Ugly AmericanThe multi-million-copy bestseller that coined the phrase for tragic American blunders abroad. In the episode that lends the book its title, the "ugly American" is Homer Atkins, a plain and plain-spoken man, who has been sent by the U.S. government to advise the Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan on engineering projects. When Atkins finds badly misplaced priorities and bluntly challenges the entrenched interests, he lays bare a foreign policy gone dangerously wrong. First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing exposé of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. In linked stories and vignettes, the book uses gripping storytelling to draw a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia. |
Contents
Lucky Lucky Lou 1 | 11 |
Lucky Lucky Lou 2 | 33 |
Nine Friends | 43 |
Everybody Loves Joe Bing | 66 |
Confidential and Personal | 74 |
Employment Opportunities Abroad | 77 |
The Girl Who Got Recruited | 83 |
The Ambassador and the Working Press | 87 |
What Would You Do If You Were President? | 144 |
How to Buy an American Junior Grade | 155 |
The SixFoot Swami from Savannah | 174 |
Captain Boning USN | 191 |
The Ugly American | 205 |
The Ugly American and the Ugly Sarkhanese | 214 |
The Bent Backs of Chang Dong | 232 |
Senator Sir | 239 |
Everyone Has Ears | 93 |
The Ragtime Kid | 110 |
The Iron of War | 115 |
The Lessons of War | 132 |
The Sum of Tiny Things | 264 |
A Factual Epilogue | 271 |