New Books In World Affairs

You wouldn’t know from the 2012 president race but the United States remains engaged in a fairly bloody conflict in Afghanistan. In addition to boots on the ground, we deploy scores of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and the Horn of Africa to keep Al Qaeda and its affiliates at bay. In the post-9/11 world does the US have any other option aside from semi-permanent war against non-state actors that operate in developing and/or failed states? Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld thinks American policymakers have viable options, alternatives and policies that can address the national security challenges of the 21st century. In Let There Be Light: Electrifying the Developing World With Markets and Distributed Energy, co-authored with Drew Sloan, (Truman National Security Institute, 2012), they reveal that “energy,” or the lack thereof, keeps many nations mired in poverty. To jump start-developing economies, Kleinfeld offers some relatively doable innovations to make energy plentiful. In so doing, failed states could very well become

What if genocide scholars have been approaching the field the wrong way? When I first opened Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010), I was immediately struck by the immense depth of research and learning. Christian Gerlach chooses his case studies from among the lesser studied cases of genocide and immersed himself in the literature. Moreover, he surveys the history and theory of counterinsurgency warfare in roughly 20 countries over the space of 50 years. His knowledge of the field is encyclopedic, and one must admire his tenacity, not to mention the persuasiveness clearly necessary to persuade the publisher to include such an extensive set of notes. More important, however, than the breadth and depth of research are the conclusions Gerlach reaches. For Gerlach’s book argues that people who study genocide need to approach the subject in a different way, one that is broader, is more grounded in primary research, and one that uses the categories of race and e

Citizens of well-developed liberal democracies enjoy an unprecedented standard of living, while a staggering number of people worldwide live in unbelievable poverty. It seems obvious that the well-off have moral obligations to those who are impoverished. But there’s a question regarding the nature and extent of these obligations. Some hold that well-off societies and their citizens own substantial duties of humanitarian assistance to the global poor. Others claim that our duties are stronger than this; they claim that our duties to the global poor are a matter of justice. In her new book, Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Nicole Hassoun proposes a new kind of argument for what she calls “serious moral duties to the global poor.” She claims that in our globalized world, people all over the globe are subject to the coercive power of international institutions. She then argues that these coercive institutions are legitimate only if th

Clifford Bob is the author of the new book The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics (Cambridge University Press 2012). Bob is an associate professor of political science at Duquesne University. This new book draws on the rich literature on the politics of public policy making, but adapts them to the international arena. Bob argues that too little focus has been placed on right wing groups and their causes in favor of progressive movements. Part international relations, part comparative politics the book traces the competing policy networks in several countries in the areas of gay rights and gun rights. The book is provocative, readable, and a real contribution to a variety of subfields of political science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Minkah Makalani is the author of a new intellectual history on the efforts of early twentieth century black radicals to organize an international movement, one that would address both racial and class oppression around the globe. The book is called In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2011). As the title suggests, the focus of the study is on two black radical groups: One in Harlem, the African Blood Brotherhood; and the other in London, the International African Service Bureau. The book examines among other things, “how they communicated across continents.” This is important not only because it illustrates that race was a concern outside of the U.S., but to show just how intricately race and class are linked; so much so that the two cannot be separated. This new study explores provocative questions, and also definitively adds to ongoing debates regarding: * African Americans and communism * Tensions about which

The 2012 London Olympics are here.  To mark the event, New Books in Sports offers another of its occasional seminar episodes.  And as with any great seminar, you’ll be eager to tell people what you’ve learned.  Our slate of Olympic experts don’t offer any medal predictions.  But you will find out about Coca-Cola’s first Olympic promotion.  You’ll learn how traditional Chinese medicine can cure the snarled hamstring of a hurdler.  And you’ll discover the truth about Kerri Strug’s gold medal-winning vault in 1996. The double-length episode features a full roster of scholars and journalists.  Historians Martin Polley and Jean Williams tell us about Britain’s long connection with the Olympics, while Barbara Keys explains why the Thirties were a pivotal decade in the history of international athletics.  We hear from Mark Dyreson and Andrew Billings about Americans’ nationalist view of the Olympics, both with the early games and today.  Steve Menary talks about nationalism within the UK and how that has stoked con

Two days before this year’s Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich, the top two women’s clubs in Europe played on the same pitch, at Munich’s Olympic Stadium, in the final match of the Women’s Champions League. In a pairing of the defending champion, Olympique Lyon, and the club that has won the most titles in the tournament’s 11-year history, FFC Frankfurt, the French side took the cup with a 2-0 victory. The game drew just over 50,000 spectators, by far the most people ever to attend a Women’s Champions League final. UEFA officials and organizers in Munich had worked deliberately to ensure a record-breaking turnout. Match time was moved to the early evening, and special family-priced tickets were available to ensure that mothers could attend with their children. Men’s clubs in the Bundesliga have adopted similar family pricing along with other measures aimed at bringing women to the grounds. As a result, matches in the German first division draw a higher percentage of female spectators tha

Jessica Teisch‘s new book Engineering Nature: Water Development and the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) examines the ways that Californian engineers attempted to reshape their world in the late 19th century. Engineered irrigation appealed to both private individuals and the state as a way of mediating California’s competing interests, creating prosperity and fulfilling an American agrarian ideal. Ideas about irrigation, settlement and development circulated the world and Teisch shows how California’s experts circulated to Australia, South Africa and Palestine, frequently returning with new knowledge then applied to California. Despite their aspirations, few of California’s engineers were as successful as they wished but they had a lot to contend with. Teisch’s engineers inserted themselves into the tumultuous social transformations of the turn of the twentieth century, attempting to shape capitalism, all levels of government and even the developing

There are a lot of balls in my house. Baseballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, footballs, basketballs, volleyballs. We have Wiffle balls, Nerf balls, and Super Balls. My children and I occasionally use the balls for their intended purposes. We play catch in the yard, or shoot baskets in the driveway. There is also a good amount of innovation in how balls are used. My older son smacks tennis balls across the street with his baseball bat, while my younger son dribbles a soccer ball while jumping on a trampoline in the backyard. And during the winter months, they argue over who gets possession of a worn rubber football. Whoever is the holder at any particular time tosses it to himself, squeezes it, kneads it, and runs down the hallway with it tucked under his arm, imagining himself weaving through defenses in the NFL. They never actually play football with it. Instead, it serves as something of a comfort object. In his wide-ranging book The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (HarperCollins, 2012), John Fox

It is not uncommon for many Americans to believe that morality and order comes from God and religion. A society without these elements would consequently be immoral and chaotic. When Phil Zuckerman traveled to Scandinavia, however, where he would spend the next fourteen months, he found a stable and content nonbelieving population, who often have high scores on the “happiness index”, low crime and corruption rates, and efficient educational systems. His book Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment (New York University Press, 2010)summarizes his qualitative research – mainly in the form of interviews – on the people of Scandinavia, and on their relationship to religion and society. He found that many people he interviewed for example, consider themselves Christian in a cultural historic sense, but do not at all believe in the notion of God – a position that would baffle many Americans. In addition, though many reject the notion of God, atheists in Scandinavia seem to

It is not every historian who would offer readers an attempt to explain human nature. In A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Marshall Poe does just that. At the same time, Poe guides readers through the history of communications media from the origin of speech through the culture of the Internet, and provides us with a carefully-articulated theoretical framework for explaining why successive media arose when and where they did, and how they have shaped the way people understand and organize themselves. The book is structured with extraordinary care, but doesn’t let that structure overwhelm the vibrant collection of examples, tales, and (occasionally quite funny) anecdotes along the way. Poe’s writerly voice is wonderfully engaging and colloquial, and he has given us a volume that is full of opportunities for critical reflection on the possibilities of interdisciplinary scholarship across the arts and sciences. Give th

It’s the English Premier League’s birthday! On this day twenty years ago, all twenty-two clubs of the First Division resigned from the 104-year-old Football League and declared their plans to create a new, breakaway league.A lucrative television deal with Sky Sports followed soon after, bringing plenty of seed money to the new league.At the time, however, English football was not a certain investment.Attendance had been declining for decades, and in the EPL’s first season stadiums were filled to less than 70 per cent of capacity. In terms of revenue and star players, the top European leagues were in Spain and Italy.In fact, the EPL couldn’t even boast the biggest money-making club in Britain.That team was Rangers, playing in the Scottish league. What a difference two decades make.The EPL today is the biggest revenue-generating league in Europe, and its top clubs are among the valuable sports properties in the world.The league draws international investors, and its matches are televised in more than 200 cou

Today, you can open your newspaper and find stories about mass rape in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, death sentences for adulterous women in Iran, or Central American women smuggled into the US for the purposes of sexual slavery. A few decades ago, such matters wouldn’t have ranked as “news”: they were just business as usual. As Pulitzer-prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sharon WuDunn put it in their book, Half the Sky, “When a prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were routinely kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn’t even consider it news.” How to account for the sea change in awareness? A good place to start is by looking at the global movement for women’s human rights. That’s what Niamh Reilly does in her new book, Women’s Human Rights: Seeking Gender Justice in a Globalizing Age (Polity Press, 2009). It’s a great introduction to the subject, and it’s full of smart analysis for people who are already famil

“We live in the age of globalization, with the interconnection of markets, technology, and cultures making the world a smaller place.” Sure.Tell that to the guys on my local sports radio show. For them, the world is bounded by the Big Ten and the North Division of the National Football Conference, the groupings to which our state’s college and pro football teams belong. Other teams? Other games? Conferences in other parts of the country? Those barely rate a mention.And different sports, in other parts of the world? They don’t even exist. Tune to your local sports radio station or open the sports page and you’ll find the same, whether you’re in America or Europe: the average fan remains intensely regional–maybe even tribal–in his sports interests. But as Andrei Markovits argues, globalization is creeping into sports. At the University of Michigan, where Andy is an Arthur Thurnau Professor and Karl Deutsch Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies, European students follow their countrymen in the N

There are beautiful sports photos, and dramatic sports photos. There are sports photos that are funny, and others that are poignant. There are photos that capture athletic brilliance, and tenacity, and passion. But there are few images from the modern history of sports that have transcended the games, photos that have inspired and provoked those with little interest in athletics. Perhaps the only image to have had such a far-reaching effect is that of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. But some would object–and many did in 1968–that what Smith and Carlos did on the medal stand after the 200-meter finals was not a sports moment. It was a political moment, a protest, and therefore it was outside the boundary of athletics. Smith and Carlos had violated a fundamental principle of sport by mixing it with politics. But those who made that criticism in 1968 likely did not denounce George Foreman ten days later, when he waved the American flag in the ring after winning

It takes a brave historian to take on the orthodoxy regarding the rise and fall of lynching in the United States. That orthodoxy holds that lynching in the South was a ‘system of social control’ in which whites used organized terror to oppress blacks. You can find this thesis in numerous monographs, textbooks, and in the popular press. It’s one of those things “everybody knows.” But according to Robert Thurston’s provocative new book Lynching: American Mob Murder in Global Perspective (Ashgate, 2011) the standard ‘social control’ line is inadequate. It cannot explain when lynching started or when it ended; why lynching occurred in some places often and others never; and why the period in question witnessed a considerable amount of intra-racial lynching. The ‘social control’ thesis fails because it tries to put a square peg (the evidence) in a round hole (the concept of systematic oppression through terror). Thurston shows that lynching, though hardly accidental, was simply too occasional and too random to b

One of the most disturbing insights made by practitioners of “Big History” is that the distinction between geologic time and human time has collapsed in our era. The forces that drove geologic time–plate tectonics, the orientation of the Earth’s axis relative to the sun, volcanic activity–were distinct from the forces that drove human time–evolution, technological change, population growth. To be sure, they interacted. But the causal arrow always went from geologic change to human change. As Anthony Penna rightly points out in The Human Footprint: A Global Environmental History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), the causal arrow now goes in both directions. Not only do we adapt to the environment, but the environment is adapting to us, and mightily. We are ushering in a new geological period sometimes called the Anthropocene–the era defined by human activity. It’s important to point out that this is not the first time biology has shaped geology: we have good evidence, for example, that 2.4 billion years ago cyanobacte

One of the standard assumptions of modern Western social science (history included) is that material conditions drive historical development. All of the “Great Transitions” in world history–the origins of agriculture, the birth of cities, the rise of high culture, the industrial revolution–can, so most Western social scientists claim, be associated with some condition that compelled otherwise conservative humans to act in new ways. This premise is of course most closely linked to Marx, but it is found throughout post-Marxist big picture scholarship (including my own humble contribution to that literature). Ricardo Duchesne argues in his new The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Brill, 2011) that we have it all wrong. History, he claims, is driven by creative people and their ideas, not by the conditions they find themselves in. If you see a bit of Hegel and Nietzsche here, you are not wrong: Duchesne embraces them both (and throws in a considerable amount of Weber to boot). But he goes much further. He try

When I was an undergraduate, I fell in love with Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. In the book Montesquieu reduces a set of disparate, seemingly unconnected facts arrayed over centuries and continents into a single, coherent theory of remarkable explanitory power. Alas, grand theoretical books like Spirit of the Laws are out of fashion today, not only because the human sciences are gripped by particularism (“more and more about less and less), but also because we don’t train students to think like Montesqueiu any more. In his excellent The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011), Francis Fukuyama bucks the trend. Of course, he’s done it before with elegant and persuasive books about the fall of communism, state-building, trust, and biotechnology among other big topics. Here he takes on the emergence of modern political institutions, or rather three modern political institutions: the state, the rule of law, and accountable government. He begi

International theorists like to game out every possible scenario. What would happen if you applied their methodology to dealing with the fictional public policy challenge of a zombie infestation? In Dan Drezner’s Theories of International Politics and Zombies (Princeton UP, 2011), he looks at each of the major international relations schools–realism, liberalism, neoconservatism, etc.–to determine how they would react to a zombie attack. In the book, Drezner combines a strong understanding of international-relations theory with a comprehensive knowledge of the zombies. He also uses charts, cartoons, and humor to make his points. In the podcast, I ask Drezner to apply his approach to the question of how President Obama would cope with a zombie attack. We discuss all of these things, and have our share of laughs, along the way. Read all about it, and more, in Drezner’s humorous new book. Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Vi