Who Hates Whom: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up A Woefully Incomplete Guide

This book is a must read for any curious, concerned human being living anywhere. I would particulary urge any and all highschool students to pick up this book. Harris has essentially written a 101 primer on dozens of wars all over the world, done in a highly readable, comedic way. The most fun I've probably ever had reading about awful things. I'm not quite sure how, but the writer has a way of making even complex, depressing material seem simple and accessible.

Despite what we're constantly told, we don't live in the Age of Information. We live in the Age of Crappy, Useless Information. TV continuously shows us pictures of things blowing up all over the world. But they never provide any context, so you end up with the impression Planet Earth is simultaneously boring, confusing and extremely dangerous. That's why "Who Hates Whom" is such a wonderful and useful book. Read it, and suddenly the uprising in Burma (now all over TV) isn't just a morass of random violence, but the next chapter in an ongoing drama that ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE. Suddenly the NY Times story today (October 7, 2007) about mass rape in Congo isn't just about hideous human depravity springing out at us from nowhere, but hideous human depravity that grows out of a 130 year-long history of extreme violence. Likewise with Iraq, Colombia, Kashmir, and 28 other chapters. Of course, this much horrible information in one place would normally be unbearably depressing. But Bob Harris is such a clear, succinct, hilarious writer the whole thing is, amazingly enough, a genuine pleasure to read. You will never laugh more about worldwide human suffering. (Or rather, about the universal human behaviors that lead to worldwide suffering -- Harris' humanity and decency come through more clearly in 200 short pages than the World Bank can manage in 10,000 stultifying reports.) And he closes with a believable case for why everything you've just read should actually make you optimistic about human potential. Maybe. So get this for yourself, and for anyone you know with the least interest in the outside world. Your brains and souls will thank you.

Just as he did with Trebekistan, where he gave the skinny on the world of "Jeopardy," Bob Harris has delivered another long overdue book, this time in the form of a guide to modern human hostilities. Who Hates Whom, sadly, will come in handy more often than you can guess. Just keep it on your coffee table permanently, so when the evening news comes on, you can really understand what they're talking about. Just last night I watched the situation in Myanmar blow up and went to pages 101-105. Next was an escalation in Darfur - pages 64-68. At this rate, the book will be worn out in a week.

This is the kind of book that's been needed for a long time. It's a quick, surprisingly funny guide to all those things on the news that you know you ought to know about but don't. You get the history of the conflicts in a given area, who the main players are, and what they're fighting about. Suddenly, things get a lot clearer. It's not a book you feel like you need to read cover-to-cover, either, although you might find yourself doing that anyway, getting pulled along by the humor. Instead, you can use it as a quick reference the next time you find yourself wondering about what the deal is in Burma, for example. You're going to want to keep it next to your television or newspaper. The maps are great too. I found that a lot of times I got a sense of what the main thrust of a conflict was just by looking at the map. Harris has done a good job -- in the maps and in the text -- with boiling things down to the essential points, so you can see the situation for yourself. The book is more than a painless way to educate yourself -- it's a funny way to educate yourself.

Bob explains everything, fairly and honestly, probably getting something wrong or not to your political taste, but not for lack of trying to get it right, considering, you know, he's a gameshow contestant. And he's funny. Which is saying something, considering most of the time he's describing genocide. Even better, just like in his memoir Prisoner of Trebekistan (which you should read if you haven't), you get to the end, and somehow, this wise-guy know-it-all ends up sneaking past you and becoming very moving and wise. Go figure.