The Way of the World (Hardcover)

From the Publisher:
From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America lost its way and at the nation's struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which its survival depends. From the White House to Downing Street, from the fault-line countries of South Asia to the sands of Guantanamo, Suskind offers an astonishing story that connects world leaders to the forces waging today's shadow wars and to the next generation of global citizens. Tracking down truth and hope within the Beltway and far beyond it, Suskind delivers historic disclosures with this emotionally stirring and strikingly original portrait of the post-9/11 world.

In a sweeping, propulsive, and multilayered narrative, The Way of the World investigates how America relinquished the moral leadership it now desperately needs to fight the real threat of our era: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. Truth, justice, and accountability become more than mere words in this story. Suskind shows where the most neglected dangers lie in the story of "The Armageddon Test" -- a desperate gamble to send undercover teams into the world's nuclear black market to frustrate the efforts of terrorists trying to procure weapons-grade uranium. In the end, he finally reveals for the first time the explosive falsehood underlying the Iraq War and the entire Bush presidency.

While the public and political realms struggle, The Way of the World simultaneously follows an ensemble of characters in America and abroad who are turning fear and frustration into a desperate -- and often daring -- brand of human salvation. They include a striving, twenty-four-year-old Pakistani emigre, a fearless UN refugee commissioner, an Afghan teenager, a Holocaust survivor's son, and Benazir Bhutto, who discovers, days before her death, how she's been abandoned by the United States at her moment of greatest need. They are all testing American values at a time of peril, and discovering solutions -- human solutions -- to so much that has gone wrong.

For anyone hoping to exercise truly informed consent and begin the process of restoring the values and hope -- along with the moral clarity and earned optimism -- at the heart of the American tradition, The Way of the World is a must-read.

About the Author:
Ron Suskind is the author of The One Percent Doctrine, The Price of Loyalty, and A Hope in the Unseen. From 1993 to 2000 he was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their two sons.
 
Annotation:
Ronald Suskind's accounts of the behind-the-scenes drama in America's War on Terror contain a number of stunning revelations or charges, including the headline-making one that the George W. Bush administration forged a letter in order to prop up its charges of an Iraq connection to the events of September 11, 2001. As he did in his previous best seller, THE ONE-PERCENT DOCTRINE, Suskind draws on interviews with those deep within the White House, the administration, and the intelligence community. He also traces many global connections, as he ultimately shows that America has lost the moral high ground and cannot effectively fight what Suskind sees as a very real threat to our national security.