Movements Books - Page 5

Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft

Michael Makovsky

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This book is the first to explore fully the role that Zionism played in the political thought of Winston Churchill. Michael Makovsky traces the development of Churchill’s positions toward Zionism from the period leading up to the First World War through his final years as prime minister in the 1950s. Setting Churchill’s attitudes toward Zionism within the context of his overall worldview as well as within the context of twentieth-century British diplomacy, Makovsky offers a unique contribution to our understanding of Churchill.
Moving chronologically, the book looks at Churchill’s career within the context of several major themes: his own worldview and political strategies, his understanding of British imperial interests, the moral impact of the Holocaust, his commitment to ideals of civilization, and his historical sentimentalism. While Churchill was largely sympathetic to the Jews and to the Zionist impulse, he was not without inconsistencies in his views and policies over the years. Makovsky’s book illuminates key aspects of Middle Eastern history; Zionist history; and British political, imperial, and diplomatic history; and further helps us understand one of the pivotal figures of the twentieth century.

Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power

Anatol Lieven

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The war between Russia and the Chechen separatist forces, from December 1994 to August 1996, may be seen by future historians as a key moment in Russian and even world history. This is not because of its immediate consequences, which seem likely to be limited, but because of the light it has thrown on one of the crucial developments of our time: the end of Russia as a great military and imperial power. In terms of sheer logistical achievement, the Chechen victory - against such odds - over the Russian army is one of the epics of colonial resistance this century. As a moment in military history, it has lessons to teach on military anthropology, the nature of urban combat, national mobilization, and the limits of air power. In addition to providing a step-by-step account of the conflict on the ground, Lieven takes issue with the prevalent Western schools of thought and writing about Russia, which have exaggerated its military strengths, misconstrued its political culture, swallowed its nationalist rhetoric, and transposed imagined "ideological quests" onto the Russian psyche. Despite what most "experts" would have us believe, ordinary Russians are not primarely concerned with empire, glory and national status, but with economics, security and the daily effort to survive. Despite the scale of the Russian defeat, the mystique of its military power remains tenacious in the West. Lieven's account demolishes the conventional black-and white view, ridicules the incessant repetition of the baseless and mistaken set of alternatives for the country's future, and sets Russia's humiliation at the hands of a tiny group of badly-organized guerrillas in a framework.

NEXT AMERICAN NATION: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution

Michael Lind

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Are we now, or have we ever been, a nation?

As this century comes to a close, debates over immigration policy, racial preferences, and multiculturalism challenge the consensus that formerly grounded our national culture. The question of our national identity is as urgent as it has ever been in our history. Is our society disintegrating into a collection of separate ethnic enclaves, or is there a way that we can forge a coherent, unified identity as we enter the 21st century?

In this "marvelously written, wide-ranging and thought-provoking"* book, Michael Lind provides a comprehensive revisionist view of the American past and offers a concrete proposal for nation-building reforms to strengthen the American future. He shows that the forces of nationalism and the ideal of a trans-racial melting pot need not be in conflict with each other, and he provides a practical agenda for a liberal nationalist revolution that would combine a new color-blind liberalism in civil rights with practical measures for reducing class-based barriers to racial integration.

A stimulating critique of every kind of orthodox opinion as well as a vision of a new "Trans-American" majority, The Next American Nation may forever change the way we think and talk about American identity.

*New York Newsday

Nations, States, and Violence

David D. Laitin

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Nations, States, and Violence presents a revisionist view of the sources of nationalism, the relationship of the nation to culture, and the implications of nationalism and cultural heterogeneity for the future of the nation-state. It accepts the now-standard view that national identities are not inherited traits but constructed communities in order to serve political ends. But the resulting national identities do not emerge from some metaphorical plebiscite as had been suggested by some; rather they result from efforts by people to coordinate their identities with people who share at least some cultural traits with them. Coordination leads to powerful social and cultural ties that are hard to unravel, and this explains the persistence of national identities.
Understood as the result of coordination dynamics, the implications of national homogeneity and heterogeneity are explored. The book shows that national heterogeneity is not, as it is sometimes accused of being, a source of hatred and violence. Nonetheless, there are advantages to homogeneity for the production of public goods and economic growth. Whatever the positive implications of homogeneity, the book shows that in the current world, classic nation-states are defunct. Heterogeneity is proliferating not only due to migration but also because small groups in many states once thought to be homogeneous are coordinating to demand national recognition. With the prohibitive costs of eliminating cultural heterogeneity, citizens and leaders need to learn how best to manage, or even take advantage of, national diversity within their countries. Management of diversity demands that we understand the coordination aspects of national heterogeneity, a perspective that this book provides.
In addition to providing a powerful theory of coordination and cultural diversity, the book provides a host of engaging vignettes of Somalia, Spain, Estonia, and Nigeria, where the author has conducted original field research. The result is a book where theory is combined with interpretations of current issues on nationalism, economic growth, and ethnic violence.

The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Readable, but a limited perspective 3 out of 5 stars.
30 of 43 people found this review helpful.

"The Controversy of Zion" examines the polemics of modern political Zionism from its 19th century origins to the present day. Its conclusion is that the realization of the Zionist ideal may have accomplished many things, but did not solve its central problem: thr so-called Jewish Question.

For all its meticulous research and shrewd observations, it is remarkable that a basic premise is never questioned, namely whether there really is or ever was a Jewish Question. What becomes apparent is that the controversy of Zion was not caused by Zionism but rather by European nationalism. It was the European Problem that disenfranchised Jews in every European state and gave cause to a distinct and actionable Jewish nationalism on what had previously only been a religious hope.

The inescapable conclusion is thereby missed. It was not that Zionism was ever conceived as a perfect solution to a Jewish Question; rather it was an imperfect solution to an intolerable situation created by the European disease. It would be too much to expect it to make everyone happy.

And whereas the past controversy among Jews has little relevance to the future of Israel, European nationalism persists and can certainly be said to influence European attitudes toward the State of Israel and the Jewish people to this day.

Editorial Review:

From the birth of the Zionist movement to the assassination of President Rabin in 1995, an elegant one-volume history of modern Israel examines the debates spawned by Jewish nationalism, including the question of the settlement of the West Bank.

Blood Lines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism

Vamik Volkan

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Bloodlines, Vamik Volkan, a world-renowned psychiatrist specializing in international relations, explores ethnic violence by examining history and diplomacy through a psychoanalytic lens. Dr. Volkan leads the reader on investigative tours of battlegrounds in the Middle East, Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, the Baltics, and the Balkans. In Serbia, he discovers that the Battle of Kosovo, fought in 1389, is the rallying cry for modern nationalists, who view the past as prophecy. In Turkey, PKK terrorist leader Apo reveals that he still considers himself an unloved child and orders his army of Kurdish women to remain virgins because of his own disgust with "unclean" adult behavior. In Latvia, after the dissolution of the USSR, Dr. Volkan learns that ethnic Latvians plan to disinter corpses and segregate cemeteries in an attempt to establish a national identity separate from that of Russia. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, Dr. Volkan analyzes these issues of identity formation, perceived versus real threats, the persistence of past traumas, and the desire for revenge. The result is a work that lays the foundation for understanding the differences between ethnic groups as well as the common ground they share.

Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Of Revelation and Revolution)

Jean Comaroff, John L. Comaroff

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Amazon.com reviews are a scam 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Yeah right, you think I'm going to review this book? Maybe if you pay me, Amazon. I'm really getting tired of big companies making money off of schmos that do their work for them without getting paid. The end.

Editorial Review:

"Defining their enterprise as more in the direction of poetics than of prosaics, the Comaroffs free themselves to analyze a vivid series of images and events as objects of analysis. These they mine for clues to the 19th-century contents of the British imagination and of Tswana minds. They are themselves imagining the imagination of others, and they do the job with characteristic aplomb....The first volume creates an appetite for the second."—Sally Falk Moore, American Anthropologist

From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict

Jack L. Snyder

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy as they watched democratization sweep through formerly authoritarian countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and East Asia. Yet the 1990s turned out to be a decade marked by chronic nationalist conflict and the sense of democratic triumph turned to frustration. Jack Snyder shows how democratization can actually exacerbate nationalist fervour and ethnic conflict if the conditions permitting a successful transition are not in place. Arguing that international organisations can cause conflict rather than averting it in their rush to establish democratic governments and punish outgoing leaders, he prescribes policies that will make transitions less dangerous and allow fledgling democracies to flourish. In the light of such tragic examples as Weimar Germany and contemporary Bosnia - each drawn into a spiral of ethnic hatred and civil war by political leaders manipulating nationalist sentiments - he questions the sometimes rash optimism of liberal democracy that would rush to democracy at the cost of freedom.

Harrington: 'The Commonwealth of Oceana' and 'A System of Politics' (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

James Harrington

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

An amazing forgotten book 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 22 people found this review helpful.

The ideas of Isac Newton, John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith have their roots in this book.

Editorial Review:

James Harrington's brief career as a political and historical theorist spans the last years of the Cromwellian Protectorate and the Restoration of 1660. This volume comprises the first and last of Harrington's writings. Harrington was the first theorist to interpret the English Civil Wars as a revolution, the result of a longterm process of social change that led to the decay of the old political order. Professor Pocock's lucid introduction emphasizes Harrington's place as a pivotal figure in the history of English political thought. This edition also contains a chronology of principal events in Harrington's life and a guide to further reading.

The Arab awakening;: The story of the Arab national movement

George Antonius

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Arab Awakening by George Antonius 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This is a priceless reference to the early Arab nationalist movements and the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, as well as to the formation of the borders and governments of the modern Middle East.No other writer witnessed the Arab Revolt and interviewed as many of the primary participants, whether Arab, British, French, Turkish or German, as Antonius did.Few other writers were as well-placed to analyse the British and French Mandates in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, and no one told the Arab side of the story to the West as perceptively and authoritatively.The one area Antonius left in entirely too much obscurity was the abandonment of Sharif Hussein by the British, which allowed the Hejaz to be conquered by the fanatical Saudis.Antonius does criticise Saudi tribalism and fundamentalism and I suppose he can be forgiven for not forseeing the divisive and detrimental role that Saudi dominance of the Hejaz would play in the future of the entire Muslim world.

This book will make you long for the days when the strongest political current in the Middle East was Arab nationalism rather than Islamism, and it will make you wonder why the West undertook to destroy the integrity of a movement which was largely of its own inspiration.

The appendices are invaluable, presenting to the public for the first time all of the documents concerning the promises made by the British govt to the Hashemites and the Arab nationalists.Once you have read the Damascus Protocol, the Hussein-McMahon letters, the Hogarth letter, the Declaration to the Seven and the rest, you will no longer be in any doubt as to the official nature and specificity of the supposedly mythical and nebulous promises made to the Arabs.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1938, this fine book is the first study of the Arab national movement ever written.