Road to Hell
Mr. Maren's mission, which he accomplishes beyond a doubt, is to force us to think about humanitarian intervention in uncomfortable ways. Maren and his conclusions will have to be heard whenever the issue [of aid] is aired, lest more money be wasted and fewer people actually helped.
— Raymond Bonner The New York Times Book Review
Reading The Road to Hell, I kept thinking of the novels of Joseph Conrad. Lively, hard-hitting and written with keen scorn; it deserves to be widely read.
--Montreal Gazette
Imagine a blend of the old-style American muck-raking populism of H.L. Mencken or I.F. Stone and Evelyn Waugh's eye for absurdity. . . for an idea of what to expect in this well-written, ticking time bomb of a book.
-- Vancouver Sun
Maren writes with the fury and disillusionment of intimacy. . . an invaluable corrective to the hagiographical accounts of humanitarian aid operations that have been the norm. . . He is an expert debunker.
-- David Rieff in Foreign Affairs
A devastating portrayal of aid agencies drunk on government largesse and indifferent to actual needs and to the impact of their assistance.
-- London Review of Books.
A chilling exposé... a rare insider's view of the effects of international-relief efforts. A compelling indictment of good intentions gone awry, solidly documented.
-- Cleveland Plain Dealer
Maren is a dogged, tenacious researcher -- The Road to Hell is a first-rate exposé.
--The American Enterprise
Maren's work is a superb and detailed account of something terribly wrong. Ultimately, the "global fixit industry" fixes little but itself.
-- The National Catholic Reporter
Marvellous. Maren shows how aid is the modern form of colonialism, a 'humanitarian' cover for maintaining imperialist domination.
This book is a forceful and disturbing portrait of Western intervention in Somalia.
-- Publisher's Weekly
Engaging. . .provocative.. . will require some kind of response by those wishing to refute the broader argument against foreign aid.
-- The Washington Times
Tenaciously and passionately researched... Maren hurls stinging accusations and makes them stick. Much of what Maren uncovers is shocking, some of it surreal.
— Kirkus
Eloquent and forceful...crisply written. -- The New Democrat
Reads like a morality play - how Lady Bountiful turned Hydra -- The Baltimore Sun
A splendid, literate,muckraking memoir -- Amazon