"Victory at Tripoli," or how to not write History

Every few weeks, we get some new books for the American Corner. Not too long ago, we received a book called Victory at Tripoli by Joshua E. London. It's a book on the American experience with the Barbary Pirates in the early 1800's.

A glance at the back inside cover gives you a quick biography on the author. Included in his body of work are articles for the National Review Online and Details: Promoting Jewish Conservative Values. The inside of the front cover includes this rather subtle text:

"As a new century dawned, a newly elected U.S. president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation - an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists sworn to carry out a jihad against all Western powers. Worse still, these fanatics operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators. As timely and familiar as these events may seem, they occurred more than two centuries ago. The president was Thomas Jefferson, and the terrorists were the Barbary pirates of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli."

By the first page, I had already read the phrase "piratical Muslim overlords." Doesn't that just roll off the tongue? Talk about nice, non-biased wording as well... not exactly the way I was supposed to write my history thesis on Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, this type of terminology persisted all the way through the introduction. Here's another gem from the last part:

"The ravages of war and the exigencies of survival pushed the Muslim North Africans into permanent battle mode, and the glory of jihad was better known, and more devotedly sought, than the long-term benefits of a stable, liberal, and egalitarian regime."

And of course, this means fertile ground to pump up America:

"The story of America's struggle against the terror of piracy in the Mediterranean stands as testament to the essential American tributes that have given rise to American exceptionalism: the problem-solving mindset of the individual overcoming life's difficulties through brains and talent, faith and strength of purpose, and guts and perseverance."

Anyways, I feel that there's very little point in quoting beyond this so what we can all retain our meals. My biggest problem with this book is that it is a potentially very fascinating story cloaked in dually destructive layers of neoconservative, war-hawk propaganda and absolutely awful prose - this guy is one of the worst writers I've ever read, and I've proof-read some pretty bad English as a third language pieces here.

I don't really know who this writer thinks he's helping. It sure as hell isn't the American people. I don't care if you wear a "Git-R-Done" trucker hat and watch Fox News, this isn't helping your comprehension of the Middle East.

Now people might be asking, "Isaac, why are you picking on this poor guy and his shamefully propagandistic and jingoistic book?"

Well, the reason is quite simple: because it's assholes like this guy that make what I'm trying to do over here just a bit harder. Luckily I got to this book before some Tunisian tried to read it and took offense at the blatantly simple usages of the words terrorism, jihad, and Muslim. I know another guy who uses simple, dumbed-down language for complex geopolitical events - his name is George W. Bush.