I Wouldn't Start From Here: A Misguided Tour of the Early 21st Century

by Andrew Mueller

Andrew Mueller doesn't consider himself a "proper" journalist, and yet he's travelled from Afghanistan to Abkhazia, from Belfast to Belgrade and from Tirana to Tripoli in search of a good story. I Wouldn't Start From Here is his random history of the 21st century so far, and all its attendant absurdities, intermittent horrors and occasional glimmers of hope. It features gunfights, car chases and gaol cells, any number of exotic locations, and a cast which includes revolutionaries, rock stars, politicians, hitmen, warmongers and peacemakers.

Whether ducking for cover in Gaza, running roadblocks in Iraq, attempting to have fun in Luxembourg, or trying to buy Colonel Gadaffi T-shirts in Tripoli, Mueller is a man in search of an answer to perhaps the crucial question of our time: "What is it with these people?"

"Mueller's prose is as spectacular as a Taliban attack on Lollapalooza" (PJ O'Rourke)

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Memoir

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

This book's subtitle is "The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong". The author, Andrew Mueller, is originally from Australia and currently lives in London.

The book came with sterling recommendations: P. J. O'Rourke calls Mueller "the best foreign correspondent of this generation" right there on the front cover. Shawn Macomber gave it a rave review in the Washington Times, in which he compared Mueller to, in addition to O'Rourke, Jon Ronson and David Foster Wallace. I like all those guys!

So I wish I liked the book a little better. I blame myself. Part of the problem is that I'm not very interested in screwed up foreign countries. There are so many.

Most chapters describe Mueller's visits to various world hotspots over the past few years: Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Serbia, and so on. Mueller has a keen eye for the ridiculous, a gift for colorful writing, and a knack for interviewing people in all of the local niches. The book jumps around a lot in time and space; the underlying theme is Mueller's quest to understand why we can't just all get along.

The chapter set in Cameroon is a comic gem, as Mueller is tossed in jail for attending a meeting of a dissident group. His jailers are laid back, and people in charge don't quite know what to do with him. If you need to get jailed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Cameroon is probably your best choice among African nations.

Mueller is much less of a fan of Israel than I am—when he's in the area, he's continually referring to Israeli arrogance and overreaction. But he's honest enough to be dismayed at the Palestinian proclivity for murderous violence, at least when he bothers to notice it.

Things get worse when Mueller touches on American politics. Although he's thoroughly in love with American ideals, he's also thoroughly taken in by the Gospel According to MSNBC. One of his interviewees is Al Gore, whose, according to Shawn, "pomposity he captures in full plume." That may be, but there's no indication that Mueller is anything other than in despair that Gore lost in 2000; he also describes the 2000 Florida vote as "fixed", an assertion that can't stand up to scrutiny.

If anything, Mueller is utterly enraptured by Obama; his afterword, written in post-election November of last year, is a complete swoon. Dismaying to those of us who found both Candidate and President Obama to be a posturing phony, and find his worshipful cult of personality to be profoundly disturbing.

But still, Mueller's the kind of guy that would be fun to hang around with. He lives a much more interesting life than I, and probably you, do. And he's happy to tell you about it.

Mueller's website is right here, with plenty of writing examples, should be enough to judge whether he floats your boat.

[Nine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went to see Andrew Mueller reading from this book last summer. I'd never heard of him before. There were about eight people in the audience, maybe, which in retrospect seems to fit in nicely with his generally self-deprecating humour (in the book's afterword, he refers to "my own sensationally ill-attended book signings at the Sydney Writers' Festival"). I've now read the book twice, frequently read out bits to travel companions in between guffawing, and given a copy to Rupert for his birthday, which I hope he appreciated (... never mind that my last birthday was almost a year ago and Rupert gave me a Jack Kerouac book that I haven't touched yet).

So. The basic premise of this book is that Andrew Mueller goes to conflict zones, contested territories and the like, and tries to make sense of what the hell is going on. He does this very well. I particularly like how it zips back and forth in time (2000-2006, not counting the foreword and afterword), each chapter ending with some clever segue to the next port of call.

I love so many things about this book. I love when he talks to amazing students from the Balkans about how they risked everything for regime change. I love when he describes being followed around by comically inept people. I love when he rants about being hampered by mystifying bureaucratic restraints. I love when he tries a different tack and asks Gerry Adams why he never joined the IRA. I love when he gets arrested in Cameroon. I also love when he goes off on a tangent and wryly details getting his heart broken ("This book was, substantially, typed with one hand while I tried to corral my marbles back into one sock with the other").

There are also, by the way, parts of this book that move me to tears, which is only right given the heavy subject matter. He's done a fantastic job of finding a balance between humour and the sadness and horror of what people do to each other. It's a long book, which is just as well, because I can't get enough of it.

[Mykolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was an ok read. Lite bit of insight into lesser known geographies. But if you were already following current (and past) affairs you will find nothing new here. Author never really goes into depth about the places that he visits. It’s just a journalist stories about the places he visited. At times this book tends to be a bit long winded in getting to a point, heavy on opinion and thin on facts.

[Lucy Donaldson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too self indulgent

[Alex Sarll]

Think of the best reaction faces in comedy; Ben from Parks & Rec is probably my favourite. Now imagine that face in book form, playing off the classic set-up/punchline of the 'End of History'*, followed by the noughties. This is the record of a period in which Mueller, who first came to my attention as a Melody Maker journalist, toured some places where history had thoughtlessly insisted on continuing, meaning largely that he "visited many broken-down, violent dumps where everybody insisted that the Struggle superseded all other considerations, like picking up the rubbish and teaching kids to read, and invariably blamed someone else for their problems". Some of them were famously eventful, like Iraq and Afghanistan; others, like Cameroon, troubled the front pages rather less. In a few, like Albania and Bosnia, things really did seem to be settling down and people finally had a chance to get on with their lives; in Taiwan, a country which wasn't officially a country was demonstrating the quality of life you could achieve nonetheless, even with a colossus lurking threateningly on the doorstep. And then you have the curious trips to the really quiet corners of the globe such as Luxembourg, where Mueller dares to ask the big questions: how and why even is Luxembourg?

One of the blurbs** compares Mueller to PJ O'Rourke, which is certainly not wrong, though needs plenty of qualifications. For one thing, when reading O'Rourke, there are those needle-screeches-from-the-record moments when he gets to somewhere you know and is staggeringly wrong about all manner of details, making you question how much you can trust his other assessments, for all that they seemed so wise when you were reading from a position of ignorance. In Mueller, there's no such problem. The sections addressing the UK's own little slice of sectarian lunacy in Northern Ireland are as fine as anything here: the surreal encounter with Michael Stone during his interlude as an artist seems hard to top, but then there's the meeting with Gerry Adams where Mueller decides to go out on a limb and take Adams' claims at face value. So, he asks: your father, grandfather and plenty of other members of the Adams family were IRA members - how come you never joined?
Still, there is a slight complacency about a presumed commonality of basic civilised values. This is laudable as regards a disdain for ideological bloodshed, or the intrinsic awfulness of anyone who has ever did anything but 100% condemn the Rushdie fatwa, but feels a bit fogeyish as applied to eg lip piercings. And while Mueller is undoubtedly to the left of O'Rourke, the book did come out in 2008, which means that from this distance some of its faith in free markets and liberal democracy can appear as misplaced as, if far less fervent than, O'Rourke's loopier socio-economic musings. Similarly, hindsight makes the closing love letter to London heartbreaking; yes, we're still just about the greatest city in the world, but it turned out that plutocrats and Crossrail could do a lot more damage to our scuzzy, lively multicultural vibrancy than a few arseholes with backpack bombs were ever going to manage.

These are quibbles, though. The nature of any current affairs book is to be a snapshot, and this one looks a lot less outmoded than many much more talked-about non-fiction books from eight years ago. Mueller has done his research, both before and during his trips, and it'd be a well-informed reader indeed who came away from this without learning something new about somewhere. But more than that, it's the tone which makes this such a good read; it's wise and humane, yet also hilariously rude in that way only Ozzies can quite get away with. For whatever reason they seem to have a natural aptitude for being unimpressed at someone acting like a bloody idiot, and when you pair that with somewhere like the Middle East in which people have taken acting the bloody idiot to such unsurpassed heights, the results are wonderful. The recurring puzzlement as to why so many people are ready to die for their nations, but not to clean the loos, could seem patrician from a Brit, or simply unbearable from an American, but from an Australian comes across as the legitimate enquiry of a concerned mate. And then too, there's that glorious way Australian English has with the evocative, often acerbic turn of phrase: I think my favourite was "as convincing as a pair of anteaters on stilts trying to gain admission to a giraffes-only golf club", but it's a close-fought title.

*I saw someone reading a Francis Fukuyama book on the Tube today. Not even The End of History for shits and giggles - a new one. How does he still get published with a track record like that?
**By Michael Bywater, who is in interesting company; this collection of encomia is the only place I've ever seen Jonathan Meades and Bono together, let alone hanging out with representatives of the Wagga Wagga Advertiser and Kalgoorlie Miner.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stopped this long (15 hour) audiobook partway through, or I wouldn't have been able to finish it. Muller bounces around between "trouble spots" (Yugoslavia, Palestine, Northern Ireland, etc.), with rarely a letup in the gloom; to his credit, he does focus on the resilience of the locals in the face of adversity, making his point that these conflicts have been perpetuated for the sake of perpetuating them. He does come off as fairly one-sided regarding Palestine, focusing on the brutal Israeli occupation tactics; however, he also makes a point of dismissing the laments of younger Palestineans for "home villages" none of their families have set foot in since 1948. He really should have ended with the Danish cartoon episode as an example of muslim "outrage for the sake of outrage" - I pretty much skipped the final hour of interviews with Bono and Al Gore, which might have been effective in a shorter book, but here just added words to the existing pile.
The middle section contains a chapter that really doesn't fit the rest of the book, wherein he is detained in Africa for a few days as an "agitator". Horror of horrors - his girlfriend dumps him when he returns to London, causing him to seek therapy for severe depression. He and Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love are under the misconception that they are the only persons to have ever - gasp! - had a failed relationship.
I recommend the book for the high quality of his journalism, as well as his sense of humor.

[Amar Pai · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked Mueller's other book, Rock and Hard Places: Travels to Backstages, Frontlines and Assorted Sideshows, but in retrospect it was largely because of the famous people with whom he hobnobbed. Bono in particular. Bono is fascinating to me. That level of fame produces a reality distortion field. It must be like living in a different universe. Bono seems cooler than your average rock star though. An old school irish raconteur. I bet he'd be fun to sit next to at a dinner party.

Anyway, I Wouldn't Start From Here is mostly bereft of celebrities., Instead it's a collection of Mueller's travelogues, along with some random other stuff like an article on The Battle of Algiers. The writing ok but nothing that speical. I got bored and didn't finish.

[Adrian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a good book since the author never really goes into depth about the places that he visits. Instead he rather self-righteously passes judgment on others without making an effort to understand where they are coming from.

[Dave Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun read about the absurdity of it all.

[Simon SaysWatch · Rating 1 out of 5]

In I Wouldn't Start From Here: A Misguided Tour of the Early 21st Century by Andrew Mueller does blatant propaganda for Western imperialism. It's a nasty read, with the severe bias of the Western propagandists against the countries that won't, or didn't, submit. Libya is a big one for that. By 2010/11, Libya had the highest human development index in the African continent. HDI is a combination of the population's life expectancy, education, and income.

This is a good read instead of Mueller: https://theorbo1.wordpress.com/2011/0...

The wilful propaganda starts early on, when he mentions the US airforce killing 101 Libyans in retaliation for a bombing of a Berlin nightclub. First, to attribute the latter to the Libyan government and then to make a seem like tit-for-tat, the killing of 5 in one place and 101 in another place. It reads like the equivalence given to Israeli deaths and Palestinian deaths, but always Palestinian deaths with an extra 0 on the end of the number, and even then Israeli deaths are the bigger problem to the West and Western writers. THe same thing is happening here.

Gadaffi's "quaint belief is referred to, and then you know how it's going to be: outright Western propaganda from someone who is complicit in the West's imperialism that has caused such death and destruction this century and the one before it.

Moving to another subject ripe for the imperialist's propaganda: Taiwan. In 1949, the Kuomintang lost the civil war and escaped to Taiwan island, part of China apart from the 50 years it was a Japanese colony until Japan lost the war. The Kuomintang didn't renounce its leadership of China though. The imperialist US, of course, cut China out of the world market and gave Taiwan the China seat at the UN. Things changed when the US wanted to get China in its camp to isolate it from the USSR, and Beijing got its UN seat, with Beijing recognized as the government of China rather Taipei.

So, Taiwan is part of China and almost every country in the world agrees, including the US, though the US knows this is China's "button" to provoke China to act and then the US respond and say that China's act was "unprovoked" (we've heard that one before; it seems never to get old). Now, what the irredeemable imperialist does in this situation is to claim is is aggressively claiming Taiwan, which is like saying that the US is aggressively claiming a US state, say, California.

But the word "belligerence" is used as if by wrote. Surprise! That's Mueller's take. "Taiwan, officially belonging to China -- a claim that Beijing had been asserting with increasing...belligerence." (Elipsis, mine) Beijing and Taipei are both "sore losers" because Beijing got China but not Taipei and Taipei got Taiwan and not China... But Taiwan is part of China; China is not part of Taiwan. "Magistrate Lee" gets in the book saying politicans are trying to cut ties between Taiwan abd China for their own purposes. The maximum understanding for this lack of US imperialism-supporting talk is that this was "oddly un-strident talk."

The we get to China as "Taiwan's mighty, covetous neighbour." Disgusting, no? Taiwan is a part of China. Does the US government "covet" its states. No, they're part of the US. But imperialism passes for young, cool, press backpacker here, which is total bs given the Western imperialist narrative.

Then the book gets shredded to avoid getting into anyone else's hands second-hand.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mueller is well travelled, genuinely funny and as blunt as an old pick axe. But this book is a commitment, and one that seemed to drag...

[Neil Pierson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for something else at the library when this book's title and subtitle caught my eye. The subtitle above is different than the library's edition, which is, The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong. I might suggest, Talking Sense to Fanatics; or The Futile Conversation.

The author's premise is that everyone knows the characteristics of a stable, peaceful, productive society: Democracy, tolerance, freedom of expression and religion, prosperity, absence of corruption, etc. Also, everyone knows that these conditions are the first casualties of violent revolution, combat, or terrorism. So if the goal is a successful society, why does an individual, group, or nation choose to kill people as the means to get a better life?

Mueller travels to a number of garden spots--Kosovo, the Gaza Strip, Israel, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Serbia, and others--to ask combatants that question. He asks the same question where societal change is being accomplished by non-violent means.

Despite a writing style that's too clever--so many of exactly the right words that the punch line can get lost--Mueller is extremely funny and likable. It makes the serious subject very readable. Also, it's satisfying to witness a dialogue pitting the author's basic common sense against a fanatical notion. (Example: Asking a Palestinian if, after 50 years of no progress at all, is it time to change the approach?)

The answers to the question? Unfortunately, you already know them: (1) "Yeah, but look at what they did"; (2) "Yeah, but look at what they did first." Mueller calls it "responsibility ping pong." The Northern Irish (and they should know) have a great term for it: Whataboutery.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious plus informative, a nice combo. The author started out as a rock journalist and--I'm not sure he makes it absolutely clear how this happened--morphed into a travel journalist covering recent and current conflict zones. Each chapter tackles a visit to some dangerous or otherwise forbidding place in the early to mid first decade of this century, with amusing insight into the machinations needed to visit and do any kind of journalism in such places. It took me a while to get used to the tone, which tends to the snarky, and sometimes slightly overwritten comedically, in that British/Aussie way; and at first some of the author's breezy putdowns of issues I've been sympathetic with made me a little mad; but once I realized that the cynicism was doled out equally to all parties, I highly enjoyed it. Thanks for a lovely (and imported, might I point out!) gift, Kovacs!

[Rosario · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mueller is a journalist and this is an edited collection of articles which are a sort of travelogue of trouble spots (mainly; he also goes to Luxembourg!) in the first few years of the 21st century. They're basically Mueller trying to get a handle on what the hell is going on. I was a bit worried when the first chapter featured Bono and I realised Mueller is a (former?) rock journalist. I was not in the mood for celebrity sycophancy, so I was relieved to see this was a one-off. There are some well-known people who show up in a few chapters, but they are more along the lines of Al Gore and Gerry Adams (whom Mueller asks why he never joined the IRA!).

I really enjoyed it. The writing is good, with enough of Mueller in there to keep it interesting but not make it about him, and I felt that what he had to say tended to be refreshingly non-trite.

MY GRADE: A B+.

[Adrian]

Mueller, a former rock music critic, has produced a highly intelligent travelogue of hotspots of the early 21st century. He's sort of a Robert Kaplan of the Twitter generation. His rampant sense of humour mostly works and considering the places he reports from which include Baghdad, Serbia, Gaza, Kabul, Tripoli and Belfast, it's needed. Two of his best pieces are on getting arrested in Cameroon and meeting the irrepressible Paddy Ashdown in Bosnia. Mueller's head and heart are in the right place- he rejects extremism but plumps too easily for toleration. Since most of the world's intransigence is based on religion, toleration isn't enough. We won't see the end of Middle East and al qaeda-type troubles until we've eradicated religion.

[Lyndon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not usually find books listed under the "travel" and "humor" labels to lend much to either label. What i (still) find fascinating about Mueller and his work, is the degree to which the "no worries, mate" of his Australian heritage combines with his remarkable skill in naming the passion that is the heart-beat of who ever or where ever he happens to find himself. Yes, his writing his laden with loose prose and thoughtfulness, as well as the uncanny ability to be funny about situations that are - despite appearances - funny. Perhaps he is not all that and bag of chips, but for a boy from Wagga Wagga, this boy can write. I like that about his style. Perhaps it is an Australian thing?

[Annie Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me laugh and cry. It was a very informative and interesting look at what has happened in the world since 2000. At the end, the author quotes from the constitution, and this is what brought tears to my eyes, and stated that even though most of the book was not centered on America "this is still the one country against which others measure and/or define themselves. This is still the one country that inspires and infuriates like no other. And that's because it's a country which has set itself a higher standard than any other." This book is about many places in conflict in one way or another but ends on a very hopeful note. I loved it.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging tour of the twenty-first century's hotspots accompanied by Mueller's insightful, skeptical, infuriated, affectionate commentary. From the mind-numbing fanaticism of some of the world's most militant adversaries to the heart-warming interactions with locals simply caught up in something bigger than themselves, this unique travelogue brings the reader to places he would never otherwise go. Mueller's assessment of man's inhumanity toward man is right on in some places while in others his determined atheism prevents him from seeing a bigger picture. An enjoyable, thought-provoking, disturbing, and ultimately entertaining read.

[Lian Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, poignant and occasionally desperately horrible. Andrew Mueller takes the reader through a tour of the 21st century's trouble spots, with a sharp eye for the ridiculous and a strong smattering of commonsense. He seldom takes sides, but manages to pinpoint the idiocy of violence as a solution for world problems. And every now and again he stumbles across a small enclave of hope. This author clearly LIKES people, and has a big heart, despite his cynicism. A wildly entertaining read that incorporates the frequent desire to smack one's head against the wall.

[Bee Gadsby]

Although the book is witty and very well written. The sentences are well structured but exceedingly difficult to read. I have to go back over a sentence quite often to get to grips with what Andrew is trying to say. I'll keep going, until something else comes along. I'll finish it eventually......

[Mike O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

To look at this perplexing world and world events through the eyes of sometimes courageous, sometimes downright certifiable, people was fascinating, infuriating, moving, enlightening and above all thought provoking. I loved the writing style - funny while also being perceptive and deeply serious. A wonderful read.

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good snapshot of how the 21st century isn't any better than the 20th century. Raised more questions for me than answers, and I'm now eagerly waiting for Belfast Diary: War as a Way of Life

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars. Engrossing collection of stories recounting the author's travels to a number of the world's troubled hot-spots in the first decade of the 21st century. Despite the grim reality of life (and death) in many of these places, the overall tone of the book is anything but depressing.

[Foreign]

UK: Philip Gwyn Jones

[minnie]

Review in guardian today this sounds good:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008...

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost certainly in my top 5 reads of all time! And can't believe it's only on this site in Kindle form...

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really got me thinking. And looking up things I didn't know that I should know. I highly recommend it.

[Sakshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book - it's hilarious and witty and uses an engaging narrative to shed some light on some scary (and weird) situations.