Reviews for Wanderjahre: A Reporter's Journey in a Mad World (London, 2014)
"This is a bold book... charting the emotional and intellectual growth of a young man, from raw stringer to seasoned reporter... His depiction of the modern world as a place of chaos and violence... is both infinitely convincing and utterly terrifying."
Times Literary Supplement, January 7, 2015 - READ MORE
"Kleveman is one of those alpha-male types who enjoys courting trouble. In Burma, he gave an angry general a Hitler salute. He entered Laos claiming to be a nuclear weapons inspector. In North Korea, he drove his minders crazy by trying to take photographs of starving farmers."
The Independent, June 8, 2014 - READ MORE
Reviews for The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia (London, 2003)
"Kleveman has produced a convincing and well-researched book, part travelogue, part geopolitical primer, providing a fascinating study not only of an area that is likely soon to become as problematic as the Middle East, but of America's oil-dominated foreign policy."
Sunday Times, October 3, 2004 - READ MORE
"[Kleveman's] report is at its most unsettling when local warlords and magnates, fuelled with vodka, open up to him. At some risk to his life, he has doggedly reported on the new Klondyke."
The Times, September 11, 2004 - READ MORE
"A cast of shady characters worthy of a le Carré novel... Part travel-writing, part polemic, this eminently readable book slots the hostilities in Iraq into the context of a much longer-term struggle for resources."
The Observer, August 22, 2004 - READ MORE
"Mr Kleveman links the instability of the region to oil greed. [He] feeds his argument with enlightening historical background and colourful anecdotes from his extensive travels and interviews. (...)
The Economist, November 20, 2003 - READ MORE
"A powerful, compelling book... in the very best tradition of foreign reporting, Kleveman has uncovered the staggering dimensions of the resources being channelled into the struggle for control of the Caspian oilfields."
Misha Glenny in The Observer, November 2, 2003 - READ MORE
"Enjoyable, gripping, important... His reportage is first-class and his findings truly enlightening. I wished that the author would turn out to be British..."
Literary Review, November 1, 2003 - READ MORE
"Travelling with some danger to himself and marshalling the political and historical facts with authority, Kleveman [produces] a coherent study of a notoriously complex and unpredictable region, much of which is torn by terrible violence and civil wars."
Sunday Times October 19, 2003 - READ MORE
"This book's strength lies in the author's sharp journalistic eye, and his apparent fearlessness..."
The Independent: October 14, 2003 - READ MORE
"Lutz Kleveman's timely, panoramic book examines the consequences of the presence of enormous quantities of fossil fuels in one of the world's most inaccessible and unstable regions. (...)
(...) Although Kleveman has worked as a war correspondent himself, his inclinations here are less macho and more inquisitive than the norm..."
The Guardian: October 11, 2003 - READ MORE
"The book is an easy-to-read guide to countries where the food is atrocious and the plumbing worse. The book is clever. Kleveman has traveled thousands of miles and spoken to scores of important and interesting people. Unfortunately, all the entertaining reportage is a cover for an insidious attack on the United States."
New York Post: January 25, 2004 - READ MORE
"Lutz Kleveman (...) offers readers the tools they need to understand the foolishness of investing enormous political and financial resources in places like Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan without demanding fundamental changes in the way these places are governed. He is liberal in his biases, but he does not hide them, and this is a fair and well-reported book."
The New York Sun: November 19, 2003 - READ MORE
"The author's investigations took him on a journey of thousands of miles - the result is a direct and racy account, written mostly in the present tense and with plenty of dialogue."
History Today: November 2004 - READ MORE
"Like many before him, by portraying international affairs in Central Asia as a zero-sum geopolitical 'new great game', the author sacrifices accuracy on the altar of romantic sensationalism."
International Affairs: Volume 80, Issue 2, 2004 - READ MORE
"On the whole, the book impresses. Kleveman risked his neck traveling across Central Asia to interview a diverse cast of characters: diplomats and mullahs, businessmen and border guards. (...)
"...a brilliant exposition of the competition for oil."
National Review: September 29, 2003 - READ MORE
"...[The author] can take credit for a book that is essential for those seeking as many views as possible on this complicated moment in history."
The Seattle Times: October 26, 2003 - READ MORE
"Lutz Kleveman takes readers on a fascinating trip through 10 countries (...) and tells a spellbinding tale of "blood and oil" on an authentic frontier full of bandits, gangs, crooked politicians, modern-day robber barons and even whole renegade provinces..."
San Francisco Chronicle: September 21, 2003 - READ MORE
"The timing of Kleveman's travels was in some ways highly fortuitous, as he was on the front lines of the post-Sept. 11, 2001, surge of interest in Central Asia and the Caspian -- parts of the world that, just five years earlier, had barely registered on the global geopolitical radar screen."
The Moscow Times: May 28, 2004 - READ MORE
"A well-argued, well-observed journey into a little-known area likely
to be of much importance in days to come... Anyone who believed that the recent American invasion of Iraq was about countering terrorism might want to reconsider."
Kirkus Reviews: July 15, 2003 - READ MORE
"The work draws attention to a little understood and increasingly important part of the world where oil, Islam and terrorism converge to create havoc..."
Publishers Weekly - READ MORE
"This book is a well-written and cleverly presented political, economic, industrial, and military travelogue.. Using anecdotes and dramatic narrative, Kleveman offers sharp insight into the unsubtle geostrategic maneuverings..."
Military Officer: September 2004 - READ MORE
"[Kleveman] tells a good story, rife with irony" (...)
"And what comes of this for Kleveman? It is (...) not a hopeful scenario. He closes with a vivid paragraph of consumerist America watching cruise missiles fall on civilians, in between television commercials."
Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies: March 2005 - READ MORE
"Kleveman brings lucid witness to these incomprehensible realities. Flowing easily from the big picture to the small, The New Great Game dimensionalizes peoples and crises that have often exceeded the reach of popular consciousness."
The Brooklyn Rail, Januar 2003 - READ MORE
"Kleveman is not particularly anti-American. He has seen enough of conflicts in the non-developed world to be a realist on the subject of this region’s present and likely future. The author is knowledgeable about the international petroleum industry without being allied with it or adversarial to it."
Intervention Magazine, December 7, 2003 - READ MORE
"A journalist, Kleveman writes with enough passion and simplicity to shed light on his complicated subject and from enough personal experience to bring it vividly to life."
Socialist Review, December 2003 - READ MORE
“In Baghdad, where I have been working as a surgeon among the casualties of an ongoing war, Iraqis say that their country was invaded to secure control of its oil. Lutz Kleveman's odyssey into the heart of United States energy policy in Central Asia reveals that this conflict is just one front in a global oil war.”
Jonathan Kaplan, author of The Dressing Station
“Lutz Kleveman has written a timely and daring book to remind us that the Great Game is alive and well in the 21st century.”
Jason Elliot, author of An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
“The New Great Game is an urgent, vigorous insight into a vital issue of the new century. It is undertaken with clear sight and bulldog energy.”
Colin Thubron, Author of The Lost Heart of Asia
“Part reportage part essay, written with journalistic wit by a reporter who also has the historian's eye, Kleveman's new book has the merit to show us how much is at stake—strategically, financially and military—in corners of the world that, after the colonial era ended, became irrelevant and were considered just a “big black hole”. Kleveman explains in a convincing way that the New Great Game for the “Devil's tears” is becoming the new Cold War, with the Caspian Sea now as important as the old Berlin Wall. A book that will provide us with ideas and analysis for some years to come.”
Riccardo Orizio, Author of Talk of the Devil: Encounters With Seven Dictators
Reviews for Kriegsgefangen: Meine deutsche Spurensuche (Munich, 2011)
"Lutz Kleveman ist 38 Jahre alt. Eigentlich zu jung, um seine Memoiren aufzuschreiben. Doch das, was er zu erzählen hat, reicht schon heute für mehr als nur ein Buch."
Hamburger Abendblatt vom 23. Februar 2012 - WEITER
"Herausgekommen ist dabei ein kultiges Buch..."
schweizer Journal 21 vom 13. Januar 2012 - WEITER
"... so informativ und spannend, dass man die Lektüre kaum beiseite legen mag. Den trockenen Humor und die Selbstironie hat der Autor von den Engländern gelernt... ein mutiges und unterhaltsames Buch von großem Erkenntnisgewinn."
taz vom 08. Januar 2012 - WEITER
"Lutz Kleveman fragt sich, warum er als Reporter den Krieg gesucht hat."
Tagesspiegel vom 11. Dezember 2011 - WEITER
"Ein intensives Buch über die Lehr- und Wanderjahre eines unerschrockenen Reporters."
aspekte, ZDF, vom 09. Dezember 2011 - WEITER
"Kleveman lässt keine Party aus. Geradezu dreist fordert er sein Schicksal immer wieder heraus. Als Leser hat man das Gefühl, er hat die wilden Jahre gebraucht, um erwachsen zu werden."
n-tv vom 20. November 2011 - WEITER
"Kleveman schildert hautnah und fesselnd und liefert immer wieder eine ehrlich wirkende Kritik an sich, aber auch an Anderen seines Fachs."
Giessener Allgemeine vom 29. Oktober 2011 - WEITER
"Markant ist vor allem sein äußerst intensiver Blick, mit dem er einen in den Bann schlägt..."
Porträt RBB Kulturradio vom 19. Oktober 2011 - WEITER
"Wie ein kleiner Traumjunge..."
WDR3 Resonanzen vom 10. Oktober - WEITER
"Journalisten seines Schlages sind heute sehr selten, werden aber dringend gebraucht..."
Zenith Online vom 12. Oktober - WEITER
"Die Spannung gewinnt das Buch aus seinen Abenteuerepisoden, allesamt verbürgt, so aufschlussreich wurden sie bislang nicht erzählt in Deutschland... Dieser Bericht ist ein Höhepunkt des deutschen Bücherherbstes."
Märkische Allgemeinen Zeitung vom 01. Oktober 2011 - WEITER
"Gute Journalisten haben Neugier, Empathie und Leidenschaft. Bei Kriegsreportern kommt noch Abenteuerlust hinzu. Das zumindest meint Lutz Kleveman, der zehn Jahre aus allen Krisengebieten der Welt berichtete. Seine Erfahrungen hat er in einem Buch gebündelt."
Märkische Allgemeinen Zeitung vom 12. September 2011 - WEITER
