Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism

P. J. O'Rourke

Grove Press, May 10, 2005 - Humor - 224 pages

As the "Los Angeles Times has hailed, "When it comes to scouting the world for world-class absurdities, P.J.O'Rourke is the right man for the job." With his latest national best-seller, "Peace Kills, P.J. casts his ever-shrewd and mordant eye on America's latest adventures in warfare. Imperialism has never been more fun. To unravel the mysteries of war, O'Rourke first visits Kosovo to find out what happens when we try to have one without hurting anybody: "Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months later and bomb the country next to where it's happening." He travels to Israel at the ourbreak of the intifada. He flies to Egypt in the wake of the 9/11 terrorists' attacks and contemplates bygone lunacies. "Why are the people in the Middle East so crazy? Here, at the pyramids, was an answer from the earliest days of civilization: People have always been crazy." He covers the demonstrations and the denunciations of war. "French ideas, French beliefs, and French actions form a sort of lodestone for humanity. A moral compass needle needs a butt end. Wherever direction France is pointing--toward collaboration with Nazis, accommodation with communists, existentialism, Jerry Lewis, or a UN resolution veto--we can go the other way with a quiet conscience." Finally he arrives in Baghdad with the U.S. Army and, standing in one of Saddam's palaces, decides, "If a reason for invading Iraq was needed, felony interior decorating would have sufficed." "Peace Kills is P. J. O'Rourke as both incisive reporter and absurdist, relevant and irreverent, with a clear eye for everyone's confusion, including his own. O'Rourke understands that peace is sometimes one of themost troubling aspects of war.

What people are saying

Review: Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism

User Review  - Elizabeth - Goodreads

When someone figures out what the actual point of this book is, please be so kind as to tell me. There's simply nothing here; he's not saying a single thing. The whole book is like listening to that ...

Review: Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism

User Review  - Carol - Goodreads

Saw this for $1, so I picked it up simply for the title. I wasn't sure if it would be sarcastic or making a serious anti-pacifist statement. It was not too bad because it was more like a memoir of a ...

Contents

• WHY AMERICANS HATE FOREIGN POLICY: 1
• KOSOVO November 1999: 17
• ISRAEL April 2001: 31
• 911 DIARY: 57
• EGYPT December 2001: 81
• NOBEL SENTIMENTS: 115
• WASHINGTON DC DEMONSTRATIONS April 2002: 123
• THOUGHTS ON THE EVE OF WAR: 139
• KUWAIT AND IRAQ March and April 2003: 143
• POSTSCRIPT IWO JIMA AND THE END OF MODERN WARFARE July 2003: 187

About the author

Satirist and novelist Patrick James "P. J." O'Rourke was born in 1947 in Toledo, Ohio. He graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and attended Johns Hopkins University where he received his M.A. in English. He worked for the magazine National Lampoon, eventually becoming editor-in-chief. He wrote articles such as "Foreigners Around the World". He received a writing credit for National Lampoon's Lemmings which helped launch the careers of John Belushi and Chevy Chase. In 1981, he left the magazine to write screenplays (including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money). O'Rourke contributes regularly to such magazines as Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The American Spectator, The New Republic, and Rolling Stone (for which he is Foreign Affairs Desk Chief). Patrick O'Rourke has published 15 books including three New York Times bestsellers. His bestselling novels include Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, and All the Troubles in the World.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism
• Author: P. J. O'Rourke
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Grove Press, 2005
• ISBN: 0802141986, 9780802141989
• Length: 224 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / 21st Century; Humor / Topic / Political; Political Science / Essays; Political Science / International Relations / General