International Books - Page 14

China: Fragile Superpower

Susan L. Shirk

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Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General AAS

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Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Once a sleeping giant, China today is the world's fastest growing economy--the leading manufacturer of cell phones, laptop computers, and digital cameras--a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. But in China: Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere--not in China's astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think--and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with this country a minefield. The paperback edition features a new preface by the author.

Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

H. R. Mcmaster

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Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Southeast Asia

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Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C."

- H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion)

Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning new analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on recently released transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. It also pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.

Dereliction Of Duty covers the story in strong narrative fashion, focusing on a fascinating cast of characters: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and other top aides who deliberately deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Congress and the American public.

Sure to generate controversy, Dereliction Of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.

Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia

Marshall I. Goldman

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> International -> Relations

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998, it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political miracle.
Based on extensive research, including several interviews with Vladimir Putin, this revealing book chronicles Russia's dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power ambitions. In his deft, informative narrative, Marshall Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. The book provides an informative overview of oil in Russia, traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) have made it all possible.
The story of oil and gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power. Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time)

Kwame Anthony Appiah

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Becoming Cosmopolitan 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

One of the most pernicious ideas has spung from the myth that we are necessarily separated and segregated into groups that are defined by criteria like gender, language, race, religion or some other kind of boundary. And it is easy to see that these boundaries are a major cause of conflict.

The author of this enthralling book - Kwame Anthony Appiah - challenges this kind of separative thinking by resurrecting the ancient philosophy of "cosmopolitanism." This school of thought that dates back almost 2500 years to the Cynics of Ancient Greece. They first articulated the cosmopolitan ideal that all human beings were citizens of the world. Later on, these ideas were elaborated by another group of philosophers: the Stoics.

According to Appiah, the influence of cosmopolitanism has stretched down the ages and through to the Enlightenment. He takes Immanuel Kant's notion of a League of Nations and the Declaration of the Rights of Man to be two manifestations of this ancient idea.

Appiah sees cosmopolitanism as a dynamic concept based on two fundamental ideas. First is the idea that we have responsibilities to others that are beyond those based on kinship or citizenship. Second is something often forgotten: just because other people have different customs and beliefs from ours, they will likely still have meaning and value. We may not agree with someone else, but mutual understanding should be a first goal.

The book is full of personal experiences. I doubt that anyone else could have written it: His mother was an English author and daughter of the statesman Sir Stafford Cripps, and his father a Ghanaian barrister and politician, who reminded his children to remember that they were "citizens of the world."

Appiah was educated in Ghana and England and has taught in both countries. He now holds a chair of Philosophy at Princeton. He is no starry eyed idealist, and he knows that differences between groups and nations cannot be wished away or ignored. But he contends, rightly, I think, that differences can be accepted without being allowed to become barriers.

As he says, "Cosmopolitans suppose that all cultures have enough overlap in their vocabulary of values to begin a conversation. But they don't suppose, like some Universalists, that we could all come to agreement if only we had the same vocabulary." The reason is simply this: most of us arrive at our values not on the basis of careful reasoning, but by lifelong conditioning and subjective beliefs and attitudes.

In parts of Europe, there have recently been misgivings about the growing diversity and multiculturalism of countries like the United Kingdom, with people asking whether it is doing no more than fracturing society. Appiah tackles this question head on. He has this to say, "If we want to preserve a wide range of human conditions because it allows free people the best chance to make their own lives, there is no place for the enforcement of diversity by trapping people within a kind of difference that they long to escape. There simply is no decent way to sustain those communities of difference that will not survive without the free allegiance of their members."

Cosmopolitanism, balances our "obligations to others" with the "value not just of human life but of particular human lives," what Appiah calls "universality plus difference." He remains skeptical about simple maxims for ethical behavior such as the Golden Rule. He swiftly demonstrates its failings as a moral precept. He argues that cosmopolitanism is the name not "of the solution but of the challenge."

This is an important book that will inevitably be controversial. In a world that is becoming more interconnected and shrinking by the day, and where the "clash of cultures" threatens our existence, Appiah has many new perspectives as he articulates a precise yet flexible ethical manifesto. He does not claim to have all the answers, but this book should be of interest to all of us as we try to make sense of the turmoil, challenges and opportunities of our globalizing world.

Editorial Review:

"A brilliant and humane philosophy for our confused age."—Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell

Kwame Anthony Appiah's landmark new work, featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, challenges the separatist doctrines espoused in books like Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. Reviving the ancient philosophy of "cosmopolitanism," a school of thought that dates to the Cynics of the fourth century BC, Appiah traces its influence on the ethical legacies of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Raised in Ghana, educated in England, and now a distinguished professor in the United States, Appiah promises to create a new era in which warring factions will finally put aside their supposed ideological differences and will recognize that the fundamental values held by all human beings will usher in a new era of global understanding.

The Nightingale's Song

Robert Timberg

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Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This is an important book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The "Nightingales's Song" is a remarkable story. I know three of the five characters, (McCain, McFarlane, and Webb), and truly admire them all. This book is a great piece of reporting, and is more relevant today than it was when it was first published. Admiral Jim Stavridis, still on the front lines of history, and a wonderful writer as well, said this book is a, "Greek tragedy," and is, "no more about Iran-Contra than 'Moby Dick' is about whaling." David Mamet who recommended this story to me and I both agree.

Editorial Review:

Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of Annapolis graduates John McCain, James Webb, Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and John Poindexter to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. Casting all five men as metaphors for a legion of well-meaning if ill-starred warriors, Timberg probes the fault line between those who fought the war and those who used money, wit, and connections to avoid battle. A riveting tale that illuminates the flip side of the fabled Vietnam generation -- those who went.

What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response

Bernard Lewis

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Total reviews: 273 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

For many centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement--the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe, a remote land beyond its northwestern frontier, was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed, as the previously despised West won victory after victory, first in the battlefield and the marketplace, then in almost every aspect of public and even private life.
In this intriguing volume, Bernard Lewis examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to understand why things had changed--how they had been overtaken, overshadowed, and to an increasing extent dominated by the West. Lewis provides a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil. He shows how the Middle East turned its attention to understanding European weaponry and military tactics, commerce and industry, government and diplomacy, education and culture. Lewis highlights the striking differences between the Western and Middle Eastern cultures from the 18th to the 20th centuries through thought-provoking comparisons of such things as Christianity and Islam, music and the arts, the position of women, secularism and the civil society, the clock and the calendar.
Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies," Bernard Lewis is one of the West's foremost authorities on Islamic history and culture. In this striking volume, he offers an incisive look at the historical relationship between the Middle East and Europe.

Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq

Michael Scheuer

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

When Michael Scheuer first questioned the goals of the Iraq War in his 2004 bestseller Imperial Hubris, policymakers and ordinary citizens alike stood up and took notice. Now, Scheuer offers a scathing and frightening look at how the Iraq War has been a huge setback to America's War on Terror, making our enemy stronger and altering the geopolitical landscape in ways that are profoundly harmful to U.S. interests and security concerns.

Marching Toward Hell is not just another attack on the Bush administration. Rather, it sounds a critical alarm that must be heard in order to preserve the nation's security. Scheuer outlines the ways that America's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has undermined the very goals for which we are fighting and played right into bin Laden's hands. The ongoing instability in Iraq, for example, has provided al Qaeda and its allies with the one thing they want most: a safe haven from which to launch operations across borders into countries that were previously difficult for them to reach. With U.S. forces and resources spread thinner every day, the war has depleted our strength and brought al Qaeda a kind of success that it could not have achieved on its own.

A twenty-plus-year CIA veteran, Scheuer headed the agency's Osama bin Laden unit, managed its covert-action operations, and authored its rendition program. Scheuer spent his career developing strategies to keep America safe, by any means deemed necessary by the presidents he served. It was his job to take available intelligence and devise plans to protect Americans, without considering bias, position, or even existing alliances. In Marching Toward Hell, Scheuer takes on the questions of "What went wrong?" and "How can we fix this?" and proposes a plan to cauterize the damage that has already been done and get American strategy back on track. He lists a number of painful recommendations for how we must shift our ideological, military, and political views in order to survive, even if that means disagreeing with Israeli policy or launching more brutal campaigns against terrorists.

America holds its destiny in its hands, Scheuer says, yet not nearly enough has been done to defend America and destroy its Islamist enemies. This is an eye-opening, alarming, contentious, and ultimately fascinating examination of how far off track the War on Terror has gone, and a critical read in understanding what we must do to save it.

The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé

David Ray Griffin

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Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 2004, David Ray Griffin published The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Translated into several languages, it helped spark a worldwide movement demanding "9/11 truth." Even as it became increasingly outdated, it continued to be widely cited as the best introduction to the issues.

Griffin has now written The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, which provides a chapter-by-chapter updating of the information provided in that earlier book. It shows that the case against the official account constructed by independent researchers - who now include architects, engineers, physicists, pilots, politicians, and former military officers - is far stronger than it was in 2004, leaving no doubt that 9/11 was a false flag operation, designed to give the Bush-Cheney administration a pretext to attack oil-rich Muslim nations.

Taken together, these two books provide everything one needs to make an informed decision about 9/11 - whether one is a journalist, a political leader, a religious leader, or an ordinary citizen concerned about truth, democracy, and the rule of law.

The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future

Bruce Riedel

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Editorial Review:

Several outstanding books have been written about the road to September 11. The Search for Al Qaeda has a different mission. While it does review how al Qaeda was created and developed, it focuses more closely on what has happened to the terrorist network since that awful day. According to Riedel, al Qaeda's ultimate goals are to drive America from the Muslim world (the ummah); to destroy Israel; and to create a jihadist caliphate along the lines of the Ottoman Empire at its height. The book reveals al Qaeda's multi-pronged strategy for accomplishing those goals; draw America into the type of "bleeding wars" that drove the Soviets from Afghanistan, build a safe haven for al Qaeda in Pakistan; develop other "franchises" in the Islamic world that can overthrow pro-American regimes; and conduct more Western attacks along the lines of 9-11 or the transit bombings in Madrid and London. Bruce Riedel is an expert on the Middle East and South Asia, with 30 years of policymaking experience in regional diplomacy and counterterrorism. He draws on this experience and firsthand knowledge in profiling the four most important figures in the al Qaeda movement: Osama bin Laden, its creator and charismatic leader: ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian co-leader of al Qaeda and its principal spokesman; Abu Musaib al Zarqawi, the tenacious leader of al Qaeda in Iraq until his death in 2006; and Mullah Omar, Taliban host to al Qaeda. These profiles provide the base from which Riedel delivers a much clearer understanding of al Qaeda and what must be done to counter it.

The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West

Edward Lucas

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In late 1999 when Vladimir Putin was named Prime Minister, Russia was a budding democracy. Multiple parties campaigned for seats in the Duma, the nation’s parliament. The media criticized the government freely. Eight years later as Putin completes his second term as president of Russia and announces his bid for prime minister, the country is under a repressive regime. Human rights abuses are widespread. The Kremlin is openly hostile to the West. Yet the United States and Europe have been slow to confront the new reality, in effect, helping Russia win what experts are now calling the New Cold War.

Edward Lucas, former Moscow Bureau Chief for The Economist, offers a harrowing portrait from inside Russia as well as a sobering political assessment of what the New Cold War will mean for the world. In this big, hard hitting and urgently needed book, he shows how

* Russia is pursuing global energy markets
* Neighboring nations are being coerced back into the former Soviet orbit
* Journalists and dissidents are being silenced
* Foreign investments and private enterprises are routinely defrauded
* Putin is laying the groundwork for controlling industry and planning his new role as prime minister

Drawing on new and hitherto reported material, The New Cold War brilliantly anticipates what is in store for the new Russia and what the world should be doing.