Bob Harris' "Who Hates Whom"

This book is categorized by the publisher a "humor" but it is really history/contemporary affairs. It is a good historical review -- leavened with humour -- of the world's hotspots and the story of what's behind these conflicts. It's a mad dash, but a good overview. It hammers home the point that so much of the turmoil in the world is idiotic, but gruesomely relentless in its violence. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

Here's a taste of some of the humor:

Prepare to be confused. The UK is a union of four countries -- England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland --- three of whom are the largest remnants of a once-global empire. But 80 percent of the population lives in England, so people often confuse "England" with "UK," which it isn't.

"Great Britain" isn't the UK, either; it's the island where England is. The "British Isles" would be Great Britain plus Ireland, except the phrase annoys Ireland, which isn't British. But a "Briton" is from anywhere in the UK, including Northern Ireland. Which, if you look at a map, doesn't include the northernmost part of Ireland. And when a British person says "Europe," they mean Europe except for the UK, even though the UK is part of Europe.

Another example that isn't humourous, but shows the light hand he uses to retell history:

Guatemala spent the early 20th century built around the interest of United Fruit (now Chiquita), its biggest landowner. But a 1944 revolution led to the election of Juan José Arévalo, who supported labor unions, universal suffrage, and workers' rights. His successor, Jacobo Arbenz, went further, legalizing the communist party (among others) and attempting a clever land reform: claiming that United Fruit had cheated on its taxes by pretending its land was worth a fraction of its true value. Arbenz proposed to buy the land for exactly what they said it was worth.

To Washington,this might as well have been a Soviet invasion. The newly formed CIA set up a propaganda apparatus to freak out the locals, hooked up rightist Col. Carlos Castillo Armas with some half-competent rebels... and lucked out. Although Armas' men got their butts kicked at first, Arbenz's generals believed a full-scale U.S. invasion was imminient, so they weenied out. Armas, the CIA, and United Fruit were in.