Early Reviews for “WAR: The Afterparty”

Are you interested in politics and foreign affairs? Would you love to embark on a great adventure, but don’t have the time to spend or the gumption to stroll into who-knows-what? Then join Brian on his amazing escapade. Read this book and you can be right there with him as he makes his way around the world and through modern history, interviewing those in the know about the effects of some of the decisions our leaders have made, hopefully with the effect of pushing us to do better in our present circumstances. Brian provides helpful information along the way, but generally lets you come to your own conclusions — high-level analysis is for the most part reserved for the Afterword. There are no easy answers to questions of how and when the US should inject itself into difficult situations in far-flung places. But understanding what’s gone wrong in the past is a good place to start.

This book puts our foreign policy mis-adventures in a completely new light. Amazing chutzpah from a journeyman journalist who managed to get himself around the world and back — including two active war zones. From taking one of the most powerful Imams in Afghanastan over his appalling incitement of violence that lead to a woman’s death by stoning, to a face-off with a leader of the Nicaraguan Contras, Gruber teases out what happens after the cameras, troops and attention move on — or don’t. This is a must-read for anyone who wonders about our foreign policy How did we get here? Gruber has a few answers.

Brian’s book is in the great tradition of true detectives on the beat investigating a case and chasing down the witnesses. Working the leads. Sometimes the beat is as interesting as the clues. The streets. Brian has lots to say about that as well as a brilliant analysis of his case– that is, what war and clandestine operations have done to the global population. This journey is filled with interviews with major figures in those wars and Brian stares into the heart of darkness with the eyes of Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and a clear minded Hunter S. Thompson.

War: The Afterparty is silently passionate and immensely satisfying to read. A brilliant and thoughtful new-work— Gruber glides from one country to the next, each more fascinating than the one before. He travels to several countries and interviews the most ordinary citizens about the conflicts and the wars we left behind – nuanced, yet simple to understand.
War: The Afterparty is about the true human meaning and consequences of our wars. This is not another war or political book, but of the few truly great and enduring.
The proper question Gruber ask for the readers to contemplate is “… do we accomplish in war what we say we will and were the benefits of our interventions worth the costs? After the party is over, what are the war’s real effects”?