The Barnes & Noble Review"Eat all the food on your plate, because children in Cambodia are starving," our parents told us, and for most of us, eating our last bite of food is the most we have ever done to help those children. Fred Cuny, on the other hand, used his life to do all that was humanly possible. As the real-life protagonist of The Man Who Tried to Save the World, Fred Cuny makes a complicated hero. This book, Cuny's life story, chronicles the oddities, frailties, and accomplishments of this singular man and in the process tells the story of the politics amidst the horrors of war in Iraqi Kurdistan, Somalia, Bosnia, and particularly Chechnya. It takes us into "complex disasters" all over the world as if we too were there trying to help. Scott Anderson tells the story of how Fred Cuny grew from a quiet boy with bad grades and a failed dream to join the Marines into a world-renowned expert in disaster relief with a proud step, a practical approach, and famous cowboy boots. Anderson quotes several of Cuny's diary entries that offer a glimpse of this young man's hunger for great things: "GOALS: 1. To sail a Chinese junk or sampan across the Pacific. 2. To win a major yachting event (as captain). 3. To spend a year sailing the rivers of Europe on a houseboat. 4. To achieve an ATR (?) type rating for: helicopter; four-engine aircraft; glider; jet; gyrocopter; crop-duster; balloon. 5. To visit every country on earth. 6. Learn to speak five languages other than English. 7. Cross Asia overland..." — and the lists go on and on. Amazingly, 22 years after he wrote them, Cuny hadcomeremarkably close to attaining many of his goals, and this in addition to having saved the lives of thousands with his down-to-earth problem-solving techniques. Despite Cuny's remarkable heroism, this is not the flat and boring story of an angel. We find this man's life peppered with