Search - Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy

The clever title of this book immediately caught my attention as I was browsing in the new arrivals section of a local new/used book store. I definitely wasn't disappointed.

This true story about the United Nations Oil for Food Program in Iraq reads like a novel. At first I laughed; then in the later chapters, I realized I wasn't laughing anymore. One reviewer aptly calls Mr. Soussan's situation in the huge U.N. bureaucracy "Kafkaesque."

Even though I work for a much smaller bureaucracy (a local city government), there are just certain qualities that I believe are present in any government entity. This book gives such a spot-on description of individual human nature and of how we as humans behave in the organizations we create.

I'll end with another quote from the book jacket, by Nicholas Von Hoffman, who says, "The funniest, saddest, most heart wrenching, and most infuriating book on a topic that usually puts people to sleep."