Well, this is a 300 page book, and I've read so far only about 130 -- so you can ignore this review if you want because it might be completely wrong. But it's not likely. I found this book in my school library because I read Nicholas Christopher's "Veronica," and like many others, simply adored that book. Unfortunately, so far this is NOTHING like "Veronica." This is bad. I mean, really reeeeally bad. Boring characters, has practically no plot (none that I can detect anyway), extremely annoying style, all in all reads like a soap opera -- actually, probably most soap opera are better than this. Time and time again I find it hard to believe that this was written by the same man who wrote "Veronica." But sadly it's true. So far all we know is this piano soloist's romantic conquests -- he just goes through his list of ex-wives and ex-lovers one by one for us. Oh and his family too -- father, mother, sister, uncle, therapist ... Worse than even your average laundry list. Almost none of them interesting, none of them has any story to tell -- it's the same boring format every time: "now I remember how I met Greta/Sarah/etc." Flat and uninteresting beyond belief. So far (almost half of the book) I can see no discernable trace of a plot (unlike in Veronica where the readers are plunged right into the middle of a fantastic world right along with the narrator), just this one guy goes on and on about his life. The only remotely interesting character is his first wife Orana who is dying of a mysterious disease -- but he only gives the reader altogether about 10 pages about her.

I seriously doubt if I have the courage to continue reading. What a disappointment. Ughh.

To print this book, is a crime againist nature, because the waste of trees to make the paper. This books was predictable, and uninteresting. Characters were unrealistic and had no connecting character traits. The plot was plain STUPID! Don't read this book.

The author both underwrites and overestimates the possibility of Neo-Facist groups coming to power. He is unobjective because he gives the opinion that these groups could be elected, therefore democracy is capable of hijacking itself, so he argues these political parties should be outlawed. He goes so far as to give the reader the impression that the whole nation of France is either Facist or ambivlient to Facism because the French police killed a suspected Algerian terrorist. The author gives to many personal opinions rather than a to the point analysis of groups like the Austrian Freedom Party and the French National Front to make the book a true literary work documenting the rise of neo-facism in Europe.

This brief, poorly written, 180 page monograph is hardly an indepth analysis of the ICRC role in the post-Cold War era. I expected a little more detail and a little more scholarship. I do not recommend it.