Andrew Mueller

A liberal rationalist Anglo-Australian rock journo goes to the world’s trouble spots to try and get his head around why, in some places, differing groups just won’t stop hating each other, while elsewhere they have worked out that there are more worthwhile things to be doing with their lives, and are content to rub along together.

Each trip is described in a chapter, and they are interesting, insightful, and in places, funny. You might find his point of view irritating if you are right wing or ultra-religious, but as the chapters on the Netherlands (and England) in the wake of the Mohammed-cartoons debacle point out, that’s your problem to get over.

If I have any quibbles, they are two: first, that his style of long, complex sentences (and yes, I am susceptible to the same habit myself) sometimes slips from his control, requiring you to go back and re-read the previous sentence, adding mental punctuation, to make sense of it. And second, that there are a very few places where dodgy grammar has slipped through the editorial net. For example (from Chapter 22), “When it became too dark to take pictures, Amir took Alan and I home to meet his family.” I? Argh. Still, a couple of those in 450-odd pages aren’t too bad.… (more)