The Diaries Of Sir Ernest Satow, British Envoy In Peking (1900-06) - Volume Two Book

I picked this book up on a whim and then put off reading it based on my perceptions of the genre. I always expect political books to be dry and boring, going into details that I am not interested in in too much detail and skipping over the things I am interested in.

This was not the case with this books. Meyer has written an interesting and witty book that held my attention throughout. At times he seemed to wander off topic but that made it seem like you were in a conversation with him and something that he said triggered another memory. I found that it help the book rather than hindered it.

I think that this is an interesting and informative read for anyone on either side of the 'pond'. It gives great insight into how politics and diplomacy are done on both sides. I think that there are negative things that Mayer says about both the British and the Americans. If you are very sensitive to insult you may not want to read it. He is very fair about it though and his comments are not blind stabs just to insult but reflection of what he has seen and heard.

If you are going to read this just for information on the Iraq war then you are going to be disappointed as this is covered only in the last couple of chapters. I actually found these to be the least interesting chapters. There is more coverage of 9/11 and the aftermath though.

I found it to be a balanced view of a very interesting period of time. I think it is one of the least biased (of course not completely unbiased) views of the time by someone who was present and observed much of what happened. There is no way to know if this view is correct though and I have not read much on the subject before.

Before reading I read a few reviews about the book and would like to comment on them. The first review that I read said that it was a book that should not have been written as it was too revealing 'a tell all'. I did not find this to be the case at all. Yes it was revealing but certainly not in a tabloid way. I actually found Meyer to be quite discrete and he avoided being too negative about people and did not name many of the people he was talking about.

The second review said that Meyer was completely anti Labour. Once again I did not find this to be the case. He actually seemed to be very positive about some of the people in New Labour. Yes he did have major issues with them but he explained the situation well and I think that had those things happened to me I would have been much more negative.