps we didn't fail to reach the Emerald City, but instead failed to recognize it altogether. We're facing new challenges, wrought by globalization as Mr. Bacevich correctly points out.

On reflection, I think his point is that the Emerald City was always an illusion (hence the awful title of the book). If that's the case, he's definitely right. I think he makes a good point that the end of the cold war resulted in taking our foot off the brakes. The national debt would seem to confirm this.

Anyway I'm sure I have much more to contemplate and learn about this from Mr. Bacevich. I found out about his book on the Bloggingheads podcast. I had stopped about 10 minutes in because the topic was interesting, then resumed after finishing the book. All in all, I'm quite glad I've listened.

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