Book Critique

Book Critique

Introduction

Literature can be divided into different categories or genre, such as drama, poetry, fiction etc., or it can be classified as two major and broad categories as fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is a genre, which deals with the large variety of different forms and thus provides richness and freedom for the flow of ideas and expression of concepts beyond imagination. Fiction is defined as “Something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically: an invented story”. There are large scope and fields for the nourishment of ideas and through different forms, such as historical fiction, horror, adventure, mysteries, suspense, romance, science fiction, crime fiction, thrillers, classic fiction and different other forms. These forms of fiction can be presented through different media, such as, stories, short stories, and novels, which generally belong to the literary fiction. Non-fiction consists of histories, biographies, self-help books, etc. One of such example is a book, “Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Built a Nation” written by Joshua E. London that highlight the history of US Navy and their encounter with the Barbary Pirates. This book is marked as the genre of history in which he told the “story” of the challenges faced by the President Thomas Jefferson. This contradiction about this book is resulted due to the way he express these historical events.

Discussion

“Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Built a Nation” is published by the John Wiley & Sons Inc. in Hoboken, New Jersey, and simultaneously in Canada, in 2005. Joshua E. London has rich experience of writing on concrete subjects especially about politics and various social concerns that demands proves and evidences for the support of their credibility. His works published in various reputable journals. He became well recognized after the publication of his book, “Victory in Tripoli”. In this book, London followed fictional writing style rather than following a typical way of expressing historical evidences with secondary sources for support. In this way, he followed pattern of adventure story about the attacks of Muslim terrorists, the Barbary pirates, in the name of jihad and the survival of young nation and resulted in the establishment of military and naval defense system against these forces, “untold story of … an American gentleman adventurer”.

This book, “Victory in Tripoli”, contains events of the United States first war against Terrorism since 1800 and the courage with which, this young nations stand against these forces. This book not only deals with the historical event, but also highlights the consequences that led to the various changes in the social and political framework. This book also provides detailed understanding about the impact of these historical events and these events form basis for the present U.S. foreign policy decisions and also its impact on the future of United States, but only lack of secondary source and writing it in a story form, categorized this book as ...