The good American the epic life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's greatest humanitarian
"The Good American is a story about courage, intense loneliness, and the State Department's golden age during the late Cold War and post-Cold War. It is also a celebration of ground level reporting and getting a worm's eye view of crisis zones. Robert Gersony, a high-school dropout la...
| Main Author: | Kaplan, Robert D., 1952- (Author) |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Random House,
[2021]
|
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
"The Good American is a story about courage, intense loneliness, and the State Department's golden age during the late Cold War and post-Cold War. It is also a celebration of ground level reporting and getting a worm's eye view of crisis zones. Robert Gersony, a high-school dropout later awarded a bronze star in Vietnam, spent over four decades on the ground in virtually every war and natural disaster zone in the world. Interviewing hundreds of refugees and displaced persons in each place to assess humanitarian crises, Gersony's research and thorough reports had an immense, underappreciated impact on US foreign policy across the globe. In every case, his recommendations made it smarter and more humane, often dramatically so. In his career as a journalist, Robert D. Kaplan often crossed paths with Gersony while covering the "hot" moments of the Cold War and its aftermath. Even as a biography, this is Kaplan's most personal book to date, and through Gersony's story, he makes a poignant case for how American diplomacy should be conducted--with a clear eye toward facts on the ground--at a time when diplomacy is too often being left behind."-- |
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| Physical Description: |
xviii, 521 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780525512301 0525512306 |
| Author Notes: |
He has traveled extensively, and his journeys through Yugoslavia and America have produced, respectively, Balkan Ghosts (which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize) and An Empire Wilderness. Kapan is also the author of Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (Random House, 2010) and The Revenge of Geography (Random House, 2012) Kaplan has lectured at the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff, major universities, the CIA, and business forums. (Bowker Author Biography) |