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Book Review of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict
amichai avatar reviewed on + 368 more book reviews


I think this book is the most important book I've read in a long time. At first, in fact, I found it heartbreaking.

The first author, Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University, previously wrote Making Globalization Work and Globalization and Its Discontents, and was chairman of Preseident Clnton's Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. His co-author, Linda J. Bilmes is from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and an expert in government finance, being former assistant secretary and chief financial officer of the U.S. Dept of Commerce.

Their description of the consequences of the Iraq conflict for the United States and the world, not to mention Iraq, is very measured and comprehensible. They offer concrete recommendations at the end of the book for mitigating steps to take in a new US administration (this book was written before the US Presidential election) and in the face of (inevitable?) future military conflict.