Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 by Thomas L. Friedman is a short term retrospective on the authors columns and a work diary behind them.
Started: 8/11/2013
Completed: 8/15/2013
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: Nobody, just saw the title and went with it.
Review:
This is a story about trying to come to grips with September 11th and doing so in both a global sense and on a global stage. Thomas Friedman's perspective on the Jewish/Arab conflict (whether accurate, correct, and complete or not) infuses the story with both an urgency to refocus on Israel or resolve all of the shortcomings of a variety of Arab states. I think that this is part of a desire to DO SOMETHING. There is a pervasive thought that America can solve the worldwide issues that led to bin Laden's attack. I wonder if this is true and believe it not to be despite some rather persuasive argument by Freidman. I think that he probably feels that American cannot solve this issue, but can be an impediment to its resolution. It was very interesting to learn about hte background of the terrorists who attacked the United States. It was particularly sobering to realize that bin Laden's perspective was that he had forced Russia out of Afghanistan and the subsequent collapse of the Russian economic state. The information in this book is so quickly dated, it is interesting as a near history read, but I'm not convinced beyond the few facts I have pointed out here, how much value can be derived from the book even as a useful historical document.
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