International Books - Page 9

The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power

Tariq Ali

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world. It is the only Islamic state to have nuclear weapons. Its border with Afghanistan extends over one thousand miles and is the likely hideout of Osama bin Laden. It has been under military dictatorship for thirty-three of its fiftyyear existence. Yet it is the linchpin in the United States' war on terror, receiving over $10 billion of American aid since 2001 and purchasing more than $5 billion of U.S. weaponry in 2006 alone.

These days, relations between the two countries are never less than tense. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf reported that U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage threatened to "bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age" if it did not commit fully to the alliance in the wake of 9/11. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said he would have no hesitation in bombing Al Qaeda inside the country, "with or without" approval of the Pakistani government. Recent surveys show that more than 70 percent of Pakistanis fear the United States as a military threat to their country.

The Bush administration spent much of 2007 promoting a "dream ticket" of Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto to run Pakistan together. That strategy, with Bhutto assassinated and the general's party winning less than 15 percent of the contested seats in the 2008 election, is now in tatters.

With increasingly bold attacks by Taliban supporters in the border regions threatening to split the Pakistan army, with the only political alternatives -- Nawaz Sharif and Benazir's widower Asif Ali Zardari -- being as corrupt as the regime they seek to replace, and with a newly radicalized movement of lawyers testing its strength as championsof the rule of law, the chances of sustained stability in Pakistan look slim.

The scion of a famous Punjabi political family, with extraordinary contacts inside the country and internationally, Tariq Ali has long been acknowledged as a leading commentator on Pakistan. In these pages he combines deep understanding of the country's history with extensive firsthand research and unsparing political judgment to weigh the prospects of those contending for power today. The labyrinthine path between a secure world and global conflagration runs right through Pakistan. No one is better placed to trace its contours.

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

David Fromkin

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Total reviews: 126 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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The critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling account of how the modern Middle East came into being after World War I, and why it is in upheaval today

In our time the Middle East has proven a battleground of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and dynasties. All of these conflicts, including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis that have flared yet again, come down, in a sense, to the extent to which the Middle East will continue to live with its political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed upon the region by the Allies after the First World War.

In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies came to remake the geography and politics of the Middle East, drawing lines on an empty map that eventually became the new countries of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all-even an alliance between Arab nationalism and Zionism-seemed possible he raises questions about what might have been done differently, and answers questions about why things were done as they were. The current battle for a Palestinian homeland has its roots in these events of 85 years ago.

Paul Revere's Ride

David Hackett Fischer

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Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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Paul Revere's midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history--yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious look at the events of the night of April 18, 1775--what led up to it, what really happened, and what followed--uncovering a truth far more remarkable than the myths of tradition.
In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere, a man far more complex than the simple artisan and messenger of tradition. Revere ranged widely through the complex world of Boston's revolutionary movement--from organizing local mechanics to mingling with the likes of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the fateful night arrived, more than sixty men and women joined him on his task of alarm--an operation Revere himself helped to organize and set in motion. Fischer recreates Revere's capture that night, showing how it had an important impact on the events that followed. He had an uncanny gift for being at the center of events, and the author follows him to Lexington Green--setting the stage for a fresh interpretation of the battle that began the war. Drawing on intensive new research, Fischer reveals a clash very different from both patriotic and iconoclastic myths. The local militia were elaborately organized and intelligently led, in a manner that had deep roots in New England. On the morning of April 19, they fought in fixed positions and close formation, twice breaking the British regulars. In the afternoon, the American officers switched tactics, forging a ring of fire around the retreating enemy which they maintained for several hours--an extraordinary feat of combat leadership. In the days that followed, Paul Revere led a new battle-- for public opinion--which proved even more decisive than the fighting itself.
When the alarm-riders of April 18 took to the streets, they did not cry, "the British are coming," for most of them still believed they were British. Within a day, many began to think differently. For George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, the news of Lexington was their revolutionary Rubicon. Paul Revere's Ride returns Paul Revere to center stage in these critical events, capturing both the drama and the underlying developments in a triumphant return to narrative history at its finest.

Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making

David Rothkopf

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Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

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Each of them is one in a million. They number six thousand on a planet of six billion. They run our governments, our largest corporations, the powerhouses of international finance, the media, world religions, and, from the shadows, the world’s most dangerous criminal and terrorist organizations. They are the global superclass, and they are shaping the history of our time.

 

Today’s superclass has achieved unprecedented levels of wealth and power. They have globalized more rapidly than any other group. But do they have more in common with one another than with their own countrymen, as nationalist critics have argued? They control globalization more than anyone else. But has their influence fed the growing economic and social inequity that divides the world? What happens behind closeddoor meetings in Davos or aboard corporate jets at 41,000 feet? Conspiracy or collaboration? Deal-making or idle self-indulgence? What does the rise of Asia and Latin America mean for the conventional wisdom that shapes our destinies? Who sets the rules for a group that operates beyond national laws?

 

Drawn from scores of exclusive interviews and extensive original reporting, Superclass answers all of these questions and more. It draws back the curtain on a privileged society that most of us know little about, even though it profoundly affects our everyday lives. It is the first in-depth examination of the connections between the global communities of leaders who are at the helm of every major enterprise on the planet and control its greatest wealth. And it is an unprecedented examination of the trends within the superclass, which are likely to alter our politics, our institutions, and the shape of the world in which we live.

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (American Empire Project)

Noam Chomsky

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Total reviews: 273 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

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The world’s foremost intellectual activist narrates his irrefutable analysis of America’s pursuit of total domination and the catastrophic consequences that are sure to follow

The United States is in the process of staking out not just the globe but the last unarmed spot in our neighborhood—the heavens—as a militarized sphere of influence. Our earth and its skies are, for the Bush administration, the final frontiers of imperial control. In Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this moment, what kind of peril we find ourselves in, and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.

With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky dissects America’s quest for global supremacy, tracking the U.S. government’s aggressive pursuit of policies intended to achieve “full spectrum dominance” at any cost. He lays out vividly how the various strands of policy cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our survival. In our era, he argues, empire is a recipe for an earthly wasteland.

Lucid, rigorous, and thoroughly documented, Hegemony or Survival promises to be Chomsky’s most urgent and sweeping work in years, certain to spark widespread debate.

The Craft of Intelligence

Allen Welsh Dulles

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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This classic of spy craft is based on Allen Dulles's incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America's premier intelligence officer. Dulles was a high-ranking officer of the CIA's predecessor-the Office of Strategic Services-and was present at the inception of the CIA, where he served eight of his ten years there as director. Here he sums up what he learned about intelligence from nearly a half-century of experience in foreign affairs. In World War II his OSS agents penetrated the German Foreign Office, worked with the anti-Nazi underground resistance, and established contacts that brought about the Nazi military surrender in North Italy. Under his direction the CIA developed both a dedicated corps of specialists and a whole range of new intelligence devices, from the U-2 high-altitude photographic plane to minute electronic listening and transmitting equipment. Dulles reveals much about how intelligence is collected and processed, and how the resulting estimates contribute to the formation of national policy. He discusses methods of surveillance, and the usefulness of defectors from hostile nations.

Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project)

Chalmers Johnson

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Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

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A New York Times bestseller, Nemesis is Chalmers Johnson’s “fiercest book—and his best” (Andrew J. Bacevich)

 

In his prophetic book Blowback, Chalmers Johnson linked the CIA’s clandestine activities abroad to disaster at home. In The Sorrows of Empire, he explored the ways in which the growth of American militarism and the garrisoning of the planet have jeopardized our stability. In Nemesis, the bestselling and final volume in what has become known as the Blowback Trilogy, he shows how imperial overstretch is undermining the republic itself, both economically and politically.
 
Delving into new areas—from plans to militarize outer space to Constitution-breaking presidential activities at home and the devastating corruption of a toothless Congress—Nemesis offers a striking description of the trap into which the reckless ambitions of America’s leaders have taken us. Johnson confronts questions of pressing urgency: What are the unintended consequences of our dependence on a permanent war economy? What does it mean when a nation’s main intelligence organization becomes the president’s secret army? Or when the globe’s sole “hyperpower” becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all times?
 
Writing “as if the very existence of the nation is at stake” (San Francisco Chronicle), Johnson offers his most “bracing” and “important” (Los Angeles Times) exploration of the crisis facing America.

The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada

Jerome R. Corsi

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In the New York Times bestseller The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada, Jerome Corsi proves that the benignly-named "Security and Prosperity Partnership," created at a meeting between George W. Bush, Stephen Harper and Vincente Fox, is in fact the same kind of regional integration plan that led Europe to form the EU. According to Corsi, the elites in Europe who wanted to create a European nation knew that "it would be necessary to conceal from the peoples of Europe just what was being done in their name until the process was so far advanced that it had become irreversible." Could the same thing be happening here? Is American sovereignty doomed?

Using dozens of documents secured through the Freedom of Information Act and his trademark hard-hitting interviews, Jerome Corsi sets out a chilling view of America's possible "harmonized" future -- one being created covertly, without voter input or Congressional oversight. Could our government's unfathomable position on illegal immigration be tied to the prospect of an integrated North American Union?

The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

Parag Khanna

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

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Grand explanations of how to understand the complex twenty-first-century world have all fallen short–until now. In The Second World, the brilliant young scholar Parag Khanna takes readers on a thrilling global tour, one that shows how America’s dominant moment has been suddenly replaced by a geopolitical marketplace wherein the European Union and China compete with the United States to shape world order on their own terms.

This contest is hottest and most decisive in the Second World: pivotal regions in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia. Khanna explores the evolution of geopolitics through the recent histories of such underreported, fascinating, and complicated countries as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Libya, Vietnam, and Malaysia–nations whose resources will ultimately determine the fate of the three superpowers, but whose futures are perennially uncertain as they struggle to rise into the first world or avoid falling into the third.

Informed, witty, and armed with a traveler’s intuition for blending into diverse cultures, Khanna mixes copious research with deep reportage to remake the map of the world. He depicts second-world societies from the inside out, observing how globalization divides them into winners and losers along political, economic, and cultural lines–and shows how China, Europe, and America use their unique imperial gravities to pull the second-world countries into their orbits. Along the way, Khanna also explains how Arabism and Islamism compete for the Arab soul, reveals how Iran and Saudi Arabia play the superpowers against one another, unmasks Singapore’s inspirational role in East Asia, and psychoanalyzes the second-world leaders whose decisions are reshaping the balance of power. He captures the most elusive formula in international affairs: how to think like a country.

In the twenty-first century, globalization is the main battlefield of geopolitics, and America itself runs the risk of descending into the second world if it does not renew itself and redefine its role in the world.

Comparable in scope and boldness to Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man and Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Parag Khanna’s The Second World will be the definitive guide to world politics for years to come.

“A savvy, streetwise primer on dozens of individual countries that adds up to a coherent theory of global politics.”
–Robert D. Kaplan, author of Eastward to Tartary and Warrior Politics

“A panoramic overview that boldly addresses the dilemmas of the world that our next president will confront.”
–Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor

"Parag Khanna's fascinating book takes us on an epic journey around the multipolar world, elegantly combining historical analysis, political theory, and eye-witness reports to shed light on the battle for primacy between the world's new empires."
–Mark Leonard, Executive Director, European Council on Foreign Relations

"Khanna, a widely recognized expert on global politics, offers an study of the 21st century's emerging "geopolitical marketplace" dominated by three "first world" superpowers, the U.S., Europe and China... The final pages of his book warn eloquently of the risks of imperial overstretch combined with declining economic dominance and deteriorating quality of life. By themselves those pages are worth the price of a book that from beginning to end inspires reflection."
–Publishers Weekly

The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair

Martin Meredith

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Total reviews: 56 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Raises even more questions.. 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

=== Summary ===
"This book follows the fortunes of Africa in modern times, opening in the years that it sped towards independence and encompassing the half-century that has since passed. It focuses in particular on the role of a number of African leaders whose characters and careers had a decisive impact on the fate of their countries." (13)
"Although Africa is a continent of incredible diversity, African states have much in common, not only their origins as colonial territories, but the similar hazards and difficulties they have faced. Indeed, what is so striking about the fifty-year period since independence is the extent to which African states have suffered so many of the same misfortunes."
"In reality, fifty years after the beginning of the independence era, Africa's prospects are bleaker than ever before." (681)
"Half of Africa's 880 million people live on less than US$1 per day. Its entire economic output is no more than $420 billion, just 1.3 per cent of world GDP, less than a country like Mexico." (682)
"Sub-Saharan Africa is home to just 10 per cent of the world's population but bears more than 70 per cent of the world's HIV/Aids cases... Teachers die at a faster rate than replacements can be trained. the skill shortage grows worse." (682)
"When Abdou Diouf of Senegal accepted defeat in an election in March 2000, he was only the fourth African president to do so in four decades." (679)
"After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have become hollowed out. They are no longer instruments capable of serving the public good. Indeed, far from being able to provide aid and protection to their citizens, African governments and the vampire-like politicians who run them are regarded by the populations they rule as yet another burden they have to bear in the struggle for survival." (688)

=== Main Argument ===
Meredith only ventures to make one claim: the failure in Africa is due to a failure in leadership (inexperience/incompetence, stubbornness/personality, corruption/greed, even downright tyranny.) He is more concerned with providing a morass of personalities, events, and statistics and letting the reading wade through it themselves. "It suffers from a tendency to emphasize the lurid details rather than examine why such patterns of behavior persisted."

== Contentions (Agreements/Disagreements) ==
Meredith's argument begs the question why leadership failed on such a spectacularly wide level in the first place. It is implausible to attribute this failure to individual personalities (it cannot be that every African statesman was of lower quality than their Western counterparts.) So what environmental factors were there? He briefly touches on many of them, but gives no idea as to their relative importance:
* Contemporary factors: idea of nationalism quickly snowballs.
* Historical factors: ethnic tensions, lack of national identity, types of colonial management.
* Foreign policy factors: meddling by former colonial masters, Cold War tensions.
* Cultural factors: use of military power to settle scores (?), steal from government for factional gain.
* Economic factors: poverty, wide-spread discontent, uneducated masses. (Newly capitalist countries are likely to create the conditions for first generation greed. See China.)
* Political factors: no frameworks to limit corruption (free media, checks and balances, political experience/history, good civil servants).

=== Contentions (Part II) ===
He also talks about the mass movement towards democratization, but is incoherent in explaining how/why it materialized and unconvincing in labeling it as the new lodestar. "During the 1990s, at least 25 countries established 'multi-party democracies.'" (677) Part of this, I am sure, is because we are in the middle of this new phase. Here are some of the factors regarding democratization:
* Contemporary factors: first batch of dictators die of old age, resign, coup'd, find more pleasure in telling stories, etc.
* Foreign policy factors: regional powers emerging, regional policing, increased usage of (surprisingly effective!) international sanctions.
* Cultural factors: people are tired of dictators and war, groundswell of movement.
* Economic factors: nothing left to plunder.
* Political factors: ...

=== Insights Raised (wrt present-day Africa) ===
Meredith mostly does not offer solutions. But, one can examine the past to see what commercial failures existed:
* Corruption and contractual "fees" create operational difficulties/slowness.
* History of "nationalizing" commercial/Western property to fund corrupt governments.
* Even good governments become corrupt or have the constant threat of being overthrown.
* Groundswell of discontent against all signs of Western capitalism is a cultural theme and continental paranoia (justified or not).

=== Raised Questions ===
* Why did Africa fail? What are the relative importance of factors behind the decline of African states between freedom and present-day? And where does colonial history, indigenous society, trade barriers, etc. come into play?
* Given how shared the fate of the continent is, are these factors shared between all the nations on the continent? Or did the factors only impact a handful of nations and cause a snowball effect (see: land-lock hypothesis)?
* What about the countries that did do well (eg. Botswana, Senegal)? These are glossed over. What caused their exceptional performance?
* Why didn't South Africa decline like its neighbors? Did the white rule there help? All the whites clamoring for "no majority rule" or claiming Africans weren't equipped to govern themselves are painted as ignorant. But it is true that there was no institutional knowledge of political systems upon freedom; knowledge takes time to transfer over.
* Where do we go from here? What time period are we currently in and what can we learn from the past to move forwards in the present?

Editorial Review:

An epic biography of postcolonial Africa illuminates its current devastating problems. What happened to this vast continent, so rich in resources and history, to bring it so close to destitution and despair in the span of two generations?