An experienced foreign reporter, now a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, Krauss cut his journalistic teeth by covering Central America's strife during the 1980s. Having rejected his youthful sympathy for revolutionaries but never persuaded by the "obsessive, ideological fears" that drove U.S. policy in the Reagan years, Krauss tries to make analytic sense of his 13 years of first-hand impressions. He sees "few heroes, liberators, or freedom fighters," but lots of exploitation, violence and repression-and a history of disastrous U.S. policies.