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All the Trouble in the World
With All the Trouble in the World, P. J. O'Rourke once again landed on best-seller lists around the country, confirming his reputation as the pre-eminent political humorist of our time. Attacking fashionable worries - all those terrible problems that are constantly on our minds and in the news, but about which most of us have no real clue - P. J. crisscrosses the globe in search of solutions to today's most vexing issues, including overpopulation, famine, plague, and multiculturalism, and in the process produces a hilarious and informative book which ensures that the concept of political correctness will never be the same again. "One of the funniest, most insightful, dead-on-the-money books of the year." - Los Angeles Times; "All the Trouble in the World is O'Rourke's best work since Parliament of Whores." - The Houston Post; "The dispatches are unfailingly funny....Mr. O'Rourke gets to the heart of the matter with a steady stream of wisecracks....Economists, political scientists and sociologists are inclined to approach the ills of society with regression analysis. P. J. O'Rourke just points and laughs. Not surprisingly, it is Mr. O'Rourke who gets it right." - The Washington Times; "Bottom Buy the book." - The Wall Street Journal.
340 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
P.J. O'Rourke
114 books487 followersPatrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. Since 2011 O'Rourke has been a columnist at The Daily Beast. In the United Kingdom, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s.
He is the author of 20 books, of which his latest, The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again), was released January 2014. This was preceded on September 21, 2010, by Don't Vote! – It Just Encourages the Bastards, and on September 1, 2009, Driving Like Crazy with a reprint edition published on May 11, 2010. According to a 60 Minutes profile, he is also the most quoted living man in The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations.
He is the author of 20 books, of which his latest, The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again), was released January 2014. This was preceded on September 21, 2010, by Don't Vote! – It Just Encourages the Bastards, and on September 1, 2009, Driving Like Crazy with a reprint edition published on May 11, 2010. According to a 60 Minutes profile, he is also the most quoted living man in The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
February 6, 2024
Congratulations, PJ O’Rourke, you were partly responsible for the morons on America’s ultra-right fringe today who have no use for science, government, and civility. Teabaggers today don't have the slightest idea of what happened during our 2008 financial meltdown and thus were easily talked into blaming it all on home owners drowning in debt on variable rate mortgages they didn't understand, school teachers who have the temerity to earn a middle class wage, and Mexican immigrants who actually pay into our social programs yet benefit little from their hard work. They cheer for creeps who make a billion dollars a year and more on stock speculation while their own modest portfolios go down the toilet.
His poo-pooing of everything liberal and progressive was pretty easy pickings when you don’t have the responsibility of having your own answers for the problems others are attempting to solve. Don’t like environmental laws of any sort? Move to fucking China which is a free market paradise…just don’t try to breathe the air or drink the water or eat the food. Love strip mining? Then move your family near one of these eco-nightmares. Labor laws? Who needs them? Only people who work in dangerous trades which before labor safety laws meant a good chance of not living to retirement.
Sure, the fruitcakes inhabiting some of the outer limits of liberal doctrine are fatuous and I don't even consider most of them to be liberal, at least not how I define liberalism. To me, the only thing that really matters is economic justice while everything else takes the back seat. The social issues that make up the liberal agenda these days just seem like common sense, or they will 20 years from now while conservatives have to be dragged kicking and screaming towards any sort of social progress. In the end, I'll take fatuous silly people over completely crazy nitwits who still are talking about no government regulation of financial markets, safety concerns, guns, or environmental issues.
He mentions that he worked for the Kato Institute which he describes as a “think tank.” In all of history there has never been a worse euphemism for a proto-fascist propaganda mill. He talks of being a “libertarian” which is the dumbest, most intellectually mendacious label ever coined in politics. No thinking goes on at these places. They start with the answer and work backwards, mostly inventing bullshit to support their lies.
I have been reading O’Rourke since the mid 80’s and I can’t for the life of me remember why I ever thought that he was funny. Today, he is such a pathetic jerk trying to sit with the cool people (liberals) on programs like Real Time. Sorry, dude, you have been a complete ass your entire career as a political journalist. What is really amazing is how someone who has had so many advantages—those of money and travel—could be so completely clueless and devoid of anything resembling empathy.
Fuck this guy who grew up in an America where advantages were given to many people, and now that he has his, he wants to pull away the safety nets. More than anything, O'Rourke wanted to be a hyper-rich, Brahmin class asshole, but he went to Miami of Ohio and not Yale. He did achieve asshole status on his own merit. As I already said, congratulations.
His poo-pooing of everything liberal and progressive was pretty easy pickings when you don’t have the responsibility of having your own answers for the problems others are attempting to solve. Don’t like environmental laws of any sort? Move to fucking China which is a free market paradise…just don’t try to breathe the air or drink the water or eat the food. Love strip mining? Then move your family near one of these eco-nightmares. Labor laws? Who needs them? Only people who work in dangerous trades which before labor safety laws meant a good chance of not living to retirement.
Sure, the fruitcakes inhabiting some of the outer limits of liberal doctrine are fatuous and I don't even consider most of them to be liberal, at least not how I define liberalism. To me, the only thing that really matters is economic justice while everything else takes the back seat. The social issues that make up the liberal agenda these days just seem like common sense, or they will 20 years from now while conservatives have to be dragged kicking and screaming towards any sort of social progress. In the end, I'll take fatuous silly people over completely crazy nitwits who still are talking about no government regulation of financial markets, safety concerns, guns, or environmental issues.
He mentions that he worked for the Kato Institute which he describes as a “think tank.” In all of history there has never been a worse euphemism for a proto-fascist propaganda mill. He talks of being a “libertarian” which is the dumbest, most intellectually mendacious label ever coined in politics. No thinking goes on at these places. They start with the answer and work backwards, mostly inventing bullshit to support their lies.
I have been reading O’Rourke since the mid 80’s and I can’t for the life of me remember why I ever thought that he was funny. Today, he is such a pathetic jerk trying to sit with the cool people (liberals) on programs like Real Time. Sorry, dude, you have been a complete ass your entire career as a political journalist. What is really amazing is how someone who has had so many advantages—those of money and travel—could be so completely clueless and devoid of anything resembling empathy.
Fuck this guy who grew up in an America where advantages were given to many people, and now that he has his, he wants to pull away the safety nets. More than anything, O'Rourke wanted to be a hyper-rich, Brahmin class asshole, but he went to Miami of Ohio and not Yale. He did achieve asshole status on his own merit. As I already said, congratulations.
December 6, 2012
Kind of weird to read a (what is admittedly a well written, for the form) right wing screed from the mid 90's today. LOTS of stuff that would go over like a fart in church, i.e. constantly tying abortion to black people (Fun fact, actually worked at an abortion clinic, VERY high percentage of white people there. Solid majority.) throwing the homeless under the bus as a bunch of crack addicts, and a wierd, overwhelming obsession with Gore and Hillary. I guess it's nice to be reassured that the inability of a Republican to discuss anything without tying it into either how free market principles have made it good, or the boogeyman dujour has made it bad/wants to take it away isn't new, i.e Soros and Obama, but it is funny how we seem not to talk about Gore's omnipotent liberal meddling anymore (which as far as I can tell from this book, anyway, seems to have been writing a book, and passing laws that most Americans were in favor of at the time. Free speech and representative democracy you don't agree with: the cause of all the right's troubles.
Lots of bad analogies and false equivalencies, for instance, you don't want the GOVERNMENT cleaning up toxic waste, since THEY were the ones DUMPING in the 50's. You know, along with all the rest of society because we had our heads up our asses. And I'm sure the PJ O Rourkes of the time, who are now so outraged at the government's poor stewardship or the earth, were sniping at Rachel Carson and the rest as a bunch of loonies blowing things out of proportion (oh that's right, they still are). Also something about how an EPA regulation on chemicals in pressure treated wood was going to cost something like 5 trillion dollars, or the entire US debt at the time, except it was amortized over like a million years, so I don't actually know what the fuck he's even talking about. Makes me glad to live in the days of Wikipedia, where no one gets to say shit like that with out sources or immediately being fact-checked into the cheapseats.
Anyway, when he blunders into a topic determined to show how our stupid government is at fault, and actually FINDS something? His bit on the US Forest Service is dead on, although the real problem is Congress fucking with its funding, and I'm not sure how eliminating the department is easier than earmarking them guaranteed funds. Anyway, I'm sure if reforming it became a political issue the Republicans, himself included, would find some reason why thats a horrible idea, and it's just a stalking horse for taking away your freedoms, and putting us all in Agenda 21 concentration camps.
Also he uses "Dachsund" as a comedic image 3 times in 3 different essays in the same book. I shit you not. They were all written to be part of a book, this isn't like he has some favorite word that crops up once a year that's just concentrated in this sample of his writing. I'll overlook the shoddy politics and math and science and logic, this is a book about how everyone would be better off without any kind of society, but you're a damn humorist. The word "Dachsund" is like the word "cheese" or "monkey", not really all that funny, though I guess he can claim that the internet hadn't flogged to death any of comedy's low hanging fruit yet.
Anyway, I actually got all the way through it, which is I guess a testament to the fact that it's better written than that Ann Coulter one I tried to read, and threw down in disgust before I got through the introduction. That woman, man. Mean as a snake and twice as thin. Or is it the other way around?
And one more goddamn thing. Just having been a hippie doesn't make the principles you now hold more valid. You, like most boomers, were then and are now and will die a self centered little shit. Young self centered little shits would rather smoke fuck and listen to music than die in a rice paddy (although you are pretty upfront about that being your motivation, and rats off to ya, at least until I find a piece of yours in favor of Iraq. I know it's out there, I just have to work up the disgust to find it.), *edit - close enough, the WSJ article is behind a paywall.*and now that you're an old rich self centered shithead, it's only logical that you'd not want to share it with any of those crack heads and black ladies getting abortions. That whole "Young Republicans have no heart and Old Democrats have no brain" is bullshit. At least since Reagan, i.e. my entire life, the Republican party has been about mismanaging the public funds so their cronies, Contras, and The Ayatollah somehow (HOW THE FUCK DOES THE PARTY THAT GOT CAUGHT SELLING GUNS TO THE AYATOLLAH FUCKING KHOMEINI GET OFF HAVING THE "GIT TUFF ON TERRORISM" HIGH GROUND CEDED TO THEM BY DEFAULT)?, could get paid, and whipping up racehate sexism and homophobia as a smokescreen. Fuck you, PJ O'Rourke. Maybe I'll start bitching more about taxes when I have money to tax, but I probably won't have a problem with blacks - whoops, I meant poor, jeez it really is easy to say one when you mean the other, isn't it - getting welfare, or gays getting married, or women being able to abort rape pregnancies. Because I'm not a shithead, and I actually believe that America, while it *IS NOT* the greatest country in the world, (because that's a stupid thing to say and there's no way to measure that, except GDP, and if you think you can do it that way, you're a real asshole) it certainly is able to provide food, housing, shelter, and medical care for the indigent, and can create opportunity enough that we can allow as many Mexicans as want to, to come here. Didn't realize how much I hated you until that sentence or two I wanted to write about your crazy pressure treated wood numbers turned into 5000 words, but hey.
Lots of bad analogies and false equivalencies, for instance, you don't want the GOVERNMENT cleaning up toxic waste, since THEY were the ones DUMPING in the 50's. You know, along with all the rest of society because we had our heads up our asses. And I'm sure the PJ O Rourkes of the time, who are now so outraged at the government's poor stewardship or the earth, were sniping at Rachel Carson and the rest as a bunch of loonies blowing things out of proportion (oh that's right, they still are). Also something about how an EPA regulation on chemicals in pressure treated wood was going to cost something like 5 trillion dollars, or the entire US debt at the time, except it was amortized over like a million years, so I don't actually know what the fuck he's even talking about. Makes me glad to live in the days of Wikipedia, where no one gets to say shit like that with out sources or immediately being fact-checked into the cheapseats.
Anyway, when he blunders into a topic determined to show how our stupid government is at fault, and actually FINDS something? His bit on the US Forest Service is dead on, although the real problem is Congress fucking with its funding, and I'm not sure how eliminating the department is easier than earmarking them guaranteed funds. Anyway, I'm sure if reforming it became a political issue the Republicans, himself included, would find some reason why thats a horrible idea, and it's just a stalking horse for taking away your freedoms, and putting us all in Agenda 21 concentration camps.
Also he uses "Dachsund" as a comedic image 3 times in 3 different essays in the same book. I shit you not. They were all written to be part of a book, this isn't like he has some favorite word that crops up once a year that's just concentrated in this sample of his writing. I'll overlook the shoddy politics and math and science and logic, this is a book about how everyone would be better off without any kind of society, but you're a damn humorist. The word "Dachsund" is like the word "cheese" or "monkey", not really all that funny, though I guess he can claim that the internet hadn't flogged to death any of comedy's low hanging fruit yet.
Anyway, I actually got all the way through it, which is I guess a testament to the fact that it's better written than that Ann Coulter one I tried to read, and threw down in disgust before I got through the introduction. That woman, man. Mean as a snake and twice as thin. Or is it the other way around?
And one more goddamn thing. Just having been a hippie doesn't make the principles you now hold more valid. You, like most boomers, were then and are now and will die a self centered little shit. Young self centered little shits would rather smoke fuck and listen to music than die in a rice paddy (although you are pretty upfront about that being your motivation, and rats off to ya, at least until I find a piece of yours in favor of Iraq. I know it's out there, I just have to work up the disgust to find it.), *edit - close enough, the WSJ article is behind a paywall.*and now that you're an old rich self centered shithead, it's only logical that you'd not want to share it with any of those crack heads and black ladies getting abortions. That whole "Young Republicans have no heart and Old Democrats have no brain" is bullshit. At least since Reagan, i.e. my entire life, the Republican party has been about mismanaging the public funds so their cronies, Contras, and The Ayatollah somehow (HOW THE FUCK DOES THE PARTY THAT GOT CAUGHT SELLING GUNS TO THE AYATOLLAH FUCKING KHOMEINI GET OFF HAVING THE "GIT TUFF ON TERRORISM" HIGH GROUND CEDED TO THEM BY DEFAULT)?, could get paid, and whipping up racehate sexism and homophobia as a smokescreen. Fuck you, PJ O'Rourke. Maybe I'll start bitching more about taxes when I have money to tax, but I probably won't have a problem with blacks - whoops, I meant poor, jeez it really is easy to say one when you mean the other, isn't it - getting welfare, or gays getting married, or women being able to abort rape pregnancies. Because I'm not a shithead, and I actually believe that America, while it *IS NOT* the greatest country in the world, (because that's a stupid thing to say and there's no way to measure that, except GDP, and if you think you can do it that way, you're a real asshole) it certainly is able to provide food, housing, shelter, and medical care for the indigent, and can create opportunity enough that we can allow as many Mexicans as want to, to come here. Didn't realize how much I hated you until that sentence or two I wanted to write about your crazy pressure treated wood numbers turned into 5000 words, but hey.
January 24, 2009
His subtitles to the chapters are excellent. Overpopulation: Just enough of me, way too much of you. He helps you realize it's not population density that's a problem, it's lack of freedom and rule of law. And people who claim to worry about overpopulation are really just disguising their racism (Too many brown people).
Famine: All guns, no butter. Somalia is the case study for how you can actually have a lot of food around and people will still starve due to political repression. It was so absurd it was sad. One of his colleagues said,"Men in skirts killing each other about matters of clan. People call it barbaric savagery, add bag pipes and a golf course, and they call it Scotland."
Environment: The outdoors and how they got there. "Until very recently ordinary people spent most of their time outdoors--farming, hunting, gathering nuts and berries, pillaging the countryside in armed bands. The more contact people actually have with nature, the less likely they are to "appreciate" it in a big mushy, ecumenical way. And the more likely they are to get chiggers." His description of the chiggers he got while visiting the rain forest is awesome.
And so on. He super funny. Or I could just be hormonal. I wish I could write like him. He stares right in the face of all sorts of hideous disasters and after pointing out the absurd human errors that caused them, he gives you some hope of how a solution could come.
Famine: All guns, no butter. Somalia is the case study for how you can actually have a lot of food around and people will still starve due to political repression. It was so absurd it was sad. One of his colleagues said,"Men in skirts killing each other about matters of clan. People call it barbaric savagery, add bag pipes and a golf course, and they call it Scotland."
Environment: The outdoors and how they got there. "Until very recently ordinary people spent most of their time outdoors--farming, hunting, gathering nuts and berries, pillaging the countryside in armed bands. The more contact people actually have with nature, the less likely they are to "appreciate" it in a big mushy, ecumenical way. And the more likely they are to get chiggers." His description of the chiggers he got while visiting the rain forest is awesome.
And so on. He super funny. Or I could just be hormonal. I wish I could write like him. He stares right in the face of all sorts of hideous disasters and after pointing out the absurd human errors that caused them, he gives you some hope of how a solution could come.
March 31, 2008
"We are no longer in grave danger of the atomic war which, for nearly fifty years, threatened to annihilate humanity and otherwise upset everyone's weekend plans. The nasty, powerful and belligerent empire that was the Soviet Union has fallen apart. It's nothing now but a space on the map full of quarreling nationalities with too many k's and z's in their names--armed scrabble contestants."
"It was a world in which "nigger" was not a taboo name, but the second half of "Beavis and Butt-head" would have been."
"Nowadays we can hardly count our blessings, one of which is surely that we don't have to do all that counting--computers do it for us. Information is easily had. Education is readily available. Opportunity knocks, it jiggles the doorknob, it will try the window if we don't have the alarm system on."
"Are we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my family is."
"We whine because it works. We used to be shunned for weeping in our beer. Now we go on Oprah. If our complaint is hideous enough, we get a TV movie made about our life."
"Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy? And Worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. This is especially true if we're careful to pick the biggest possible problems to worry aboout. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes."
"Politics is the business of getting power and privelege without posessing merit."
"When are the world's political parties going to get appropriate symbols: snake, louse, jackal, outhouse, trash can, clown face, dildo, dollar bill with wings on it?"
Hunger: "Imagine a weight-loss program at the end of which, instead of better health, good looks and hot romatic prospects, you die."
"Sloths move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation and less noise."
"Olympus is a ninety-eight-hundred-foot mountain in Thessaly that nobody had bothered to climb or they would have known the gods weren't up there."
"This orb upon which our brief mortal span is tred--what a dump."
"Island logic tells us that an increase in habitat size means an increase in number of species. But it doesn't necessarily. You can build your bed as large as you like and still get very few people to sleep with you."
"Government usually doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's political. People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics, they have jobs."
"The private is preferable to the public. Which is safer, your yard or a city park? Which is cleaner, your bathroom or the pissoirs of Paris? Which is more palatable, the dinner you cook or school lunch? If you're a male bachelor under twenty-five, skip the last two questions."
"Example of an interpersonal-relationship policy requiring students to ask explicit verbal consent for every stage of phyiscal intimacy:
SHE: May I involve you in an intense emotional association of mutual interdependence and personal commitment which will lead to marriage as soon as we've graduated and thence to an increasing resentment, on your part, of the burdens of domesticity, which, combined with your regret at the loss of your youthful freedoms, will cause you, at forty, to leave me for a bimbo?
HE: Can I unhook your bra?"
"[They] maintain that 'Redskin' cannot be a bigoted term because people don't name themselves after groups they don't like. Or, as I would put it, there are no sports teams called the Miami Spics, the New York Kikes, the Detroit Niggers, the L.A. Slopes, or the Dallas Drunk White Trash."
"I saw a poster for an organization called 'Men against rape.' I was going to attend a meeting. But I didn't quite trust this group. Something to do with the name, like 'Rottweilers against mauling toddlers.'"
"Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming."
"It was a world in which "nigger" was not a taboo name, but the second half of "Beavis and Butt-head" would have been."
"Nowadays we can hardly count our blessings, one of which is surely that we don't have to do all that counting--computers do it for us. Information is easily had. Education is readily available. Opportunity knocks, it jiggles the doorknob, it will try the window if we don't have the alarm system on."
"Are we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my family is."
"We whine because it works. We used to be shunned for weeping in our beer. Now we go on Oprah. If our complaint is hideous enough, we get a TV movie made about our life."
"Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy? And Worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. This is especially true if we're careful to pick the biggest possible problems to worry aboout. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes."
"Politics is the business of getting power and privelege without posessing merit."
"When are the world's political parties going to get appropriate symbols: snake, louse, jackal, outhouse, trash can, clown face, dildo, dollar bill with wings on it?"
Hunger: "Imagine a weight-loss program at the end of which, instead of better health, good looks and hot romatic prospects, you die."
"Sloths move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation and less noise."
"Olympus is a ninety-eight-hundred-foot mountain in Thessaly that nobody had bothered to climb or they would have known the gods weren't up there."
"This orb upon which our brief mortal span is tred--what a dump."
"Island logic tells us that an increase in habitat size means an increase in number of species. But it doesn't necessarily. You can build your bed as large as you like and still get very few people to sleep with you."
"Government usually doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's political. People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics, they have jobs."
"The private is preferable to the public. Which is safer, your yard or a city park? Which is cleaner, your bathroom or the pissoirs of Paris? Which is more palatable, the dinner you cook or school lunch? If you're a male bachelor under twenty-five, skip the last two questions."
"Example of an interpersonal-relationship policy requiring students to ask explicit verbal consent for every stage of phyiscal intimacy:
SHE: May I involve you in an intense emotional association of mutual interdependence and personal commitment which will lead to marriage as soon as we've graduated and thence to an increasing resentment, on your part, of the burdens of domesticity, which, combined with your regret at the loss of your youthful freedoms, will cause you, at forty, to leave me for a bimbo?
HE: Can I unhook your bra?"
"[They] maintain that 'Redskin' cannot be a bigoted term because people don't name themselves after groups they don't like. Or, as I would put it, there are no sports teams called the Miami Spics, the New York Kikes, the Detroit Niggers, the L.A. Slopes, or the Dallas Drunk White Trash."
"I saw a poster for an organization called 'Men against rape.' I was going to attend a meeting. But I didn't quite trust this group. Something to do with the name, like 'Rottweilers against mauling toddlers.'"
"Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming."
August 6, 2022
This collection of essays by O'Rourke contains what may be my favorite of his writings, his account of his trip down the Amazon with a handful of other Republicans (not on purpose, the political majority, I mean). It's funny and dramatic and convinced me I have no desire to get that close to nature, ever.
The theme of the collection is, as the title says, the troubles that plague humankind, and as usual O'Rourke isn't satisfied with armchair quarterbacking; he travels to places where those troubles are most felt and takes a look at what those places reveal about famine, disease, poverty, etc. While his observations are colored by his political leanings, he does a decent job of talking to people he disagrees with philosophically and presenting their perspectives as well.
I only read about half the book this time, starting with the aforementioned Amazon River chapter, but that's because I intended only to read that chapter and got caught up in the rest of the book. That's how it goes sometimes.
The theme of the collection is, as the title says, the troubles that plague humankind, and as usual O'Rourke isn't satisfied with armchair quarterbacking; he travels to places where those troubles are most felt and takes a look at what those places reveal about famine, disease, poverty, etc. While his observations are colored by his political leanings, he does a decent job of talking to people he disagrees with philosophically and presenting their perspectives as well.
I only read about half the book this time, starting with the aforementioned Amazon River chapter, but that's because I intended only to read that chapter and got caught up in the rest of the book. That's how it goes sometimes.
April 18, 2008
One of the funniest writers in the world.Practically everything by O'Rourke is worthwhile.
January 13, 2009
This book wqas very influential in disturbing my innocent liberal view of the world. I especially liked the chapter comparing the population density of Fremont California to Bangladesh. While this book didn't turn me into a reagan republican it did puncture some of my more liberal assumption of the world. :-)
February 2, 2018
A sobering, entertaining, and occasionally irritating read. The subtitle is a pretty accurate description: "The lighter side of overpopulation, famine, ecological disaster, ethnic hatred, plague, and poverty." Writing with humor about the kinds of troubles that keep people up at night is something that is not at all easy to do, but O'Rourke manages to pull it off, sometimes brilliantly. With biting wit, careful research, and lots of on-the-ground experience (plus a few too many simplistic and uncharitable generalizations) he cuts through the political posturing, fear mongering, and feel-good sloganeering that dominate these touchy issues to pinpoint some of the real sources of the problems—problems that bigger government and well-meaning first-world ignorance nearly always exacerbate. But identifying a problem does not a solution make.
His libertarian views about getting politics and government out of the way in order to alleviate "all the trouble in the world" is pretty evident throughout. But, as he confesses himself, even this doesn't really provide a solution to the deeper problem: human nature. A capitalist economy, a democratic society, a free press, and a good education may have their benefits, but even with all these benefits in place, O'Rourke concludes, people remain people. Which is why, in the end, his book ends on a witty but empty note.
What the world needs is not just more money, more freedom, and more education. O'Rourke seemed to understand that in order to truly change the world something more fundamental is needed. That something is new hearts. After all, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?
His libertarian views about getting politics and government out of the way in order to alleviate "all the trouble in the world" is pretty evident throughout. But, as he confesses himself, even this doesn't really provide a solution to the deeper problem: human nature. A capitalist economy, a democratic society, a free press, and a good education may have their benefits, but even with all these benefits in place, O'Rourke concludes, people remain people. Which is why, in the end, his book ends on a witty but empty note.
What the world needs is not just more money, more freedom, and more education. O'Rourke seemed to understand that in order to truly change the world something more fundamental is needed. That something is new hearts. After all, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?
February 1, 2016
Review: All The trouble In The World by P. J. O 19Rourke.
I should have read this book a few years ago. The context is old news but still interesting. O 19Rourke 19s addresses serious issues with a sense of humor while being established as a good journalist. O 19Rourke was on a world wide journey doing research and looking for solutions on the world 19s most vexing issues in the late 1990 19s. He invested his time on overpopulation, environmental living, economy, famine, plague, and multiculturalism, political and military issues. Some of the best chapters focus on our own back yard (USA) and the mission to save America from itself 26.
I found the subject mater about Somalia and Vietnam intellectually good reading material. His travels were about the same time Somalia was stricken with warfare and that is about the same time Somalian refugees came to the USA. However, at this time, 2015, Syria refugees are waiting for USA and other countries to take them in. I know right now I 19m an American living in the USA, safe but also scared. So some of the context O 19Rourke has written about has hit home for me.
I 19m glad I read this book (I wish I had read the book sooner) because it 19s relates so much information how other countries past and present has struggled to be uncontrolled and still some areas are still seeking solutions to have a place they can call home. Even here in USA O 19Rourke has stated things about my country and how things get done when it comes to government, politics, poverty, the homeless, the Veterans, and the military. I read between the lines how many do not take the blame and pass the buck to the next person. This is not just happening in USA but in many countries.
O 19Rouke goes on to say that the concept of political correctness will never be the same again. Sometimes, I wonder if it ever was correct 26.He also explains all his criticisms with fact and meaningful arguments. Like many journalists, he doesn 19t have all the answers, but he does have a fairly different perspective.
I should have read this book a few years ago. The context is old news but still interesting. O 19Rourke 19s addresses serious issues with a sense of humor while being established as a good journalist. O 19Rourke was on a world wide journey doing research and looking for solutions on the world 19s most vexing issues in the late 1990 19s. He invested his time on overpopulation, environmental living, economy, famine, plague, and multiculturalism, political and military issues. Some of the best chapters focus on our own back yard (USA) and the mission to save America from itself 26.
I found the subject mater about Somalia and Vietnam intellectually good reading material. His travels were about the same time Somalia was stricken with warfare and that is about the same time Somalian refugees came to the USA. However, at this time, 2015, Syria refugees are waiting for USA and other countries to take them in. I know right now I 19m an American living in the USA, safe but also scared. So some of the context O 19Rourke has written about has hit home for me.
I 19m glad I read this book (I wish I had read the book sooner) because it 19s relates so much information how other countries past and present has struggled to be uncontrolled and still some areas are still seeking solutions to have a place they can call home. Even here in USA O 19Rourke has stated things about my country and how things get done when it comes to government, politics, poverty, the homeless, the Veterans, and the military. I read between the lines how many do not take the blame and pass the buck to the next person. This is not just happening in USA but in many countries.
O 19Rouke goes on to say that the concept of political correctness will never be the same again. Sometimes, I wonder if it ever was correct 26.He also explains all his criticisms with fact and meaningful arguments. Like many journalists, he doesn 19t have all the answers, but he does have a fairly different perspective.
January 31, 2013
Let me say this up front, I am a PJ O'Rourke fan. If you find his particular brand of Libertarian tinged conservatism offensive, you probably will not enjoy this book. On the other hand, if it doesn't bother you, this is a funny and informed look at a lot of issues that worry modern Americans. His personal take on famine and pestilence is not exactly gentle, but its fun. This is my second favorite of his books after the immortal parliament of Whores. While neither as rapier sharp nor as spot on as that work, it is still a joy and thankfully avoids the oh so common trap of columnists who take a year's worth of their day job and recycle it into a "book."
April 2, 2012
Funny. O’Rourke pulls no punches in going after the fashionable worries, those that appear constantly in the news but about which most of us are rally ignorant about. O’Rourke travels the world to explore real problems-- overpopulation, famine, plague, and multiculturalism. While reading this, I felt that we in America have it pretty good compared to many in India, South America and the like. The author does the job of informing us with humor and not by whining which many books of this type will do.
October 23, 2016
I am a vegetarian. I disapprove of the death penalty. I am a feminist . You could even say I am a liberal. Yet, I defy all stereotyping, because I love the writing of P J O'Rourke. Yes, his writing is biased (show me writing that isn't) Yes, he can be bombastic. But if you want an informed and entertaining read on the important issues facing the world today, you could not go past this man as a great starting point. Love or loathe the individual, you have to admire the writer. Well done again, Mr O'Rourke
October 29, 2007
I think P.J. O'Rourke is really funny. He travels around the world trying to discover the causes of why some places suck and others do not. He's irreverent, he notices and appreciates absurdities and his facts are well researched. Learning about bureaucracy, economics, disasters, famine, etc... has never been so much fun.
April 14, 2008
Very enjoyable and informative (with particular eloquence on the subject of famines and overpopulation).
Worth reading once, and worth referring to after that.
"Sorry Al (Gore), for calling you a fascist twinkie and intellectual dolt. It's nothing personal. I just think you have repulsive totalitarian inclinations and the brains of a king charles spaniel."
Worth reading once, and worth referring to after that.
"Sorry Al (Gore), for calling you a fascist twinkie and intellectual dolt. It's nothing personal. I just think you have repulsive totalitarian inclinations and the brains of a king charles spaniel."
July 5, 2018
I rarely give up on a book but this one has just become too irritating. I’ve persevered as far as p236, but I really can’t take any more. I don’t agree with his politics but I also find his attitude smug and the writing, on the whole, considerably less funny than the LA Times reviewer cited on the front. And I have plenty of other books still to read.
January 21, 2016
I didn't enjoy this one as much as Holidays in Hell, but O'Rourke has a great storytelling style even when his politics and mine don't exactly agree. He makes a lot of good points, and is funny enough that even where I don't agree with him, his stories are great reading.
May 28, 2013
Rhetorically fun in teensy-tiny doses. Easily gets old and hard to care about, but worth picking up just for the commonplaces in the first 10 pages. His message exposes folly without answering in hope.
June 3, 2008
I only made it about 50 pages into this book until I just had to stop. I knew I was too much of a liberal to enjoy it!
February 3, 2018
Hilariously funny.
January 30, 2018
My first O'Rourke book. Great choice. Loved it
October 18, 2017
I have recommended All the Trouble in the World to many people. One year, i even gave out copies as Christmas gifts. First off, Ii read a few reviews and I don't think they got what this book is about. P.J. O'Rourke takes a careful examination of several "Big problem" [Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty] of our modern society. He explains a bit about their history and what is/was being done to solve these problems. He then shows that these problems were created by governments and more importantly, can only be solved by governments. What this results in is an appreciation of our problems and the knowledge of how we can actually solve them.
I consider myself rather conservative and P.J. O'Rourke is rather liberal. Even with that bias in mind, this was a suburb read and a definite eye opener. This was a great work and is still extremely relevant today.
I consider myself rather conservative and P.J. O'Rourke is rather liberal. Even with that bias in mind, this was a suburb read and a definite eye opener. This was a great work and is still extremely relevant today.
February 26, 2020
2 half stars. One half star for his creative writing, another half star because I chuckled once.
I only read this book to get an insight into the recent history of the right wing mindset.
Amazing how someone can travel the world talk to locals and still be so willfully blind.
When it comes to serious or interesting problems in the world his approach is to make bad arguments and smarmy jokes.
This book will appeal to people who love to rail against “wokeness” or bemoan “pc culture” ie. people who complain about how people complain, because they want things to be, you know, better.
Also this book is good for short-sighted western-centric people who believe things were so much better before all this whole ‘snowflake’ era. In sum conservatives, right wingers and dogmatic exterme pro-capitalists have been saying the same thing for decades.
I only read this book to get an insight into the recent history of the right wing mindset.
Amazing how someone can travel the world talk to locals and still be so willfully blind.
When it comes to serious or interesting problems in the world his approach is to make bad arguments and smarmy jokes.
This book will appeal to people who love to rail against “wokeness” or bemoan “pc culture” ie. people who complain about how people complain, because they want things to be, you know, better.
Also this book is good for short-sighted western-centric people who believe things were so much better before all this whole ‘snowflake’ era. In sum conservatives, right wingers and dogmatic exterme pro-capitalists have been saying the same thing for decades.
November 5, 2016
You have to have some thick skin to really be able to read this book. There are some really obnoxious things that are written that are nowhere near pc & you have to be prepared for it. You sometimes can't help but laugh at what P.J. writes. At the same time you can view things differently in how he comes up w/ the stuff which will make you roll your eyes sometimes as well. Although this book is written at the height of the 90's there is a multitude of things happening during that time & he goes through most of it. There are countries that he supposedly went to & experienced & it's pretty surprising. I sometimes find it to all be kind of random in how he wrote this book. A little bit scatter-brained, not much order to it.
February 27, 2009
Although I applaud anyone who maintains a chapter-long analogy between Fremont, CA and Bangladesh, this book feels overreaching, in terms of both its scope and its contrarianism. It's overly long, and sometimes O'Rourke sounds like he has run out of steam and has resorted to playing the character of himself. Like Peace Kills, I preferred the first chapter, a summary of his general sentiments. I have to conclude that O'Rourke works best when he's covering everything that's wrong with the human race in the course of a few pages, instead of trying to deconstruct it piecewise.
October 16, 2017
This is a very old book which I first read years ago. I have reread it several times since. Parts of it are extremely dated but some of it is quite funny, sad and clever all at the same time. Stories of the Ministry of Jute and the pathos of a government's frozen focus on a former cash cow is still relevant today. Also his some what flippant (and probably now inaccurate) comparisons of population densities strike quite keenly at my own smug first world assumptions. To many of them, not enough of us: This kind of Us vs.Them thinking is still in need of debunking.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2013
Of all the O'Rourke titles I've ever bought, this has to be my all time favourite. P J takes his sarcastic scalpel to all sorts of political sacred cows and finds himself answering the question 'Where's the beef?' My current copy goes everywhere with me as a kind of 'dip into' read for all those moments when the world seems a little crazier than usual. Down to Earth in a screaming re-entry trajectory kind of way.
November 20, 2011
My boss pulled this book off a shelf in his (rather extensive) collection, highlighting it as a really funny book. And indeed it was! I found myself laughing out loud many a time, and yes, the subtitles are so, so hilarious! Also quite amazed that the Problems of the 1990s still seem current today. Or maybe that should be tragic,
June 19, 2007
I read this a long time ago, and I wonder if my opinion of it would change if I read it again today. I remember this book being funny, and that he's a clever guy and a good writer. I don't recall agreeing with a lot of it though.
September 4, 2008
P.J.O'Rourke always gets me thinking. I like his wit, and his conclusions are so interesting. The section on Famine was especially eye-opening.
Just watch out for language! There can be quite a few cusses in his books.
Just watch out for language! There can be quite a few cusses in his books.
April 11, 2008
O'rourke is a drunken Irishmen with some out of whack bullshit typical rich white man ideals. That being said for whatever reason i find his books a sad yet brilliant commentary on the state of things.
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