A review by brannigan
Interventions: A Life in War and Peace by Kofi Annan

3.0

Not as interesting as I'd hoped. Less of a memoir and more of an exoneration/justification of his actions during his time as UN sec-general, Annan comes across by turns as a messiah and a badass. There are no shocking revelations - Annan's accounts of various key events (Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq) toe the party line of majority public opinion. The focus is very much on these high-profile conflicts as well as the Millennium Development Goals, and there was no mention of the more obscure human rights issues going on around the world, for example in Western Sahara.

All things considered, a good read and a decent modern history of the UN, but I was expecting a lot more from this unique perspective.