The Ugly American

by Wiliam J. Lederer, Eugene Burdick

Overview

The multi-million-copy bestseller that coined the phrase for tragic American blunders abroad.

In the episode that lends the book its title, the "ugly American" is Homer Atkins, a plain and plain-spoken man, who has been sent by the U.S. government to advise the Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan on engineering projects. When Atkins finds badly misplaced priorities and bluntly challenges the entrenched interests, he lays bare a foreign policy gone dangerously wrong.

First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing exposé of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. In linked stories and vignettes, the book uses gripping storytelling to draw a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393318678
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/17/1999
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	960L (what's this?)

About the Author

Eugene Burdick was a political scientist and author of The Ugly American, Fail-Safe, and other books.

William J. Lederer (1912-2009) was was a former U.S. Navy captain and the co-author of The Ugly American (with Eugene Burdick), The Mirages of Marriage (with Don D. Jackson), and other books.

Table of Contents

A Note From the Authors vii

1 Lucky, Lucky Lou #1 1

2 Lucky, Lucky Lou #2 22

3 Nine Friends 31

4 Everybody Loves Joe Bing 54

5 Confidential and Personal 62

6 Employment Opportunities Abroad 65

7 The Girl Who Got Recruited 70

8 The Ambassador and the Working Press 74

9 Everyone Has Ears 79

10 The Ragtime Kid 95

11 The Iron of War 100

12 The Lessons of War 117

Editorial Reviews

"To make use of the truth, unbelievable truth... William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick wrote this devastating indictment of American policy [in Southeast Asia] as fiction. But any correspondent who has been any length of time in the locale of the story will recognize its veracity."

New York Times Book Review - Robert Trumbull

"Both enlightening and absorbing reading, with humor and wit."

Boston Herald

"Not only important but consistently entertaining."

New York Times

"A very important bombshell."

New York Herald Tribune

"A delightfully readable book."

James A. Michener

"Slashing.... Draw[s] the reader into a vital subject rarely treated by fiction."

Time

"A powerful, searching book."

|Los Angeles Times

"Slashing.… Draw[s] the reader into a vital subject rarely treated by fiction."

Time