The #1 New York Times bestseller from “one of America’s most hilarious and provocative writers . . . a volatile brew of one-liners and vitriol” (Time). Renowned for his cranky conservative humor, P. J. O’Rourke runs hilariously amok in this book, tackling the death of communism; his frustration with sanctimonious liberals; and Saddam Hussein in a series of classic dispatches from his coverage of the 1991 Gulf War. On Kuwait City after the war, he comments, “It looked like all the worst rock bands in the world had stayed there at the same time.” On Saddam Hussein, O’Rourke muses: “He’s got chemical weapons filled with . . . with . . . chemicals. Maybe he’s got The Bomb. And missiles that can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Spokane. Stock up on nonperishable foodstuffs. Grab those Diet Coke cans you were supposed to take to the recycling center and fill them with home heating oil. Bury the Hummel figurines in the yard. We’re all going to die. Details at eleven.” And on the plague of celebrity culture, he notes: “You can’t shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity.” Mordant and utterly irreverent, this is a modern classic from one of our great political satirists, described by Christopher Buckley as being “like S. J. Perelman on acid.” “Mocking on the surface but serious beneath . . . When it comes to scouting the world for world-class absurdities, O’Rourke is the right man for the job.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “The funniest writer in America.” —The Wall Street Journal

“This lively appreciation of one of the most intimidating and massive novels ever written should persuade many hesitant readers to try scaling the heights of War and Peace sooner rather than later” (Publishers Weekly). Considered by many critics the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is also one of the most feared. And at 1,500 pages, it’s no wonder why. Still, in July 2009 Newsweek put War and Peace at the top of its list of 100 great novels and a 2007 edition of the AARP Bulletin included the novel in their list of the top four books everybody should read by the age of fifty. A New York Times survey from 2009 identified Warand Peace as the world classic you’re most likely to find people reading on their subway commute to work. What might all those Newsweek devotees, senior citizens, and harried commuters see in a book about the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s? War and Peace is many things. It is a love story, a family saga, a war novel. But at its core it’s a novel about human beings attempting to create a meaningful life for themselves in a country torn apart by war, social change, political intrigue, and spiritual confusion. It is a mirror of our times. Give War and Peace a Chance takes readers on a journey through War and Peace that reframes their very understanding of what it means to live through troubled times and survive them. Touching on a broad range of topics, from courage to romance, parenting to death, Kaufman demonstrates how Tolstoy’s wisdom can help us live fuller, more meaningful lives. The ideal companion to War and Peace, this book “makes Tolstoy’s characters lively and palpable…and may well persuade readers to finally dive into one of the world’s most acclaimed—and daunting—novels” (Kirkus Reviews).

Considered by many critics to be the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is also, at 1500 pages, one of the most feared. What it is not is outdated. A love story, a family saga, a war novel. Tolstoy's epic is, at its core, about human beings attempting to create a meaningful life for themselves in a country torn apart by social change, political divisiveness, and spiritual confusion. It is nothing less than a mirror of our times.

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, , language: English, abstract: This thesis provides a nuanced assessment of the effectiveness of the UN-led mediation process in Yemen’s civil war between April 2015 and February 2018 in order to detect lessons learned for one of the main challenges of our time: effective conflict management. Based on latest developments in armed conflicts, civil wars are the most destabilizing threats in the current international system as well as the most difficult types of conflicts to manage and terminate. Especially since 2011, revolutionary dynamics and state fragility in the MENA region led to highly complex internationalized civil wars that involve major-power tensions and features of proxy-warfare. Against this backdrop, the very limits of the “standard regime” employed by the international community to manage civil wars in the post-Cold War era, namely: mediation and peacekeeping, are being tested sharply. This thesis contributes to one possible way the regime could survive, namely though lessons learned. While mich is known about UN peacekeeping, less so about UN civil war mediation. Hence, the thesis focuses on third-party mediation as the most common form of conflict management with a special emphasis on the effectiveness of the UN as a leading actor in applying this standard treatment. Through utilizing six key conditions for mediator effectiveness from Bergmann (2017) in expert interviews, the thesis finds that the low degree of UN mediator effectiveness in Yemen was mainly related to the (coherent) partisanship of the UNSC, whose Chapter VII resolution 2216 functioned as mediation mandate and rendered an impartial and balanced process impossible. This added to the missing leverage of the mediator on all sides and to the missing willingness of the parties to compromise as well as to the restraint of major P-5 and western governments to reign the regional actors in. Most apparent lessons learned include the need to reflect the complexities involved in the mandate and throughout the process. The mandate should allow for the inclusion of all actors directly or indirectly involved through negotiation formats on several levels. Incentives and disincentives need to be revised, highest priority and sufficient funds should be allocated to UN mediation and above all, an impartial and balanced process should be safeguarded against all odds as this tackles the trust in and the very credibility of the UN and the integrity of the rules-based system of international relations as a whole.