Product Description

John Agresto spent a little over nine months in Iraq. His job, was to help Iraq rebuild its once highly regarded education system. As he left Iraq, Agresto was asked by the Pentagon to write a few paragraphs for the future about this formative and transitional time; from those paragraphs Mugged by Reality was born.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167358 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 202 pages

Customer Reviews

A must read this election year
It seems that many pundits and politicians visit Iraq only to add credibility to their pre-existing notions. It is a nice change to see someone who bases his views on reality rather filters facts to fit his views.

Not Enough
The author jumps around a lot making scattered points, starting from the premise that Saddam's tyranny was unlike any previous tyranny (Saddam himself had a Ph.D.) and chronicling the many deaths he saw (three dozen professors) while making passing observations about terrorist fanaticism (it's a form of love), intellectual prostitution (teaching), the Iraqi culture (lazy, untrustworthy, entitlement-driven), and USAID screwups. He warns America never to invade a country again "for" a people or in the name of freedom. He makes some small remarks about liberal arts and the lowering of educational benchmarks, but largely this book is a neoconservative recantation. I suspect the author was too closely involved in his topic to write a detached essay on the problems of higher education in post-conflict situations. Look elsewhere for that.

Mugged by Reality
If you truly want to understand the situation in Iraq, you must read this book.