George Packer

George Orwell

Offering commentary on the worlds of film, drama, literature, and language, a collection of criticism and essays by the author of 1984 includes such pieces as "Politics and the English Language," "Rudyard Kipling," and "Good Bad Books."

Critical Essays

All Art is Propaganda

An acclaimed National Book Award-winning author diagnoses America's descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming our injustices, paralyses, and divides How, in a few decades, did the United States transform from a broadly prosperous middle-class country, with relatively healthy institutions and competent leaders, to a nation defined by discredited elites, hollowed-out institutions, and blatant inequalities--feared and pitied by our friends, mocked and sabotaged by our adversaries, first in the world in Covid cases and deaths, and led in recent years by an incompetent authoritarian bigot?Last Best Hope is a bracing account of our current crisis and of how a new era of civic revitalization may bring it to an end. Combining reportage with historical narrative, autobiography, and political analysis, Packer depicts and assesses the four inadequate narratives that dominate American public life: Libertarian America, which imagines a nation of individuals responsible for their own fate, and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Cosmopolitan America, the ideology of Silicon Valley and the professional elite,which celebrates globalization and leaves many American communities behind ; DiverseAmerica, which defines citizens as members of large identity groups that have inflicted or suffered oppression; and White America, a shallow nationalism that fears the contamination of non-whites and treachery of coastal elites, and poses the greatest threat to democracy in our lifetime. At a time when many fear that the American experiment in self-government may collapse, or, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "die by suicide," Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain American democracy. To point a better way forward, he looks back at previous eras of crisis to discover the resources for invigorating self-government. Combining trenchant social analysis with a vibrant and stinging essayistic voice and a deep knowledge of America's past and present,Last Best Hope is an essential contribution to the literature of national self-examination the times demand.

An Essay on the Revival of America

Last Best Hope

"Portrays Holbrooke in all of his endearing and exasperating self-willed glory...Both a sweeping diplomatic history and a Shakespearean tragicomedy... If you could read one book to comprehend American's foreign policy and its quixotic forays into quicksands over the past 50 years, this would be it."--Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review "By the end of the second page, maybe the third, you will be hooked...There never was a diplomat-activist quite like [Holbrooke], and there seldom has been a book quite like this -- sweeping and sentimental, beguiling and brutal, catty and critical, much like the man himself."--David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites. Admired and detested, he was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America's greatest diplomatic achievement in the post-Cold War era. His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage. But his sharp elbows and tireless self-promotion ensured that he never rose to the highest levels in government that he so desperately coveted. His story is thus the story of America during its era of supremacy: its strength, drive, and sense of possibility, as well as its penchant for overreach and heedless self-confidence. In Our Man, drawn from Holbrooke's diaries and papers, we are given a nonfiction narrative that is both intimate and epic in its revelatory portrait of this extraordinary and deeply flawed man and the elite spheres of society and government he inhabited.

Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century

Our Man

Named one of the Best Books of 2005 by The New York Times, The Washington Post Book World, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, USA Today, Time, and New York magazine. The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq recounts how the United States set about changing the history of the Middle East and became ensnared in a guerrilla war in Iraq. It brings to life the people and ideas that created the Bush administration’s war policy and led America to the Assassins’ Gate—the main point of entry into the American zone in Baghdad. The Assassins’ Gate also describes the place of the war in American life: the ideological battles in Washington that led to chaos in Iraq, the ordeal of a fallen soldier ’s family, and the political culture of a country too bitterly polarized to realize such a vast and morally complex undertaking. George Packer’s best-selling first-person narrative combines the scope of an epic history with the depth and intimacy of a novel, creating a masterful account of America’s most controversial foreign venture since Vietnam.

America in Iraq

The Assassins' Gate

America is in crisis. In the space of a generation, it has become more than ever a country of winners and losers, as industries have failed, institutions have disappeared and the country's focus has shifted to idolise celebrity and wealth. George Packer narrates the story of America over the past three decades, bringing to the task his empathy with people facing difficult challenges, his sharp eye for detail and a gift for weaving together engaging narratives. The Unwinding moves deftly back and forth through the lives of its people, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the industrial Midwest attempting to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a political careerist in Washington; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire. Their stories are interspersed with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures, from Oprah Winfrey to Steve Jobs, to create a rich, wise and very human portrait of the USA in these hard times. The Unwinding portrays a superpower coming apart at the seams, its elites and institutions no longer working, leaving ordinary people to improvise their own schemes for salvation. George Packer is also the author of The Assassin's Gate, which was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by the New York Times and won the Helen Bernstein Book Award. 'A tour de force . . . A fascinating journey through an America that has largely remained hidden from view. There are echoes of Don DeLillo's Underworld in the scope of Packer's vision and his deft eye for language and detail.' Sunday Business Post

The Unwinding

Now restored to print with a new Foreword by Philip Gourevitch and an Afterword by the author, this book is a frank, moving, and vivid account of contemporary life in West Africa. Stationed as a Peace Corps instructor in the village of Lavié (the name means "wait a little more") in tiny and underdeveloped Togo, Packer reveals his own schooling at the hands of an unforgettable array of townspeople--peasants, chiefs, charlatans, children, market women, cripples, crazies, and those who, having lost or given up much of their traditional identity and fastened their hopes on "development," find themselves trapped between the familiar repetitions of rural life and the chafing monotony of waiting for change.

The Village of Waiting

كتاب حاصل على جائزة كورنيليوس رايان لنادي الصحافة عبر البحار؛ لكونه أفضل كتاب تدور أحداثه حول الشؤون الدولية، وحاصل على جائزة كتب مكتبة نيويورك العامة هيلين بيرنستاين للتميز في الصحافة. يروي كتاب (بوابة الحشاشين) كيف أن الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية شرعت تغير تاريخ الشرق الأوسط، فإذا بها قد وقعت في شرك حرب عصابات في العراق، إنه كتاب يبعث الحياة في الناس والأفكار التي أوجدت سياسة الحرب في إدارة بوش، وذهبت بأمريكا إلى بوابة الحشاشين التي تعدُّ نقطة العبور الرئيسة إلى المنطقة الأمريكية في بغداد، كما أن الكتاب يبين موقع الحرب في الحياة الأمريكية: إذ المعركة الأيديولوجية في واشنطن أدّت إلى فوضى في العراق، وأفرزت مصائب لعوائل جراء أبنائها المقتولين هناك، وكشفت البيئة السياسية لبلد ذي أقطاب متعددة، لدرجة يصعب معها أن يفهم المشروع الأمريكي المعقد. إن سرد باكر (الموثوق والواقعي) بصيغة المتكلم يجمع ما بين التاريخ الملحمي وعمق الرواية وحميميتها، كما أنه يقدم وصفاً بارعاً لأكثر مغامرات أمريكة الخارجية إثارة للجدل منذ حرب فيتنام. الكتاب رواية لحرب العراق تقف في مصاف الروايات التاريخية العالمية، مثل: «A Bright Shining Lie ،«Fire in the Lake و«Hell in a Very Small Place»... إن كتاب (بوابة الحشاشين) يحتاج أن يقرأه كل أمريكي. توم بيسل، The New York Observer «إنه كتاب متألق». ريتشارد هولبروك، The Washington Post «إنه كتاب بارع... فتصوير باكر للمناقشات قبل الحرب متقن وجذاب ومؤثر... فهو يضع القارئ في جانب وولتر بنجامين من التاريخ، حيث يكتفي بالمشاهدة، دون أدنى حيلة له، بينما ينتشر الحطام من حوله». غيديون روز، The Washington Post Book World اختير كتاب (بوابة الحشاشين) بوصفه أحد أفضل عشرة كتب لعام 2005 من قبل: The New York Times Book Review, Time Slate, USA Today The Washington Post Book World, The Economist, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, New York, the San Francisco Chronicle العبيكان للنشر

The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq

بوابة الحشاشين: أمريكا في العراق

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "[George Packer's] account of America’s decline into destructive tribalism is always illuminating and often dazzling." —William Galston, The Washington Post Acclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America’s descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming our injustices, paralyses, and divides In the year 2020, Americans suffered one rude blow after another to their health, livelihoods, and collective self-esteem. A ruthless pandemic, an inept and malign government response, polarizing protests, and an election marred by conspiracy theories left many citizens in despair about their country and its democratic experiment. With pitiless precision, the year exposed the nation’s underlying conditions—discredited elites, weakened institutions, blatant inequalities—and how difficult they are to remedy. In Last Best Hope, George Packer traces the shocks back to their sources. He explores the four narratives that now dominate American life: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the white Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer oppression. In lively and biting prose, Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain a democracy. To point a more hopeful way forward, he looks for a common American identity and finds it in the passion for equality—the “hidden code”—that Americans of diverse persuasions have held for centuries. Today, we are challenged again to fight for equality and renew what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the art” of self-government. In its strong voice and trenchant analysis, Last Best Hope is an essential contribution to the literature of national renewal.

America in Crisis and Renewal

Amy Pastan

Arthur Rothstein

Presents 50 striking images by an individual photographer from the Library of Congress' renowned collection of photographs.

The Photographs of Arthur Rothstein

The author of The Blood of Liberals carefully reconstructs America's entry in the Iraq War, focusing particular attention the cultural misunderstandings on both sides that made the war possible, as well as the missteps that have shaped its outcome.

George Packer beschreibt in seinem Buch, wie die USA in den Zustand geraten konnten, in dem sie sich heute befinden: Das große Experiment der Demokratie steht vor dem Scheitern. Packer führt uns vor Augen, wie in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten die konkurrierenden Elemente des amerikanischen Selbstverständnisses immer weiter in Konflikt geraten sind – mit einem Höhepunkt 2020, dem «umwälzendsten Jahr seit 1968». Er zeigt, warum die Kräfte, die unter Donald Trump von der Kette gelassen wurden, das Land noch lange prägen werden – unabhängig vom Ausgang der Wahl im November 2020. Ein Ausweg aus dieser Krise, schreibt Packer, ist nur möglich durch eine dramatische Umkehr, durch eine «radikale Demokratie», die sich auf das besinnt, was Amerika einmal ausgemacht hat.

Zum Zustand der Vereinigten Staaten

Die letzte beste Hoffnung

National Book Award-winnaar Packer analyseert aftakeling Amerika Hoe konden de Verenigde Staten in een paar decennia tijd van een welvarend en gerespecteerd land transformeren tot een verdeelde natie met uitgeholde instituties, grote ongelijkheid en leiderschap dat wordt bespot? In De laatste redding combineert Packer journalistieke reportage met historische context, autobiografische elementen en politieke analyse. Aan de hand van de dominante visies in het Amerikaanse openbare leven schetst hij een beeld van het huidige Amerika. En tot slot laat hij ons zien dat de democratie overeind kan blijven, mits de VS opkrabbelen uit de huidige crises zoals ze velen malen eerder hebben gedaan. Over De ontluistering van Amerika: 'Boeiend, ontroerend en geweldig geschreven.' The New York Times Book Review 'Origineel, doortastend, dapper en noodzakelijk. Een van de beste non-fictieboeken van de afgelopen jaren.' Katherina Boo, National Book Award-winnaar

Over de wederopstanding van Amerika

De laatste redding

Covering the civil war on an island nation off the coast of Asia, ambitious journalist Daniel Levin abandons his visting American fiancee to interview the leader of the guerilla movement and becomes an unwitting player in the political events

The Half Man

Based on George Packer's account in The New Yorker, Betrayed is a riveting and morally complex drama that explores in the Iraqis' own words the ways in which we have already abandoned them. Millions of Iraqis, spanning the country's religious and ethnic spectrum, welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the mostly young men and women who embraced America's project so enthusiastically that they were prepared to risk their lives for it by aiding the U.S. forces constitute a small minority. On a cold, wet night in January 2007, George Packer met two such Iraqi men in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, in central Baghdad to hear their story and those of other Iraqis working as translators and additional key personnel for the U.S. military and occupation authorities. They assumed that their perspective would be valuable to foreigners who knew little or nothing of Iraq. But instead of respect and gratitude, those who chose to help bridge the gap between the occupiers and the occupied were met with suspicion and hostility. They have been killed by insurgents and militias, ignored by U.S. officials, fired from their jobs without reason or recourse, and prevented from fleeing to the States for safety. Betrayed had its world premiere in January 2008, off-Broadway at the Culture Project.

A Play

Betrayed

When Joe arrives in Boston and is mistaken for African-- rather than African American-- he quickly discovers that letting the illusion stand generates magic. A job, a place to live, even a kind of deference he's never known before are suddenly casually endowed upon him, a man who surely must have a closer connection to life's hidden possibilities. Central Square bustles with the complexities and contradictions of today's urban existence as it tells what happens when the enigmatic Joe meets up with several other disparate characters. There is Paula, the social worker whose loneliness is intensified with each sad story she hears; Eric, the writer who struggles in a world that ignores his work and whose wife has abandoned him for pregnancy; the mysterious community group that has posted titillating "feel-good" signs around the city. As characters collide with circumstances, and each other, George Packer's bold novel explores the conflict between personal desires and social constraints, and the unattainable balance between private life and the life of a community. Unafraid to expose the difficult truths about contemporary society, Central Square asks how we can find something decent to which to commit our lives.

A Novel

Central Square

Throughout his career as a journalist, George Packer has always been attuned to the voices and stories of individuals caught up in the big ideas and events of contemporary history. Interesting Times unites brilliant investigative pieces such as "Betrayed," about Iraqi interpreters, with personal essays and detailed narratives of travels through war zones and failed states. Spanning a decade that includes the September 11 attacks and the election of Barack Obama, Packer brings insight and passion to his accounts of the war on terror, Iraq, political writers, and the 2008 election. Across these varied subjects a few key themes recur: the temptations and dangers of idealism; the moral complexities of war and politics; the American capacity for self-blinding and self-renewal. Whether exploring American policies in the wake of September 11, tracking a used T-shirt from New York to Uganda, or describing the ambivalent response in Appalachia to Obama, these essays hold a mirror up to our own troubled times and showcase Packer's unmistakable perspective, which is at once both wide-angled and humane.

Writings from a Turbulent Decade

Interesting Times

The 2013 National Book Award Winner A New York Times Bestseller Throughout his career as a journalist, George Packer has always been attuned to the voices and stories of individuals caught up in the big ideas and events of contemporary history. Interesting Times unites brilliant investigative pieces such as "Betrayed," about Iraqi interpreters, with personal essays and detailed narratives of travels through war zones and failed states. Spanning a decade that includes the September 11, 2001 attacks and the election of Barack Obama, Packer brings insight and passion to his accounts of the war on terror, Iraq, political writers, and the 2008 election. Across these varied subjects a few key themes recur: the temptations and dangers of idealism; the moral complexities of war and politics; the American capacity for self-blinding and self-renewal. Whether exploring American policies in the wake of September 11, tracking a used T-shirt from New York to Uganda, or describing the ambivalent response in Appalachia to Obama, these essays hold a mirror up to our own troubled times and showcase Packer's unmistakable perspective, which is at once both wide-angled and humane.

An acclaimed journalist and novelist explores the legacy and future of American liberalism through the history of his family's politically active history George Packer's maternal grandfather, George Huddleston, was a populist congressman from Alabama in the early part of the century--an agrarian liberal in the Jacksonian mold who opposed the New Deal. Packer's father was a Kennedy-era liberal, a law professor and dean at Stanford whose convictions were sorely--and ultimately fatally--tested in the campus upheavals of the 1960s. The inheritor of two sometimes conflicting strains of the great American liberal tradition, Packer discusses the testing of ideals in the lives of his father and grandfather and his own struggle to understand the place of the progressive tradition in our currently polarized political climate. Searching, engrossing, and persuasive, Blood of the Liberals is an original, intimate examination of the meaning of politics in American lives.

George Packer

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