Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

This fantastically dense, thorough, rich, comprehensive tome breaks down Eritrean contemporary statehood and civil society in a way that should be copied as a model for modern political/national security case studies.  First, it is important to evaluate a work for what it is: Tronvoll (Bjørknes College, Norway) and Mekonnen (International Law and Policy Institute, Norway) provide a humanitarian perspective on a single African state.  As a result, readers get a unique richness of depth and detail that simply is not possible in a work that would aim to be regional or continental.  This approach also allows the authors room to explore theoretical, empirical, and philosophical angles that will give readers intense exposure to issues such as militarization, judicial development, rule of law, torture, ethnic diversity, and future transition.  Though not necessarily a massive book in terms of page length, there is no doubt readers will feel competent to discuss Eritrea with any specialist after taking on the work.  It is well-written and easily accessible, even if some of the details are disturbing to read.  This is an important work and a model for future research.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

This important book challenges prevailing theories of international relations and war.  Henderson (Pennsylvania State Univ.) offers an Afrocentric analysis of conflict behavior of African states since independence, including internal and international wars, informed but not bound by existing theoretical paradigms.  In the end, he demonstrates the necessity of testing global theories in regional and other contextual settings and of formulating approaches that do justice to their specific historical, cultural, and institutional conditions.  Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, he contends that African states conflict behavior is best explained by a neopatrimonial balancing thesis that upends or modifies conventional realist, democratic peace and liberal trade theses, at least insofar as they apply to Africa.  The research and policy implications of Hendersons findings are only briefly noted at the end; they certainly invite reconsideration of the ways scholars and policy practitioners frame and formulate their respective approaches to addressing contemporary African conflicts.  Highly recommended for college and university libraries and collections supporting African and international studies, peace and conflict programs, and larger public library systems.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Neutrality, according to the author, is not about absolutes, "absentionism," or isolationism, although they play a role in times of war and peace.  Before 1815, neutrality was a pragmatic tool.  But it was an important part of the international arena, helped to define the nature of war, and contributed to diplomacy and international relations.  In the 19th century, it became a permanent and central component of the international law system and a tool of diplomacy.  Abbenhuis (Univ. of Auckland, New Zealand) distinguishes three kids of neutrality: permanent, long-term, and occasional.  Belgium and Switzerland were good examples of permanent neutrality.  In 1914, Germany violated the 1839 Treaty of London, which guaranteed Belgian neutrality.  Various parts of Europe and the world, such as the Suez and Panama Canals, were also neutralized.  In all such instances, the Concert of Europe was successful in preventing or limiting war.  The Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 defined neutral rights.  Neutrality did not fail in 1914; other factors caused that war.  A very important contribution to the history of 19th-century diplomacy, based on a great variety of sources.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

As the subtitle of this important book indicates, there has been a hidden history of negotiations between Washington and Havana during every one of the eleven US administrations since the Cuban revolution more than a half century ago.  Bits and pieces of the hidden history of each US administration have surfaced, but the book provides a real service in ferreting out the entire process from written and primary sources as well as extensive interviews.  The introduction briefly describes how the longstanding conflict between Cuba and the US has made negotiations to promote reconciliation so difficult.  Chapters 1-9 track negotiations during each US administration, while also giving attention to Cuban interests and perspectives.  A final chapter synthesizes ten lessons for both sides for negotiations to be more productive.  The book is very well written and gains momentum as the two detectives busily unravel a hidden story, so that it will be interesting for specialists, general readership, and undergraduate and graduate students.  Includes extensive notes.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

This scholarly, richly documented work is written with great compassion for victims of human rights abuses.  Rosenblatt (Champlain College) delineates the norms, ethical issues, and complex politics that are relevant when forensic teams investigate gravesites after mass violence has occurred.  The book begins with the response to atrocities committed by Argentinas junta during the 1970s and 1980s.  The conceptual framework identifies "stakeholders" in each project such as relatives of victims, transitional governments, judicial bodies, and perpetrators, often in conflict among themselves and with other groups.  Forensic specialists are forced to make difficult decisions and juggle their priorities.  Among the most complex examples explained is a split within the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo group; the Asociacion Madres came to vehemently oppose a continuation of exhumations.  Cases in Chile, the former Yugoslavia, and central Africa are among dozens referred to.  Not surprisingly some forensic teams fail.  Rosenblatt explains why significant mistakes occurred and the lessons that have been learned.  He describes how local forensic capabilities are promoted wherever possible.  A template for international, multidisciplinary, and volunteer teams with norms of enhanced sensitivity to cultural and political realities has clearly emerged.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Kaag (Univ. of Massachusetts, Lowell) and Kreps (Cornell Univ.) have written an important and timely book that should help define the debate on drones for citizens and policy makers alike.  The basic premise is crucial: the emergence of drones as a political-military tool of nation-states is a historic moment analogous to the early days of the nuclear era.  As in the earlier case, technology has outpaced serious thought about the political, legal, and moral implications of the use of drones.  These implications must be addressed, especially given the probable evolution of drone capability.  Kaag and Kreps cover the basicscapabilities, decision making, and effectiveness of dronesas well as several key dilemmas by asking important questions.  For example, as drone strikes allow nation-states to reduce their own casualties to zero, do they make it easier to begin wars and reduce the costs that usually lead to their end?  The authors see the challenge as one of theoretical catch-up.  As long as the assumption is that technological developments are progress, discussions of the political, legal, and moral implications always lag behind.  Kaag and Kreps's book should become one of the seminal works of thinking on 21st-century warfare.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

Liberals contend that economic interdependence is too valuable to disrupt with military conflict.  However, realists counter that economic interdependence makes states vulnerable to cutoffs of trade and investment. Copeland (Univ. of Virginia) draws from realists and liberals by asking when and under what conditions will the trade and investment ties between nations lead either to peace or military conflict?  After reviewing large quantitative studies, he argues that qualitative research is needed to answer this question.  Therefore, he plunges into a description of 40 historical case studies from 1790 to 1991.  Copeland defends trade expectations theory as the best explanation for the patterns of peace and conflict he observes.  If states expect future gain, they will be unlikely to initiate conflict.  If states expect their economic position to decline, they will be more likely to initiate preventive war.  Historians may quibble with the evidence, but this new interpretation should cause them to look anew at interstate conflicts in the modern world.  This bold, well-written, and landmark work draws together the fields of international political economy and security studies.  It also illuminates modern international history and the future.  Surprisingly, however, Copeland does not predict conflict between a pessimistic US and a rising China.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Field (global security and intelligence studies, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ.) addresses the question of how the idealistic hopes for development aid to support democracy in the 1960s turned into the coup of 1964 and military dictatorship.  Bolivia, at the time the second largest per capita recipient of US aid in the world, roughly 20 percent of the countrys GNP, offers an excellent case study.  The liberal authors of the Alliance for Progress envisioned development aid as the means of shaping the revolutionary direction of Bolivia.  But Bolivian nationalist elites projected development for different political ends.  Field contends that development ideology focused toward thwarting leftist movements tends to justify authoritarianism, the armed forces as a means of stability, and ultimately military coups.  Debate in the literature differs over whether the US was motivated by a real desire for the advancement of the Global South or used aid as a guise and means for political hegemony in the Western hemisphere.  In a measured approach, Field finds the two visions compatible.  The author conducted exhaustive archival research in the US, Bolivia, and Europe, and his list of interviews is exceptional.  This is international history at its best with insight that has implications well beyond the immediate country.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Sovacool (Aarhus Univ., Denmark) and Dworkin (Vermont Law School) have written an exceptionally accessible and well-argued analysis that should be required reading for all audiences.  Its clear description of the complex phenomenon of energy justice forms the basis of the authors subsequent evaluation of the global energy system, the comparative efficiencies of energy production and delivery, and the dangers of ignoring negative externalities and implementing and preserving energy subsidies.  Chapters on the latter two issues should be of particular interest.  Sovacool and Dworkin also do a masterful job of linking energy policies to various aspects of human rights, including freedom, due process, intergenerational equity, and the perpetuation and potential remediation of poverty.  Each chapter provides philosophical justifications and practical suggestions for addressing problematic issues raised in the chapter.  The authors concluding chapters link energy justice to the overarching issue of climate change and make a strong argument for not only the moral but also the practical imperative of creating policies that address each aspect of the energy problem, taking into consideration both long-term and short-term justice.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

This excellent study by Dionigi (Middle East Center, London School of Economics) shows how Islamist ideas, as illustrated by Hezbollah, interact with broader international norms.  Classifying Islamism as an example of communitarianism, which stresses communal affiliation, tradition, and particular ethical conceptions, he maintains that, in a process of socialization, Hezbollah has absorbed and even progressively internalized liberal principles.  Examples of this assimilation of international norms by Hezbollah include the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, human rights along the lines of modern international law, and participation in the Lebanese state, particularly in the adoption of secular legislation.  The author shows how Hezbollahs participation in the Lebanese political system led to involvement in negotiating terms of UN Security Council resolutions and seeking justification for its activities as a national resistance movement rather than in terms of traditional Islamic concepts.  Dionigis detailed analysis of two key documents demonstrates the extent to which Hezbollahs vocabulary shifted during 19852009 from older ideas of a universal Islamic community to modern notions of separate sovereign states.  This is a significant contribution to Islamic and Middle East studies and to international relations.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

What is interesting about MotomurasImmigration Outside the Law is that its about immigration, immigrant incorporation, and managing illegal immigration.  Where this volume differs from the plethora of others on the topic is that at its core, its not really about any of those topics.  Rather, Motomura (law, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) uses the issue of illegal immigration policy and practices as a lens through which to view policy in general.  He begins from a legal perspective, specifically Plyer v Doe, a 1972 case requiring equal protection and the right to state-funded education for all children regardless of immigration status, thus shifting to the states' obligations for the results of federal border control.  He poses a number of critical policy questions about immigration directly: What does it mean to be in the US illegally?  What roles do states and localities play in immigration, illegal immigration, and immigrant incorporation?  Are illegal immigrants Americans in waiting?  In posing these questions, he is actually inquiring into what it means to be an American, what role federalism plays in the US today, and whether it is possible to become an American (or is that some relic of the past?).  The book is brilliant.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections.

This is political economy scholarship at its best, with the condensed version of its complex, but compelling, thesis best articulated by the author: "the internationalization of the Canadian economy and the reorganization of the state as a military power in the new imperialism is the recomposition of Canada's capitalist class as a globalizing bloc of power."  The transformation of Canadas corporate class into a class with international interests is the drive belt of Canadas recent foreign policy.  The policy is designed to enable Canada to be a party to US hegemonic liberalism, a construct and strategy of capitalist expansion worldwide.  Thus, the thesis links social class to politics and economics in this unique and exceptional Marxist analysis of the two-decade-old shift in Canadian foreign policy.  More importantly, Klassen (Saint Marys Univ., Canada) diligently and eloquently provides empirical support for the core thesis and related theories, propositions that are, unfortunately, too often presented polemically.  Additionally, a succinct but comprehensive overview of Canadian political economy and foreign policy is provided.  However, this studys importance is not just Canada-centric; its theoretical framework and methodology are relevant to scholars researching foreign policy in other Western nation-states.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Since WW II, the US has not experienced great success winning wars.  Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq ended in stalemate or loss.  Award-winning author Tierney (Swarthmore College) addresses this question: How do you extricate when a war becomes an unwinnable fiasco?  Through extensive knowledge of the extant literature and interviews with dozens of top military and civilian policy makers, he outlines a range of war-ending objectives.  The most applicable in recent counterinsurgency situations is ugly stability, the acceptance of far less than projected and desired at the initial engagement.  Tierney proposes a formula to achieve that status, which consists of steps that he designates surge, talk, and leave.  More important is to eschew wars that have marginal chances of long-term success and at the very beginning of any intervention to have a strategy of extrication ready to implement if it is evident that the war has become a quagmire or fiasco.  Sacrificing untold lives with no real hope of success, as in Vietnam, is morally repugnant.  These are relevant considerations regarding any possible intervention against ISIS.  Unique, engaging, and thought provoking, this book is a challenging exposition.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

This is the best edited or single-authored book yet to appear regarding the history of Syria and the al-Asad regime from 2000 to the outbreak of civil war in March 2011.  Further volumes are projected.  There are contributions from 14 of the most internationally recognized scholars of Syria.  The volume is divided into three parts: "Reproducing Power and Legitimacy," "Reconstructing the Regimes Social Base," and "Coping with Regional and International Challenges."  All three parts are held admirably together by editors Hinnebusch and Zintl.  The contributors divide the three parts into two time periods; 2000 to 2005 and 2005 to March 2011.  From 2000 to 2005 the new President, Bashar al-Asad, used the legitimacy built by his father Hafiz al-Asad to keep the Bathist Party focused on its corporatist "socialist contract" with its rural, lower-class, unionist, and co-opted middle class and bureaucratic constituency.  But Bashar changed after 2004 to a neoliberal policy favoring bankers, investors, Internet entrepreneurs, foreign capitalists, and reforming technocrats.  This shift resulted in re-empowering authoritarianism.  This occurred while the Syrian masses were becoming poor, less educated, and less healthy, and in March 2011 the civil war started.  For another opinion see Radwan Ziadeh,Power and Policy in Syria (CH, Sep'11, 49-0533).Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

This timely little book by Cockburn (The Independent, London) on the rise of ISIS and the widespread failure to see it coming will not disappoint those who are used to his penetrating journalism.  He shows that before the takeover of Mosul in June 2014, the media had largely stopped reporting on Iraq, and he argues that since 2001 there has been a gap between reality and the impressions the media presented, as journalists who cover battles do not stay around to understand the broader situation.  Also, he opines that Western governments deceived themselves.  He points to the absurdity of the notion of division between the extremists and Americas supposedly moderate opposition allies in Syria and argues that aid to the latter helped to destabilize Iraq.  He deplores the failure to understand the centrality of Saudi Arabia (and its anti-Shia, anti-Sufi Wahhabi doctrines) and of Pakistan in movements that the war on terror was directed at and suggests that it may be too late for these two countries to stop the Frankenstein they created.  This is an important work on todays Middle East and on its presentation in the Western media.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Carney's The Unending Hunger is a rare combination of excellent research, a fascinating read, and actual usefulness for making better policy.  Using in-depth multi-visit interviews over a number of years in the same community, Carney (anthropology, Univ. of Washington) weaves together the stories of food-insecure immigrant women in Santa Barbara, CA.  The book tells the story of food insecurity as central to women's decisions to migrate to the US, but also central to the structure of their lives in Santa Barbara.  Carney makes a convincing case that the biopolitics of food insecurity is linked to a biopolitical project of food security in the US, centered around individual responsibility for a collective, structural problem.  The book is as theoretically sound as it is ethnographically interesting, and as accessible as it is accomplished.  It gives a clear sense both of how to understand the gendered nature of migrant food insecurity and potential paths to redress that and other hardships experienced by migrants.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Pulitzer Prizewinner Wrights earlierThe Looming Tower (CH, Apr'07, 44-4704) was a marvelous contribution.  This new book is equally monumental. Thirteen Days in September again demonstrates Wrights ability to write an engaging, soundly researched narrative that incorporates flashback history, exceptional profiles of individuals, and insightful assessments.  Beyond William Quandts excellentCamp David (1986), not much has been written about this important historical event, so Wright adds immeasurably to the understanding of it.  The profiles of Carter, Sadat, Begin, and several second-tier players, which address their background, psychological makeup, histories, and psychoses, are remarkable.  The picture Wright develops is that the idealistic Carter did an extraordinary job of keeping the conference from self-destructing.  Sadat was vain, stubborn, naive, and a statesman.  The paranoid, unwavering, hard-line zealot Begin was not.  The Camp David Accords accomplished much, but Carters romantic quest was undermined by Begins deceptionwelching on the promise to stop settlements, which have remained an implacable obstacle to a larger, lasting peace.  The book offers an intriguing insight into the peacemaking negotiation process and is a great read that everyone from scholar to novice should enjoy.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

According to democratic peace theory, democracies do not go to war against other democracies.  The prevailing explanation for this is that liberal values and democratic institutions tend to inhibit wars against other democracies.  In this rigorous study of how democracies constrain foreign policy decision making, Baum (Harvard Univ.) and Potter (Univ. of Virginia) reject the dichotomous division between democratic and autocratic regimes, arguing that democracies differ significantly.  According to their theory, foreign policy constraint does not flow automatically from free elections or from the rule of law; rather, it depends on effective political opposition and broad access to media.  Thus, if citizens and political groups are to hold government leaders accountable, especially on war and peace issues, democracies must have robust political opposition that is well informed.  Baum and Potter explore the role of political communication in decision making, focusing on three phases of international conflictwhen states initiate wars, when they respond to challenges from other states, and when they join political coalitions.  This scholarly book is an important contribution to the role of political communication in foreign policy making.  It is strongly recommended for foreign policy and political communication scholars and democratic peace theorists.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections.