Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2007)

Imperial Life in the Emerald City is a journalists account of living in the green zone in occupied Iraq and their effectiveness of lack of it in running the country. It is clear that Chandrasekaran has a great deal of time for the soldiers and ordinary workers and feels that many of them are trying to do a hard job in a difficult place. Nonetheless it is also clear that he is also sceptical about the motives and abilities of the army in general. His Indian ethnicity perhaps gives him a perspective that Caucasian journalists would not necessarily have to the same extent and he makes frequent forays to the red zone to see what the Iraqis have to say. Overall an interesting book, but it would have been more worthwhile if he had spent more time in Iraq proper rather than simply staying with the Americans.