s a biographer myself, I really enjoyed Packer's voice and style in this biography. It can be quite insightful and downright humorous at times. Richard Holbrooke is a lively subject who served every Democratic administration in some capacity from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. Being best friends with then Secretary of State Dean Rusk's son certainly didn't hurt. But it is telling that while Holbrooke was a gifted networker who amassed a staggering amount of friendships and acquaintances among the elite, he repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary capability to poison those relationships and alienate these same powerful people. While Rusk served as something of a pseudo father figure to Holbrook, Holbrooke still managed to estrange him. This pattern repeated over and again. Packer, who himself was among Holbrooke's numerous acquaintances, doesn't shy away from the fact that Holbrooke was, to be blunt, an asshole. We get some interesting glimpses of the presidents, bureaucratic battles, turf wars, policy-making, and, most of all, diplomacy in Our Man. ( )

Engrossing—George Packer is a master storyteller who takes what, in other hands, could be a dry retelling of a man’s life and makes it an absolute page turner.

Packer is clear-eyed about Holbrooke’s flaws, critiquing him without falling into invective, and highlights his strengths without degenerating into romanticization.

While I would have liked a little bit more analysis of Holbrooke’s life as allegory for the US, I can appreciate Packer’s restraint where so many writers are heavy handed, hitting the reader over the head with their metaphor.

Overall an excellent read, and highly recommended for politics and history nerds. ( )

Richard Holbrooke started his career in Vietnam and finished it trying to end the Afghan war. The author links Holbrooke’s career and diplomatic approach with the end of the American Century. He was the last to be able to pursue American-led multilateral efforts to solve international issues. In this view, he was the last of a kind (including before him Harriman and Kennan) and the role of American power inevitably declined in the 21st century in a post-super power world. The author sums up Holbrook’s “doctrine” as American leadership in managing chaos to bring hope to desperate places in working with other democracies under UN/US leadership to defeat enemies.

Because of his junior role in the Rural Affairs program in Vietnam, he obviously had little influence on that conflict, but the lessons he learned stayed with him until the end of his life, to the frustration of Obama and others who got tired of repeated references to the Vietnam experiences in dealing with more recent crises. He also had little impact on resolving the Afghanistan war because he was never given the scope of authority he thought he needed to try to deal with the Taliban in the broader context of the roles of Pakistan, Iran and India. In addition, if he had had the full authority he wanted (and had not died at the end of 2009), the author notes that the sheer magnitude of the issues might have defeated him.

His greatest achievement was to bring peace to the Bosnian Civil War. It was a perfect scenario for shuttle diplomacy and knocking heads together at Dayton. As an Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia in the Clinton Administration, an unsung achievement was putting together the international framework for dealing with refugees. As Ambassador to the UN, he succeeded in getting the US Congress to provide financial support that the UN desperately needed, and he also made important contributions as Ambassador to Germany.

He never achieved his goal of becoming Secretary of State. Despite his talents as a strategic thinker and practical doer, his aggressive self-promotion efforts and lack of antennae in personal relations led him to be disliked by many of his contemporaries, although he was signally successful in cultivating the more senior generation, exemplified by his relationship with Averell Harriman. Personal conflicts with Tony Lake, Barack Obama, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and others held him back, although with the possible exception of Tony Lake none of his opponents come across positively in terms of their abilities in the diplomatic arena. In time, political leaders like the Clintons and others would get over the personal issues because they realized they needed his talents. In summing up Holbrooke, the author states that he had great egotism combined with great idealism which enabled him to accomplish real-world diplomatic achievements but also held him back in the bureaucracy and politics.

The book also gives a lot of attention to his business and personal life, including details on his three wives and several girlfriends, some of which get intimate.

PS: As indicated above, Holbrooke also approached Afghanistan as in many ways comparable to Vietnam. Others in the Obama Administration maintained it was different. But we have recently learned from the Washington Post that the US government routinely misled the public by "exaggerating" the progress in Afghanistan, which reminds one of the earlier war. ( )

Very comprehensive and in depth saga of a very brilliant and challenging American. I learned a lot about the State Department's actions and dramas related to the Vietnam War, the Bosnian War and the war in Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke tried to have folks see that actions were being repeated and lessons not learned, but politics got in the way. He certainly gave it everything he had and it literally killed him. A very powerful story! ( )

A thorough and gossipy biography of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Well written and dense, it was hard to put down and yet draining at times. I don't read much 20th-century history, so even though I lived through most of it, I learned a great deal about American foreign policy over the past 50 years, from Vietnam to Bosnia to Afghanistan. At times I was taken aback at how much Packer seems to dislike Holbrooke, not to mention Averell and Pam Harriman, Madeleine Albright, Peter Jennings, Clark Clifford, Christopher Warren, etc., etc., and he makes excellent arguments for why working with any of them would be a nightmare (or competing with your fellows to get their attention). These people "in the treetops" are awful to each other, have fake marriages, and only occasionally make the world a better place despite their PR. Anyway, highly recommended as an overview of American foreign policy and Washington's power scene over the past half century, but buckle your seat belt! ( )