The concluding 14 chapters, Part V, 2004-Today, are entirely new; they add nearly a third to the book. Although Part V includes a fair amount of narrative about Perkins’ own experiences since 2004, it’s dominated by the concluding six chapters, which consist of Perkins’ analysis and his recommendations for “Things to Do.” It was in Part V that I found myself disappointed. A 20th Century Masterpiece. So utterly convincing at times you wonder if it's all true! William Boyd seems equally at home depicting scenes of domestic drudgery or the glamourous life of the artist in pre-war Berlin. Pathos, farce, tragedy, it's all here. there are some brilliant passages describing life in the trenches of the First World War evoking the horror, boredom, futility and heroism of life on the Western Front. Equally well written are the laugh out loud sections.

I recently reread The New Confessions by William Boyd. This is one of my favorite books, and rereading it is always a pleasure. That can't be said about a lot of books, even ones I liked a lot the first time around. The Baron in the Trees also has that quality, and they have an unusual connection in that each touches on the European Enlightenment. I felt that Perkins does share some genuinely interesting behind-the-scenes insights into the shady relationships between international business, international financial institutions (like the World Bank), and government agencies; his focus is mainly on the US situation, as he's a US citizen. But I feel he takes these insights and "multiplies them" uncritically to then go on to make very big assertions. Here is the rarest of books, the sort you want to read again--even before you've finished it the first time. . . . Boyd gives us a magnificent experience." -- People At the end of each chapter Todd reflects while at his French villa about things that happened in that particular chapter; especially what he did and what he should have done. At age 73, Todd is also a dirty old man and likes to spy on his housekeeper when she’s in the toilet. Eventually, after a lot of soul searching, he comes to terms with his past life and meditates on the many deaths of his friends and business associates. He also accepts the fact that he could have had a better life if some of his actions and decisions would have been smarter. John Perkins deserves credit for writing such a good, informative and interesting book about the work of an economic looter. Even though he's a resident of the United States but he makes it clear to the world what his country's higher authorities are doing against the world it's great quality & virtue of a open minded writer, he also clarified how many threats & difficult situations he faced while writing & publishing this book,nevertheless, the book has been published & translated in many languages as well & the author of book is still alive & he is roaming freely in different areas of world, this is the sign of a free country a real democratic country.

Supporters

There are many things that are remarkable about these novels, but I'd like to highlight how successfully Boyd captures midlife and decline. The most interesting part of The New Confessions is Todd's life after he turns 35. So much of our culture obsesses with coming-of-age and early struggles. Even middle age is usually only of interest if it is tied to a midlife crisis. It's nice to see a novel push through that moment to doubt, heartbreak, disappointment, a second act, and more. He later ends up captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner in Weilburg and Mainz (oddly, I've been to both these towns too, though as Todd is a POW throughout these sections, I'm not sure that added anything for me. It is while being held as a prisoner here that he meets a German guard Karl-Heinz, who lends him a copy of Rousseau's The Confessions, which becomes an obsession for the rest of his life (I do wonder whether there might be aspects of this book which can only be fully appreciated by someone who has read The Confessions, but on the other hand, I think this is as much as anything a story about a life driven by an obsession, what that obsession happens to be is of only secondary importance. Wow!!!!! It is difficult to condense this book into a precise review. I will say that as funny as it sounds, this book was a life changer for me.

William Boyd never fails to produce an enjoyable book, but this one didn't quite resonate with me. I went into it hoping for another 'Any Human Heart', but left mainly disappointed. I love the fictional autobiographical style of these two books (and, more recently, 'Love Is Blind'): watching a person's life ebb and flow from cradle to grave. How is proud, sovereign, European Greece doing right now? How did Sarah Palin put it? The hopey-changey thing did not work out for us, did it? Under the Americans we knew what we were giving up, of course. But the EU was not exactly something for nothing. A priori, what Perkins is saying sounds wonderful. Hell, in principle I agree with him. In practice it looks very different. We wasted our sovereignty. At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published. These aside, though, I would say the book for all its flaws is interesting. Perkins does offer some revelations from his career and insider insights into shady practices. I did enjoy reading it, and I do feel like it's given me a useful additional "political" perspective on the issues I care about.In 1989 the US invades Panama, whose president, Manuel Noriega, is captured. Efforts to add Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, to the American system fail, and the United States invades Iraq in 1991. Venezuela adopts a socialist system, nationalizing corporations, but the United States is distracted by 9/11, and the Venezuela problem is set aside.

Part 5 details recent developments in America’s corporate takeover of the third world. Techniques of domination become more brazen; Perkins himself, after dining with a mysterious “journalist” interested in Perkins’s upcoming tell-all book, barely escapes death from a serious illness. Perkins learns that a failed coup attempt in the Seychelle Islands is a US/corporate scheme. In 2009, Honduran President Zelaya, a thorn in the side of Chiquita Brands and Dole Foods, is overthrown; in 2010, Ecuador’s President Correa barely escapes the same fate. I think if you are of a conspiracy left-leaning mindset, you'll LOVE this book. If like me, you consider yourself left of centre and care about these issues, but are critical, and sceptical of big, un-nuanced claims, you'll probably find parts of this book interesting and enjoyable, but be slightly irritated by others. Ronald Gottesman writing in the Los Angeles Times concludes that "Boyd has created an important and complex character in a vividly evoked series of settings. He has told a tale that we cannot not believe in (in spite of its many astonishing turns). He has written a subtle and provocative history of our time. Boyd is no longer a young writer of promise; with this book, he takes his place as a major novelist." [2] Characteristically, too, he doesn't completely resolve his thriller plot. "Life isn't neat and tidy in that way ... There's a sense in all my novels that nothing is certain." He often brings his central characters up against figures with "a very definite view of the human condition" - either someone who might be right (he mentions the Scottish doctor in A Good Man in Africa), or someone "who has a completely skewed idea of what makes the world go round but is utterly confident in it. That can be vaguely enviable: if people believe devoutly in their God, then life on earth is completely comprehensible. But for those of us who are devout atheists, it's a different matter altogether." Was he ever, so to speak, abused about these matters before he was disabused? "I don't think so. It's not as if I was lost and then found myself. It's just a process of growing up. Certain things happened early on my life that wised me up - made me see what was fundamentally important and what you could shrug off."An entertaining and darkly comic novel, a novel given weight and ballast by the pressure of recent history." -- The New York Times

It might be, for example, that during his "Economic hit man" career, Perkins was party to a lot more shady stuff than he's included in the book. So he might know things he doesn't let on to the reader, and so there's an element of the reader having to take this on trust. But the book does take "2 + 2" in terms of evidence and sometimes come to 444,444. The whole-life novel is also a clear act of colonisation – by fiction – of what we now call life-writing: biography, autobiography and the intimate journal. But in fiction there is a different kind of authority. It is all, paradoxically, true – because it’s been invented by the author. Other forms of life-writing are highly suspect and partial. Donald Rayfield, Chekhov’s great biographer, has defined biography as “a fiction that has to fit the documented facts”. Beyond the documented facts the biographer cannot go or can only tentatively speculate. Not so in the whole-life novel. The fundamental “truth” of a life in fiction is guaranteed – this is it, this is what happened, this is what this person felt – and these novels exploit and relish that trust from the reader absolutely. William Boyd writes a gripping narrative and does a great line in flawed, self-absorbed but ultimately charming male characters. I was completely swept up in this story and sorry to finish it. So why not five stars, I hear you ask? Two things. He's clearly passionate about his topic. There's no question of that. I just feel that much of the book was problematic for me.Don't get me wrong, he makes some really good points. I just can't take him at his word. He has repented, yes, but he has also sunk himself into a new cause. A cause of personal redemption. And that, coupled with the previously mentioned personal characteristics, does not instill much confidence.