All the Missing Souls

A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals

By: David Scheffer

Narrated by: Clinton Wade

Within days of Madeleine Albright's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1993, she instructed David Scheffer to spearhead the historic mission to create a war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As senior adviser to Albright and then as President Clinton's ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Scheffer was at the forefront of the efforts that led to criminal tribunals for the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and that resulted in the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court.

All the Missing Souls is Scheffer's gripping insider's account of the international gamble to prosecute those responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and to redress some of the bloodiest human rights atrocities in our time. Scheffer reveals the truth behind Washington's failures during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the anemic hunt for notorious war criminals, how American exceptionalism undercut his diplomacy, and the perilous quests for accountability in Kosovo and Cambodia. He takes readers from the killing fields of Sierra Leone to the political back rooms of the U.N. Security Council, providing candid portraits of major figures such as Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake, Richard Goldstone, Louise Arbour, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, Richard Holbrooke, and Wesley Clark, among others. A stirring personal account of an important historical chapter, All the Missing Souls provides new insights into the continuing struggle for international justice.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2012 Princeton University PTTM (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Excellent Material, Disastrous Delivery

This review reflects the audiobook performance, not the quality of the underlying text, which appears—judging from the content—to be thoughtful and potentially excellent in print.

Unfortunately, the narration is so fundamentally flawed that it renders the audiobook version nearly unlistenable. The narrator delivers the text in an unvaried, monotonous tone, devoid of emphasis, pacing, or emotional inflection. Scenes that clearly demand gravity, tension, or nuance are read with the same flat cadence as transitional exposition, stripping the work of its depth and intent.

More troubling is the apparent lack of preparation. The repeated mispronunciation of character names and place names suggests that the narrator did not take even minimal time to familiarize himself with the material. This is not a minor distraction; it is jarring, immersion-breaking, and ultimately disrespectful to both the author and the listener.

Audiobook narration is not merely reading aloud—it is performance and stewardship of the text. In this case, the narrator fails on both counts. A book that likely deserves a strong rating on its merits alone is reduced to a frustrating experience due entirely to its delivery.

I strongly recommend experiencing this work in print or ebook form instead.

This narration does not merely fall short; it actively undermines the work it is meant to convey.