Bücher von George Packer

Der amerikanische Journalist George Packer beschreibt, wie die USA sich in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten aus der Diplomatie zurückgezogen haben, und dokumentiert den Rückgang des amerikanischen Einflusses in der Welt. Als Leitfigur dient ihm der 2010 verstorbene Spitzendiplomat Richard Holbrooke, in dessen Haltung und Persönlichkeit sein Land zum Vorschein kam: laut, tollpatschig, aber auch optimistisch, idealistisch und pragmatisch.  Holbrooke wird bei Packer zu einer übergroßen, tragisch-komischen Figur, mit der das amerikanische Jahrhundert aufblüht und schließlich zu Ende geht: Holbrooke stirbt plötzlich im Büro von Außenministerin Hillary Clinton, deren Job er fanatisch gern übernommen hätte. George Packer, Autor der «Abwicklung» und von «Die letzte beste Hoffnung», liefert eine romanhafte Doppelbiografie und spiegelt in Holbrookes Leben die Größe, aber auch das Scheitern des amerikanischen Jahrhunderts. Das Buch war für den Pulitzer-Preis nominiert.

Americans aren't fighting just a war on terrorism ... they are fighting, and losing, a war of ideas.This riveting collection of original essays by some of the best political minds in America argues that the post-September 11 era has put American democracy itself on trial. In short, defeating terrorism requires us to live up to our own ideals. In The Fight Is for Democracy, nine leading writers take a hard, and at times personal, look at American life and America's role in the world. These pieces share a belief in the need for liberal reform at home and abroad. Power alone is not enough to win hearts and minds around the world. The war against terrorism should be a war for democracy.Edited and with an Introduction by George Packer, The Fight Is for Democracy pushes the national debate in provocative new directions with essays on: Domestic politics and foreign policy -- Michael Tomasky, political columnist for New York magazineHuman rights and intervention -- Laura Secor, Boston Globe staff writerSecularism -- Vijay Seshadri, author and professor at Sarah Lawrence CollegePatriotism -- Todd Gitlin, author and professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia UniversityPolitics in the Arab World -- Kanan Makiya, author and professor at Brandeis UniversityIntellectuals and American culture -- Susie Linfield, associate director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York UniversityGlobalization -- William Finnegan, staff writer at The New YorkerEconomic inequality -- Jeff Madrick, editor of Challenge magazineLiberalism and terror -- Paul Berman, contributing editor of The New Republic

An acclaimed journalist and novelist explores the legacy and future of American liberalism through the history of his family's politically active historyGeorge 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.

Drama / 5m, 6fMillions 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

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