THE BOOK REPORT

VOLUME TWO (OCTOBER/04)

CASUALTY OF WAR: The Bush Administration's Assault on a Free Press by David Dadge - The extent of the Bush administration’s negative influence on and stifling of the media have been a topic of intense conversation ever since 9/11. Casualty of War goes in depth, with specific examples and a catalogue of infractions by the US government against the media – including trying to prevent the Voice of America from broadcasting an interview with a Taliban leader, Ari Fleischer’s warnings to Bill Maher and anyone who might speak their mind in an inflammatory fashion, or directly asking the Qatar government to “tone down” Al-Jazeera’s reporting. David Dadge is editor of Austria-based International Press Institute, so has a broader insight into the effects of the Bush administration’s “assault” on the press. Unfortunately Dadge’s work only covers the directly-post-9/11 period – including the war in Afghanistan – providing insight on the government’s war on freedom of the press as their stated necessity in exchange for increased “security”. (Dadge also argues that press freedom is even more important in times like these.) Take the worst attacks on media freedom catalogued in this book, multiply it by ten, and you have “Casualty of War: The Bush Administration’s Assault on a Free Press” Part Two, The Iraq Edition. But Iraq’s media stifling and misleading has been covered in many other books, so we’ll leave Dadge’s work as a source for press censorship in that first war. The American Journalism Review calls it “firm but not shrill, accusatory but not hysterical. Most interesting, once Dadge has moved beyond the list of particulars and outrages, he turns the book into something unexpectedly positive: a cogent, compelling argument that a free flow of information may itself be a partial antidote to terrorism.” Quick Rating: A-. Purchase: Amazon.com - Chapters.ca - (Prometheus - Feb. 2004 - Hardcover).

RUMSFELD'S WAR: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander by Rowan Scarborough - From the very title, you know which point of view this biography of Donald Rumsfeld will take. The mere title, Rumsfeld’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Anti-Terrorist Commander, already depicts the U.S. defense secretary as a patriotic, overlooked, heroic figure, the main man protecting Americans from terrorists. Yet two more tidbits preview the author’s bias before the book even begins: the book is published by Regnery, the right-wing publisher, and its author writes for the Washington Times (not exactly known for its unbiased coverage). If you suspect that Scarborough is a little too kind to Rumsfeld, you’re only half right: as Publishers Weekly writes, “If there were an official Donald H. Rumsfeld Admiration Society, Scarborough would be a leading candidate for its president. The Washington Times Pentagon reporter has written a paean to the Secretary of Defense that all but paints a big "S" on his chest.” One positive of his close Pentagon relationships and fawning coverage is the never-before-seen documents and memos included in the book. Rumsfeld’s War may be fine reading to those already in awe of the “Anti-Terrorist Commander”, but those more critical may laugh at such a positive view of Rumsfeld especially after the many failures in Iraq – like Abu Ghraib, a scandal that doesn’t reflect positively on Rumsfeld these days. One wonders how such events, and possible quagmires, would be relayed in Scarborough’s book if it had been written after the Iraq invasion occurred. The most important question: how did “America’s Anti-Terrorist Commander” fail to catch bin Laden even when the opportunity was presented to him? You won’t find such answers here – but you will find much undue praise. Quick Rating: C-. Purchase: Amazon.com - Chapters.ca - (Regnery - March 2004 - Hardcover).

THE FABRIC OF THE COSMOS: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene - Rarely does a science - yes, science! - book come around that transforms a theoretical, vastly complex topic into an entertaining - yeah, that's right, entertaining - dissemination of physics and all the theoretical landscape in which it lives. String theory is the main scope of Greene's work, and it can be mindblowing (in a good way) to the uninitiated: "[I]n explaining the big bang itself, Greene shows how recent cutting-edge developments in superstring and M-theory may reconcile the behavior of everything from the smallest particle to the largest black hole. This startling vision culminates in a vibrant eleven-dimensional “multiverse,” pulsating with ever-changing textures", states the book description, giving only a slight glimpse at the knowledge put forth in this jam-packed 576-page book. Brian Greene is one of the world's elite physisists, and probably the most people-friendly. The latter trait comes through remarkably in this readable book that breaks down string theory and the physical world into a form suitable for mass consumption. If you read one science book all year - Fabric of the Cosmos should be that book. Quick Rating: A. Purchase: Amazon.com - Chapters.ca - (Knopf - Feb. 2004 - Hardcover).

Robert Furs

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