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The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian
From the New York Time s bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography comes a sweeping yet intimate story of the most influential humanitarian you’ve never heard of—Bob Gersony, who spent four decades in crisis zones around the world.
“One of the best accounts examining American humanitarian pursuits over the past fifty years . . . With still greater challenges on the horizon, we will need to find and empower more people like Bob Gersony—both idealistic and pragmatic—who can help make the world a more secure place.”— The Washington Post
In his long career as an acclaimed journalist covering the “hot” moments of the Cold War and its aftermath, bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan often found himself crossing paths with Bob Gersony, a consultant for the U.S. State Department whose quiet dedication and consequential work made a deep impression on Kaplan.
Gersony, a high school dropout later awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, conducted on-the-ground research for the U.S. government in virtually every war and natural-disaster zone in the world. In Thailand, Central and South America, Sudan, Chad, Mozambique, Rwanda, Gaza, Bosnia, North Korea, Iraq, and beyond, Gersony never flinched from entering dangerous areas that diplomats could not reach, sometimes risking his own life. Gersony’s behind-the scenes fact-finding, which included interviews with hundreds of refugees and displaced persons from each war zone and natural-disaster area, often challenged the assumptions and received wisdom of the powers that be, on both the left and the right. In nearly every case, his advice and recommendations made American policy at once smarter and more humane—often dramatically so.
In Gersony, Kaplan saw a powerful example of how American diplomacy should be conducted. In a work that exhibits Kaplan’s signature talent for combining travel and geography with sharp political analysis, The Good American tells Gersony’s powerful life story. Set during the State Department’s golden age, this is a story about the loneliness, sweat, and tears and the genuine courage that characterized Gersony’s work in far-flung places. It is also a celebration of ground-level a page-turning demonstration, by one of our finest geopolitical thinkers, of how getting an up-close, worm’s-eye view of crises and applying sound reason can elicit world-changing results.
“One of the best accounts examining American humanitarian pursuits over the past fifty years . . . With still greater challenges on the horizon, we will need to find and empower more people like Bob Gersony—both idealistic and pragmatic—who can help make the world a more secure place.”— The Washington Post
In his long career as an acclaimed journalist covering the “hot” moments of the Cold War and its aftermath, bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan often found himself crossing paths with Bob Gersony, a consultant for the U.S. State Department whose quiet dedication and consequential work made a deep impression on Kaplan.
Gersony, a high school dropout later awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, conducted on-the-ground research for the U.S. government in virtually every war and natural-disaster zone in the world. In Thailand, Central and South America, Sudan, Chad, Mozambique, Rwanda, Gaza, Bosnia, North Korea, Iraq, and beyond, Gersony never flinched from entering dangerous areas that diplomats could not reach, sometimes risking his own life. Gersony’s behind-the scenes fact-finding, which included interviews with hundreds of refugees and displaced persons from each war zone and natural-disaster area, often challenged the assumptions and received wisdom of the powers that be, on both the left and the right. In nearly every case, his advice and recommendations made American policy at once smarter and more humane—often dramatically so.
In Gersony, Kaplan saw a powerful example of how American diplomacy should be conducted. In a work that exhibits Kaplan’s signature talent for combining travel and geography with sharp political analysis, The Good American tells Gersony’s powerful life story. Set during the State Department’s golden age, this is a story about the loneliness, sweat, and tears and the genuine courage that characterized Gersony’s work in far-flung places. It is also a celebration of ground-level a page-turning demonstration, by one of our finest geopolitical thinkers, of how getting an up-close, worm’s-eye view of crises and applying sound reason can elicit world-changing results.
544 pages, Paperback
First published January 26, 2021
87 people are currently reading
2599 people want to read
About the author
Robert D. Kaplan
52 books1,266 followersRobert David Kaplan is an American journalist, currently a National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. His writings have also been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs and The Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers and publications, and his more controversial essays about the nature of U.S. power have spurred debate in academia, the media, and the highest levels of government. A frequent theme in his work is the reemergence of cultural and historical tensions temporarily suspended during the Cold War.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
April 14, 2022
If today's extra shallow celebrity culture makes you ill this book might be just the right antidote. The author heaps praise on Bob Gersony and it feels justified. Done poorly books like these get derided as hagiographies but Kaplan never crosses the fanboy line. Rather than write a long list of Gersony's qualities, which others can do much better than I, I'll just say I was struck by his quiet pursuit of truth seeking.
While Gersony is clearly the heart of the book you should know that geopolitics are also a central theme. Many of the names and political issues can be confusing, which was kind of the point: these were the difficult and perplexing situations Gersony was often thrown into.
Two chapters were just okay and the material can feel a bit dense at times but overall Kaplan tells a very good story about a remarkable guy. I've enjoyed reading some lower rated books more but I thought about this book often and the subject matter was so powerful that this just feels like a 5 star book.
I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone. Read some of the highlighted sections to see if it might appeal to you.
While Gersony is clearly the heart of the book you should know that geopolitics are also a central theme. Many of the names and political issues can be confusing, which was kind of the point: these were the difficult and perplexing situations Gersony was often thrown into.
Two chapters were just okay and the material can feel a bit dense at times but overall Kaplan tells a very good story about a remarkable guy. I've enjoyed reading some lower rated books more but I thought about this book often and the subject matter was so powerful that this just feels like a 5 star book.
I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone. Read some of the highlighted sections to see if it might appeal to you.
July 26, 2021
I read this book because I play trivia with Bob Gersony's wife, who is really good at geography. Now I know why.
I learned a lot from this book about crises around the world and their history. And about U.S. foreign policy mistakes and blunders. It's overwhelming how many mistakes are made that lead to even worse situations. I am not optimistic about the future.
I learned a lot from this book about crises around the world and their history. And about U.S. foreign policy mistakes and blunders. It's overwhelming how many mistakes are made that lead to even worse situations. I am not optimistic about the future.
June 13, 2021
I can only quote a sentence of The Washington Post's review:
"One of the best accounts examining American humanitarian pursuits over the past 50 years."
I'm still trying to process all I learned from Kaplan's book about Bob Gersony. Will be back later on today to finish my review.
"One of the best accounts examining American humanitarian pursuits over the past 50 years."
I'm still trying to process all I learned from Kaplan's book about Bob Gersony. Will be back later on today to finish my review.
January 31, 2021
If there was a category of travel known as Hell Tourism, Bob Gersony would be one of its most avid practitioners. From war-torn regions of sub-Saharan Africa to hurricane-ravaged countries in Central America, for more than four decades, Gersony has devoted his life to bringing relief and hope to people residing in these benighted lands. Robert D. Kaplan’s THE GOOD AMERICAN is the fascinating account of Gersony’s work. Both informative and inspirational, it’s a testimonial to how much good one smart, empathetic, dedicated person can accomplish in the world.
It would be hard to find a more unlikely candidate for the role of humanitarian hero than Bob Gersony. A high school dropout who worked briefly as a commodity trader (the business in which his Holocaust refugee father made and lost a fortune) before serving in a noncombat role in Vietnam, Kaplan describes his subject, who bears a certain vague resemblance to Larry David, as “a character out of a Saul Bellow novel trapped in settings depicted by Joseph Conrad.” An introverted man of abstemious habits, including eating only one meal a day, he was stalked by anxiety and depression and yet somehow vanquished his psychological demons to place himself constantly in positions of physical hardship and extreme peril to gather, and then share, the stories of the oppressed and the victimized.
After a period of several years in Guatemala, where he established a network of Spanish language schools, in 1976 Gersony went to work as a freelance contractor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a bureaucracy established during the Kennedy administration that “was essentially the Third World development arm of the State Department,” with whom it existed in a sometimes tense equilibrium. From then until the early 2010s, in more than 50 assignments, Gersony’s fieldwork made him an indispensable, if publicly almost anonymous, figure.
From his first posting in Central America, Kaplan literally follows Gersony around the world (the two met in Sudan in 1985 and frequently crossed paths after that) from one trouble spot to the next as his career “charted the history of humanitarianism since the Vietnam War.” Whether he was developing an ingenious plan to combat piracy against Vietnamese refugees in the South China Sea in the mid-1980s, working episodically on development projects in Central and South America, or engaging with a politically explosive crisis like the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Kaplan explains how Gersony, "a moderate conservative with moral convictions, lacking the ideological blinders that would later destroy conservatism,” developed a unique yet highly effective technique for going about his work and rigorously applied it to better the lives of countless suffering people.
How Gersony almost obsessively applied that methodology becomes one of the themes of Kaplan’s book. In what he estimates were more than 8,000 exhaustive interviews, recorded with the pen Gersony always carried on a strap around his neck, and then transcribed during long, lonely evenings in cheap hotels, as 12-hour work days stretched into seven-day work weeks, he displayed a gift for connecting with ordinary people, painstakingly gathering their stories and then building effective responses to their plight out of that humble material.
“The whole point of his investigations was always to be in firsthand contact with the evidence, while at all costs avoiding groupthink,” Kaplan writes. Approaching each new situation without preconceptions --- notably any deeply ideological ones in the period when geopolitics shifted from the Cold War to the new complexities of life in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union --- allowed Gersony to bring a refreshing objectivity to his arduous, and often dangerous, tasks.
Another beauty of his method, as Kaplan’s account demonstrates, is that it was infinitely adaptable to the unimaginable variety of difficult situations he encountered across the globe. It also enabled Gersony, in masterly briefings of State Department and other government officials that often stretched for hours, to disrupt the conventional wisdom of bureaucrats and politicians who never would have had the courage to set foot in some of the terrifying places he dared to venture.
Kaplan’s book, which sometimes reads like an adventure story, is thick with detail, and though the glossary of some 50 acronyms he provides is helpful, he recognizes that even the most patient reader may at times succumb to a feeling of bewilderment. At one point in his description of Gersony’s work in Ethiopia and Somalia in 1989, he admits that “[i]f the reader is overwhelmed by all of this, he or she is supposed to be.” Yet out of this welter of foreign places and people, a compelling story of Gersony’s dedication and effectiveness emerges.
“We cannot hide from the world,” Kaplan writes, in summing up this admiring portrait of Bob Gersony’s consequential life and work and its constant tension between realism and idealism. As the United States makes the transition from an administration whose foreign policy was based on intentional disengagement with that world to one in which the country will play something that more resembles its traditional role, THE GOOD AMERICAN is a frank reminder of the challenges and benefits of being part of the global community. Perhaps it also will serve as a useful guide, and something of a prod, to future generations of Bob Gersonys who will have the responsibility of carrying on his vital work.
Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg
It would be hard to find a more unlikely candidate for the role of humanitarian hero than Bob Gersony. A high school dropout who worked briefly as a commodity trader (the business in which his Holocaust refugee father made and lost a fortune) before serving in a noncombat role in Vietnam, Kaplan describes his subject, who bears a certain vague resemblance to Larry David, as “a character out of a Saul Bellow novel trapped in settings depicted by Joseph Conrad.” An introverted man of abstemious habits, including eating only one meal a day, he was stalked by anxiety and depression and yet somehow vanquished his psychological demons to place himself constantly in positions of physical hardship and extreme peril to gather, and then share, the stories of the oppressed and the victimized.
After a period of several years in Guatemala, where he established a network of Spanish language schools, in 1976 Gersony went to work as a freelance contractor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a bureaucracy established during the Kennedy administration that “was essentially the Third World development arm of the State Department,” with whom it existed in a sometimes tense equilibrium. From then until the early 2010s, in more than 50 assignments, Gersony’s fieldwork made him an indispensable, if publicly almost anonymous, figure.
From his first posting in Central America, Kaplan literally follows Gersony around the world (the two met in Sudan in 1985 and frequently crossed paths after that) from one trouble spot to the next as his career “charted the history of humanitarianism since the Vietnam War.” Whether he was developing an ingenious plan to combat piracy against Vietnamese refugees in the South China Sea in the mid-1980s, working episodically on development projects in Central and South America, or engaging with a politically explosive crisis like the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Kaplan explains how Gersony, "a moderate conservative with moral convictions, lacking the ideological blinders that would later destroy conservatism,” developed a unique yet highly effective technique for going about his work and rigorously applied it to better the lives of countless suffering people.
How Gersony almost obsessively applied that methodology becomes one of the themes of Kaplan’s book. In what he estimates were more than 8,000 exhaustive interviews, recorded with the pen Gersony always carried on a strap around his neck, and then transcribed during long, lonely evenings in cheap hotels, as 12-hour work days stretched into seven-day work weeks, he displayed a gift for connecting with ordinary people, painstakingly gathering their stories and then building effective responses to their plight out of that humble material.
“The whole point of his investigations was always to be in firsthand contact with the evidence, while at all costs avoiding groupthink,” Kaplan writes. Approaching each new situation without preconceptions --- notably any deeply ideological ones in the period when geopolitics shifted from the Cold War to the new complexities of life in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union --- allowed Gersony to bring a refreshing objectivity to his arduous, and often dangerous, tasks.
Another beauty of his method, as Kaplan’s account demonstrates, is that it was infinitely adaptable to the unimaginable variety of difficult situations he encountered across the globe. It also enabled Gersony, in masterly briefings of State Department and other government officials that often stretched for hours, to disrupt the conventional wisdom of bureaucrats and politicians who never would have had the courage to set foot in some of the terrifying places he dared to venture.
Kaplan’s book, which sometimes reads like an adventure story, is thick with detail, and though the glossary of some 50 acronyms he provides is helpful, he recognizes that even the most patient reader may at times succumb to a feeling of bewilderment. At one point in his description of Gersony’s work in Ethiopia and Somalia in 1989, he admits that “[i]f the reader is overwhelmed by all of this, he or she is supposed to be.” Yet out of this welter of foreign places and people, a compelling story of Gersony’s dedication and effectiveness emerges.
“We cannot hide from the world,” Kaplan writes, in summing up this admiring portrait of Bob Gersony’s consequential life and work and its constant tension between realism and idealism. As the United States makes the transition from an administration whose foreign policy was based on intentional disengagement with that world to one in which the country will play something that more resembles its traditional role, THE GOOD AMERICAN is a frank reminder of the challenges and benefits of being part of the global community. Perhaps it also will serve as a useful guide, and something of a prod, to future generations of Bob Gersonys who will have the responsibility of carrying on his vital work.
Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg
January 14, 2023
Bob Gersony conducted interviews in little traveled locations many of which were dangerous. His research was helpful to better understand the challenges faced in the areas. Unfortunately, this book wasn't a fit for me. The narrator did a good job.
February 27, 2021
This is a book by an excellent writer (Robert Kaplan) about a remarkable man (Bob Gersony) with a big heart for understanding the people stuck in terrible situations such as natural disasters and military and political conflicts. Fascinating book. I'll count this biography as one of my favorites for a long time.
December 15, 2025
I've been aware of Kaplan's writing for awhile, but had never sampled any. I stumbled upon this book and devoured it. This story of Bob Gersony and his life work is, well, alot. Gersony is a complex man, he did quite complex work in extremely complex scenarios for ridiculously complex bureaucracy. I soon became overwhelmed by the agencies and acronyms, but I didn't care. To really read this book well would require a notebook and many diagrams of who's-who and what's-where. In the regard I did not give this book due attention. Instead I raced though it at top speed. This book did for me what I imagine fantasy books do for fantasy readers; I would find myself staring off vaguely, processing the places, names, and alliances that felt imagined, but were in fact, real.
I'm left a bit uncertain about Kaplan's writing. Numerous times I suddenly had to stop, realizing that I didn't understand a sentence. Something subtle in syntax or something kept causing me fits. I was quite willing to forgive this in exchange for the stellar education in complexity.
I want to underscore my appreciation for Bob Gersony, the main character. He is not, in anyway, cut from heroic cloth. Here is an "uneducated" neurotic man, free from love either of travel or bureaucracy, who listened well and changed the world. So many of his solutions to inescapably complex scenarios were offensively simple and unromantic. He arrived at these observations through grueling travel to hear actual sufferers and their perspectives. The world lives in his debt.
I'm left a bit uncertain about Kaplan's writing. Numerous times I suddenly had to stop, realizing that I didn't understand a sentence. Something subtle in syntax or something kept causing me fits. I was quite willing to forgive this in exchange for the stellar education in complexity.
I want to underscore my appreciation for Bob Gersony, the main character. He is not, in anyway, cut from heroic cloth. Here is an "uneducated" neurotic man, free from love either of travel or bureaucracy, who listened well and changed the world. So many of his solutions to inescapably complex scenarios were offensively simple and unromantic. He arrived at these observations through grueling travel to hear actual sufferers and their perspectives. The world lives in his debt.
November 5, 2021
I love Kaplan's history-focused travel narratives, I would even go so far as to say he is my favorite author. This time however he is written a biography of an influential but largely unknown civil servant/government contractor.
The book covers the career of Bob Gersony, but also gives an overview of the geopolitical context for his work, which is where Kaplan shines. If you are interested in the later half of the Cold War and its aftermath, especially in the Third World, this is probably a book for you.
The book covers the career of Bob Gersony, but also gives an overview of the geopolitical context for his work, which is where Kaplan shines. If you are interested in the later half of the Cold War and its aftermath, especially in the Third World, this is probably a book for you.
September 27, 2021
Yes, the detailed work of the US government takes place in interesting ways and even has room for creativity amongst the bureaucratic masses. In addition to creativity this is also a story of the autonomy certain individuals can carve out if they have the right credentials.
Fascinating portrait of real commitment to truth and an ability to influence US policy. He does earn the title of Good American.
Fascinating portrait of real commitment to truth and an ability to influence US policy. He does earn the title of Good American.
April 19, 2021
very interesting, new insight on the Cold War and the Third World. Gersony and Locke are soul mates.
March 26, 2021
The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian is a biography of Robert Gersony, an American with assessed to trouble spots throughout the world for four decades. Robert D. Kaplan, a politics, foreign affairs, and travel American author, wrote this book.
Robert Gersony is an American consultant known for his reports on conflict-affected countries, in particular in Africa.
Kaplan recounts Gersony’s unsung, four-decade career from the 1970s to the 2010s as he parachuted into humanitarian disasters, refugee crises, and civil wars in order to assess the situation up-close and recommend policies through the straightforward mechanism of interviewing ordinary people.
Kaplan credits Gersony with crucial policy redirections, including the Reagan administration's decision not to arm Mozambique’s RENAMO rebels after he exposed their atrocities in 1988, and recommendations of many aid programs that allowed people to work instead of fight.
The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian is written and researched rather well. It's a vivid story as Gersony, suffering perpetual nervousness and indigestion, navigates hair-raising conflict zones, and fences with denialist bureaucrats and politicians.
All in all, The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian is a life-story that reads like an action thriller.
Robert Gersony is an American consultant known for his reports on conflict-affected countries, in particular in Africa.
Kaplan recounts Gersony’s unsung, four-decade career from the 1970s to the 2010s as he parachuted into humanitarian disasters, refugee crises, and civil wars in order to assess the situation up-close and recommend policies through the straightforward mechanism of interviewing ordinary people.
Kaplan credits Gersony with crucial policy redirections, including the Reagan administration's decision not to arm Mozambique’s RENAMO rebels after he exposed their atrocities in 1988, and recommendations of many aid programs that allowed people to work instead of fight.
The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian is written and researched rather well. It's a vivid story as Gersony, suffering perpetual nervousness and indigestion, navigates hair-raising conflict zones, and fences with denialist bureaucrats and politicians.
All in all, The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian is a life-story that reads like an action thriller.
June 10, 2020
Thank you to #NetGalley, Robert Kaplan and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of this book prior to publication in exchange for my review. The Good American is the story of Bob Gersony. Gersony dropped out of high school, served in Vietnam where he was awarded a Bronze Star and spent more than 40 years as a humanitarian working in crisis zones around the world on behalf of the American people. During this time he worked as a special contractor for the State Department, USAID and the UN. He was sent to numerous countries including Vietnam, Uganda, North Korea, Nepal, Iraq and Guatemala to talk to people on the ground, the refugees, the displaced people, and gather the facts and develop a plan to make US foreign policy "a bit smarter and a bit more humane", working within ever changing constraints. While interviewing people, Gersony would always pick out a characteristic of the person he was interviewing that set him apart from others so that he could later remember that person as special, as an individual. Even though this book is the biography of Bob Gersony, it reads like an exciting adventure novel. It is a testament to the difference that one man can make in the lives of millions as he conducted interview after interview, wrote report after report and helped presidential administrations do the right thing. I highly recommend it.
January 5, 2022
The Cold War was anything but cold in Latin America, Africa, and SE Asia in the 1970-early 1990s. Bob Gersony, as a contractor to various US and UN agencies was in the middle of all of these conflicts, trying to figure out, through unorthodox methodology, what was actually going on, and what could be done to actually help the people on the ground in the midst of these tragedies. His reports were unique, insightful, and frequently impactful. Truly a quiet hero of global humanitarianism. Robert D Kaplan, long time international correspondent for the Atlantic, is the PERECT person to tell Gersony's story, as he was in many of the places where Gersony worked and gained deep insights into what was going on. Reading this book is great way to understand the real story behind Cold War era (and beyond into the early 2000s) conflicts in Central America, Central Africa, and Bosnia.
February 13, 2021
Should be read by all high school seniors - Robert Kaplan has presented Bob Gersony and his life as high adventure - but his work is the example of what can be done by one person who respects humanity.
November 2, 2021
Outstanding book. We should all know of the heroic work many of our behind the scenes government workers do.
November 7, 2021
I read a review of this when it was published and bought it right away. Then I let it sit on my shelf for a year or whatever and when I picked it up last week, I kinda wondered what made me think I would like it so much. So of course I started out with a kind of "prove yourself" mentality about it and for about 140 pages I contemplated setting it aside. But then I was careful to really focus for a while and it wasn't long before I was swept up. There are so many aspects that I appreciate-- it's a different perspective on international humanitarian issues in the late 20th century, it reflects the kind of practical solutions that can make important progress for folks being served by US AID, and it is also a picture of someone with fears and flaws and remarkable integrity. I can't say that I want to do the things that Gersony did (too many rats and ticks, not to mention guns and threats) but I do want to live my life in a way that would make people use the same adjectives about me that his associates use about him.
September 13, 2023
When I hear the name “bob” I don’t typically think of a scrawny, shy, jewish humanitarian Indiana Jones, but now I’m glad I do.
June 3, 2021
This book might have been titled "The Quiet American," had not Graham Greene already used that title. (Greene's novel is referenced late in this book.)
Until I read a review of "The Good American," I don't recall ever having heard of Bob Gersony before. Yet as a freelance contractor for USAID and other mostly governmental agencies, he served in nearly every Third World trouble spot in the latter decades of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. He did so without ever having a diplomatic title and without ever calling attention to himself.
If he hadn't been a real person, Bob Gersony would have made an excellent fictional character, in part because he seemed so ill-suited for his work.
Although a high school dropout, Gersony was offered a lucrative career as a commodities trader. He turned it down, instead finding his way to Guatemala. There, he saw a need and developed a language school that was so successful that he attracted the attention of U.S. agencies. This began a career that would send him to Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras, Bosnia, Uganda, Gaza and the West Bank, Mozambique, Nepal and many other places. People who do this sort of traveling tend to have or develop adventurous tastes. Not Gersony. He had a sensitive stomach, as Robert D. Kaplan points out several times, and would typically eat only one bland meal a day. He hated the social functions that comprise a major part of diplomacy. The type of work he did allowed him to escape much of that, but not all of it.
He was no Indiana Jones. He was frequently in extremely dangerous situations, and in those situations he was always afraid, Kaplan relates. He had that special kind of courage of the person who sees what needs to be done, is afraid to do it, and does it anyway. He frequently popped pills to control his anxiety.
What Gersony had was an uncanny ability to connect with the people who actually were affected by government policy -- refugees, in many cases -- to interview them without preconceived notions and to assemble the results into specific, achievable recommendations that were often far different from what had been determined in the ivory towers.
He also had the dogged determination to get the job done in circumstances which, even when not dangerous, were invariably unpleasant. To say the least. In Bosnia, for example, where he served with his wife, Cindy:
At the beginning of their eleven weeks of journeying the weather was freezing but at least the countryside was dry. Then it began snowing with a vengeance. Bob sweated constantly out of nervousness. He hated driving: he feared the roadblocks, the banditry, the possibility of flat tires and of getting lost in the snow. Yet he was always shivering, too.
Part of the joy of reading "The Good American" for me is reading about places that, during my adult life, only occasional emerged in headlines and then were mostly forgotten as soon as a catastrophe passed. It gave me a sense of the bigger picture in the places where Gersony served.
Although the focus certainly is Bob Gersony, Kaplan introduces us to other fascinating people and places along the way. There is, for example, Jerry Weaver "a gun-in-pants type fellow" who "had enough swash and buckle in him to break through any barrier," the State Department's Hume Horan tells Kaplan. Weaver had brought his swashbuckling style to the U.S. Embassy refugee program in Khartoum, Sudan, ahead of Gersony, and left a bit of a diplomatic mess for Gersony to repair.
Also in Khartoum, there was (and apparently still is) the Acropole Hotel, "a spotlessly clean, brilliantly managed intelligence-gathering factory all its own, costing $20 per night including breakfast and dinner." The hotel of choice for journalists and NGO workers, it was managed by three Greek brothers who "dealt with Sudanese officialdom better than any Western embassy staff could," Kaplan writes. "My visas were never arranged at the Sudanese embassy in Athens, Greece, where I was living in the 1980s, but by the managers of the Acropole, who had them waiting for me at the Khartoum airport."
Sudan in the 1980s couldn't have been an easy place for journalists or NGO personnel to work, but oh to have experienced the Acropole for a few days.
Kaplan's career as a foreign correspondent caused him to cross paths with Gersony a number of times. It ultimately led him to write this book, interviewing this quiet American for hundreds of hours. I'm glad he did.
Until I read a review of "The Good American," I don't recall ever having heard of Bob Gersony before. Yet as a freelance contractor for USAID and other mostly governmental agencies, he served in nearly every Third World trouble spot in the latter decades of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. He did so without ever having a diplomatic title and without ever calling attention to himself.
If he hadn't been a real person, Bob Gersony would have made an excellent fictional character, in part because he seemed so ill-suited for his work.
Although a high school dropout, Gersony was offered a lucrative career as a commodities trader. He turned it down, instead finding his way to Guatemala. There, he saw a need and developed a language school that was so successful that he attracted the attention of U.S. agencies. This began a career that would send him to Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras, Bosnia, Uganda, Gaza and the West Bank, Mozambique, Nepal and many other places. People who do this sort of traveling tend to have or develop adventurous tastes. Not Gersony. He had a sensitive stomach, as Robert D. Kaplan points out several times, and would typically eat only one bland meal a day. He hated the social functions that comprise a major part of diplomacy. The type of work he did allowed him to escape much of that, but not all of it.
He was no Indiana Jones. He was frequently in extremely dangerous situations, and in those situations he was always afraid, Kaplan relates. He had that special kind of courage of the person who sees what needs to be done, is afraid to do it, and does it anyway. He frequently popped pills to control his anxiety.
What Gersony had was an uncanny ability to connect with the people who actually were affected by government policy -- refugees, in many cases -- to interview them without preconceived notions and to assemble the results into specific, achievable recommendations that were often far different from what had been determined in the ivory towers.
He also had the dogged determination to get the job done in circumstances which, even when not dangerous, were invariably unpleasant. To say the least. In Bosnia, for example, where he served with his wife, Cindy:
At the beginning of their eleven weeks of journeying the weather was freezing but at least the countryside was dry. Then it began snowing with a vengeance. Bob sweated constantly out of nervousness. He hated driving: he feared the roadblocks, the banditry, the possibility of flat tires and of getting lost in the snow. Yet he was always shivering, too.
Part of the joy of reading "The Good American" for me is reading about places that, during my adult life, only occasional emerged in headlines and then were mostly forgotten as soon as a catastrophe passed. It gave me a sense of the bigger picture in the places where Gersony served.
Although the focus certainly is Bob Gersony, Kaplan introduces us to other fascinating people and places along the way. There is, for example, Jerry Weaver "a gun-in-pants type fellow" who "had enough swash and buckle in him to break through any barrier," the State Department's Hume Horan tells Kaplan. Weaver had brought his swashbuckling style to the U.S. Embassy refugee program in Khartoum, Sudan, ahead of Gersony, and left a bit of a diplomatic mess for Gersony to repair.
Also in Khartoum, there was (and apparently still is) the Acropole Hotel, "a spotlessly clean, brilliantly managed intelligence-gathering factory all its own, costing $20 per night including breakfast and dinner." The hotel of choice for journalists and NGO workers, it was managed by three Greek brothers who "dealt with Sudanese officialdom better than any Western embassy staff could," Kaplan writes. "My visas were never arranged at the Sudanese embassy in Athens, Greece, where I was living in the 1980s, but by the managers of the Acropole, who had them waiting for me at the Khartoum airport."
Sudan in the 1980s couldn't have been an easy place for journalists or NGO personnel to work, but oh to have experienced the Acropole for a few days.
Kaplan's career as a foreign correspondent caused him to cross paths with Gersony a number of times. It ultimately led him to write this book, interviewing this quiet American for hundreds of hours. I'm glad he did.
October 20, 2021
It's hard for me to imagine a more powerful or insightful book on the topic of American international potential -- or just human nature -- to be published this year. Very, very rarely do you find a book that can impact your worldview and day to day thoughts from the ground up in such a profound way. It is equally disturbing and horrifying as well as inspiring and hopeful. Gen. Mattis says this on the dust jacket:
"For anyone who has stopped believing that one person can make a difference, or that government service is still a noble calling, or that facts still matter, or that the American brand can still hold fast to practical idealism, this book is the antidote to those fears.”—Jim Mattis, general, U.S. Marine"
A singular text on practical idealism. Read it. Read it. Read it.
"For anyone who has stopped believing that one person can make a difference, or that government service is still a noble calling, or that facts still matter, or that the American brand can still hold fast to practical idealism, this book is the antidote to those fears.”—Jim Mattis, general, U.S. Marine"
A singular text on practical idealism. Read it. Read it. Read it.
September 18, 2021
I’ve never met Bob Gersony. That probably doesn’t seem strange to you. But it is to me.
Gersony was a humanitarian, and “The Good American” is his story. It is not an epic story, despite the title. There was nothing epic about what Gersony did with his forty years. He did not achieve remarkable feats of policy – no peace deals; no Nobel Prizes; no nighttime marches of the unfortunate. No clandestine airfields at twilight or discoveries of mass graves. He did not spend fifteen years living in the Congolese camps or caring for those with severe mental deficiencies or running an orphanage of war-children. He is not Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela.
Bob Gersony did assessments for USAID; and some for State. That’s what we call them, the trips around the world to talk to residents of a refugee camp in the Sudan or of the slums above Rio in Brazil. There are a lot of assessment-takers; consultants – a cottage industry living in Vienna Virginia or Bethesda Maryland.
I am not trying to denigrate Gersony, or Robert D. Kaplan’s book about him. On the contrary. Kaplan’s representation of Gersony made me think of a line in Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim”:
“Time had passed indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poor gifts: the iron-grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulder-straps; one of those steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations, one of those uncounted lives that are buried without drums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes.”
As I said I never met Gersony, which is strange. We worked in many of the same places. The difference is the timing; Gersony from the 1970s to the early 2000s – while I started my career in 1999 till now. The sad thing is, as I said, the places are the same. Northern Uganda; Eastern Chad; Honduras; Nigeria; the Balkans. I’ve worked all these places. And I knew so many of the people that fill the pages of Kaplan’s book – but I knew them at the end. Andrew Natsios and Elliott Abrams – people who are the epic characters of the 1980s and 1990s – because that is when Gersony worked.
Now the book itself – as I’ve said before it was not an epic story. But I think that was Kaplan’s point. There are of course those tales – even just these days with the fall of Kabul a thousand new stories were written (and yet to be penned – I was involved in a few). Stories of violence and espionage and terrorism and explosions. Kaplan wanted instead to highlight the importance of the steady goodness of an ordinary man. This is Kaplan’s hidden message in a book which – unlike his other works – drips with contempt and exhaustion at America’s modern State Department and USAID, institutions which no longer serve the purpose which they did a generation ago staffed by people who no longer ‘get it’.
Gersony got it – and his tremendous value added was to take that common sense and help Washington’s elite to also understand. This, during the days when Washington listened – unlike the current crowd, who only lecture.
Gersony was a humanitarian, and “The Good American” is his story. It is not an epic story, despite the title. There was nothing epic about what Gersony did with his forty years. He did not achieve remarkable feats of policy – no peace deals; no Nobel Prizes; no nighttime marches of the unfortunate. No clandestine airfields at twilight or discoveries of mass graves. He did not spend fifteen years living in the Congolese camps or caring for those with severe mental deficiencies or running an orphanage of war-children. He is not Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela.
Bob Gersony did assessments for USAID; and some for State. That’s what we call them, the trips around the world to talk to residents of a refugee camp in the Sudan or of the slums above Rio in Brazil. There are a lot of assessment-takers; consultants – a cottage industry living in Vienna Virginia or Bethesda Maryland.
I am not trying to denigrate Gersony, or Robert D. Kaplan’s book about him. On the contrary. Kaplan’s representation of Gersony made me think of a line in Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim”:
“Time had passed indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poor gifts: the iron-grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulder-straps; one of those steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations, one of those uncounted lives that are buried without drums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes.”
As I said I never met Gersony, which is strange. We worked in many of the same places. The difference is the timing; Gersony from the 1970s to the early 2000s – while I started my career in 1999 till now. The sad thing is, as I said, the places are the same. Northern Uganda; Eastern Chad; Honduras; Nigeria; the Balkans. I’ve worked all these places. And I knew so many of the people that fill the pages of Kaplan’s book – but I knew them at the end. Andrew Natsios and Elliott Abrams – people who are the epic characters of the 1980s and 1990s – because that is when Gersony worked.
Now the book itself – as I’ve said before it was not an epic story. But I think that was Kaplan’s point. There are of course those tales – even just these days with the fall of Kabul a thousand new stories were written (and yet to be penned – I was involved in a few). Stories of violence and espionage and terrorism and explosions. Kaplan wanted instead to highlight the importance of the steady goodness of an ordinary man. This is Kaplan’s hidden message in a book which – unlike his other works – drips with contempt and exhaustion at America’s modern State Department and USAID, institutions which no longer serve the purpose which they did a generation ago staffed by people who no longer ‘get it’.
Gersony got it – and his tremendous value added was to take that common sense and help Washington’s elite to also understand. This, during the days when Washington listened – unlike the current crowd, who only lecture.
September 9, 2021
I became a fan of Robert Kaplan's writing when I read "Balkan Ghosts" in 1994 while deployed with the US Navy in support of operations in the former republics of Yugoslavia. I've read almost everything he's published since then. It suffices to say I find his work important to those that follow the many geopolitical events that affect national security.
The Good American, includes all of the superb writing and analysis on many important world events dating back to the 1970s. what makes this book so unique is that the participant in those events is not Kaplan, rather it is Robert Gersony. Gersony, is someone I had never heard of, but after reading this book I think everyone should know of him.
Kaplan, makes a compelling case that Gersony is the US government's greatest humanitarian. Kaplan supports his writing with dozens of interviews with Gersony and the volumes of reports he generated in his work as a contractor for USAID, and DOS. Kaplan also draws from interviews with former ambassadors, State department workers, and humanitarian relief workers. More than anything, the facts on the ground in countries, to numerous to mention, where Gersony worked, speak for themselves.
Robert Gersony took great risks to discover the truth and he reported the truth to power. His life is evidence that one man dedicated to finding the truth and a deep concern for human rights can make a difference. I'm glad I got to know a little bit about Robert Gersony in the pages of Kaplan's book. Read it, and you'll be glad too.
The Good American, includes all of the superb writing and analysis on many important world events dating back to the 1970s. what makes this book so unique is that the participant in those events is not Kaplan, rather it is Robert Gersony. Gersony, is someone I had never heard of, but after reading this book I think everyone should know of him.
Kaplan, makes a compelling case that Gersony is the US government's greatest humanitarian. Kaplan supports his writing with dozens of interviews with Gersony and the volumes of reports he generated in his work as a contractor for USAID, and DOS. Kaplan also draws from interviews with former ambassadors, State department workers, and humanitarian relief workers. More than anything, the facts on the ground in countries, to numerous to mention, where Gersony worked, speak for themselves.
Robert Gersony took great risks to discover the truth and he reported the truth to power. His life is evidence that one man dedicated to finding the truth and a deep concern for human rights can make a difference. I'm glad I got to know a little bit about Robert Gersony in the pages of Kaplan's book. Read it, and you'll be glad too.
April 8, 2021
I chose this book because I've read so much good stuff by this author, and it did not disappoint. It's a biography of Bob Gersony, a high school dropout, Vietnam vet, and low level employee of the U.S. government (and occasionally for the U.N. and NGOs). Gersony developed an interview technique in which he talked little and listened a lot, and he was sent to trouble spots around the world where he went in deep to where people were hurting. Gradually he became known as the government's best source of the truth about the political landscape. Occasionally it conflicted with the official view, and in the end proved to be correct. Gersony conducted more than 8000 interviews in In Thailand, Central and South America, Sudan, Chad, Mozambique, Rwanda, Gaza, Bosnia, North Korea, Iraq, and more, often risking his life to do so. It's well told, and probably the most interesting biography you can read of someone you've never heard of.
May 13, 2021
Goodness ... these 20 or so chapters took much longer than I anticipated ... needed a full month to digest!
What a career I would have loved to try in another life, documenting on the ground feedback from those affected by war-torn conflicts. Gershoni is a beacon for what American diplomacy can actually be like, opting for humanity first ahead of all politics.
The chapters on African history was particularly eye opening since I know so little about conflicts in those regions.
The chapter on Gaza is evermore relevant given this week’s events...
Highly recommended for any world history buff or intl development fanatic! Also a “free” trip around the world during Covid travel ban!
What a career I would have loved to try in another life, documenting on the ground feedback from those affected by war-torn conflicts. Gershoni is a beacon for what American diplomacy can actually be like, opting for humanity first ahead of all politics.
The chapters on African history was particularly eye opening since I know so little about conflicts in those regions.
The chapter on Gaza is evermore relevant given this week’s events...
Highly recommended for any world history buff or intl development fanatic! Also a “free” trip around the world during Covid travel ban!
February 24, 2021
I will be surprised if this is not ending up to be my favorite non fiction read of 2021. Yes, it is really heartening to read about a good American and also to read about the real work of USAID. There are lots of lessons for anyone in government service because I think that listening at the ground roots turned out to be fate changing. Looking back at the history of US involvement in crises around the world reminds me of how little I know.
February 20, 2021
Bob Gersony travels to disaster zones around the world focused on a mission for information. Some of these stories are almost beyond reality. Epic is an understatement for Gersony's impact on the humanitarian efforts. Robert D Kaplan puts together a great biography of Gersony and setting the scene of each disaster. I hope more people learn and expand on Gersony's mission to help people around the world.
March 23, 2021
What Bob Gersony accomplished in his 40+ years of service will renew your faith in the power of truth. It’s an amazing life story that restores the foundation for a more civil future among world cultures. One word describes this man. Integrity. I hope this book reaches far and wide among both young adults and mature readers across the globe. It offers hope in humanity and teaches us all the value of listening.
April 1, 2021
Absolutely fantastic biography teaching more about the importance of on-the-ground knowledge than any prior work. Kaplan maintains his life-long outstanding quality of writing, research and story-telling. The reader will garner deeper insight into the policy making process and outcomes, for better or worse, over the last 40 years than via any source other than personal experience.
Any reader interested in international policy should move Kaplan’s book to the top of their list.
Any reader interested in international policy should move Kaplan’s book to the top of their list.
April 20, 2021
Kaplan's missive on Bob Gersony yields very interesting insights into much of what has gone less than successfully on American aid programs over the face of the globe. Most of his guidance sounds so sensible one would have to wonder why we often fail so miserably at the job - but we seem to continue to do so.
March 2, 2021
Excellent book. This is a hard read, and I had nightmares as I was reading it. It will make you question the reporting and political statements of everyone. Beware of grand simple solutions. More ground level intelligence is needed in all of our foreign endeavors.
April 14, 2021
Great history lesson
Covers a wide range of conflicts that I knew of, but little about. Provides multiple anecdotes that help understand how things have evolved after the event. Lots of fragments which will stick in your memory.
Covers a wide range of conflicts that I knew of, but little about. Provides multiple anecdotes that help understand how things have evolved after the event. Lots of fragments which will stick in your memory.
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