Talking to Terrorists

By: Jonathan Powell

Narrated by: Dugald Bruce Lockhart

Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Across the world governments proclaim they will never "negotiate with evil". And yet they always have done and always will. Why then do we ignore the lessons of this history of clandestine communication, often with devastating consequences?

Jonathan Powell has spent nearly two decades mediating between governments and terrorist organisations. Here he argues that with attention to the lessons of the past, patience, and above all political leadership, these conflicts can be solved.

©2014 Jonathan Powell (P)2015 W F Howes Ltd

Honest and Compelling

This book is brutally honest. And the author doesn't spare anyone from a scathing critique of their actions (or lack thereof) and motives, including his deceased father. I found especially moving the story of his own faith journey and how conflicted he still is about the beliefs of his own father, who is clearly the most influential person in his life.
I also found it refreshing when he admits that he still isn't really sure what to do about it and how to rescue the American church from itself. I feel the same way so much of the time. What should we do to rescue our church from the love for our country?
Finally, his point about worshipping the ideals of our country - instead of the ideals of Christianity - really hit home for me. He's exactly right. So many of us have substituted our love for God with love for our country. We're so blinded by our beliefs in the idea of America that we can't see that hubris and pride can destroy our country and our faith. The idea of America is special. But we Americans ourselves really aren't special. We're all flawed human beings who need God and who need each other to hold our country together.

Enlightening but long winded

Is there anything you would change about this book?

He gives many examples as evidence of his points, which is usually good but here it's distracting. All his examples are small micro stories done in a memoir'ish way. Too often the book reads as "... important point ... bunch of random sentences full of names of people I don't know ... short series of interesting events that I'm excited to learn about but instead we're going back to his long argument"

Any additional comments?

I suspect the book would have been better if rather than being organized as "point" then "examples", if it were instead written as case studies and lessons.