There are so many good nuggets in Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets that it's hard to choose just a few. I will post one more here, and then, within a few days, my review should be published and posted here.
. . . Iraq is full of potential terrorists with grudges. Had the Anglo-Americans bothered to look before they leaped, they would have seen a country that is a mix of tribes, clans, families, and religious groups--all of whom take it as an inherited obligation to avenge any wrong done to any of their own group by any member of any other group going back five generations. We cannot kill terrorists as fast as the State Department can create them, say some. . . . . Still, every great empire--from the Assyrians to the Mongols to the British--has taken Baghdad. America has to do it, too. It is the imperial script and America is right on cue.
