Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2021 -

Barno and Bensahel (both senior fellows at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) provide an insightful analysis of military adaptation in war, why it matters, and how to improve it. Their cautionary assessment explores how best to respond to the shifting contours of a conflict, emphasizing in particular the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone interested in war planning and military organization will find much of value in this book, which should be required reading for civilian policy makers and military officers alike. The authors' purpose is to ask an existential question: "Is the US military adaptable enough to prevail in the wars of the 21st century?" Their conclusions are thorough, persuasive, and at times sobering. The book is brimming with cogent discernments regarding doctrine, weapons, and especially leadership, all focused on ensuring an agile, innovative, and resilient military. The book is organized in three major parts: a theoretical overview of adaptation, historical case studies of both success and failure from recent wars, and recommendations to improve the flexibility of the military in future. Altogether the book offers a sweeping, lively, and enjoyable foray into how to deal with the unknown once war erupts.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. General readers.

Killer Apps is an unusual book. War and the history of warfare are serious topics, but the tone is marked by irony and black comedy. Packer (Univ. of Toronto) and Reeves (Oregon State Univ.), both communication scholars, offer deep insights into military topics by looking at them through the lens of information and media technologies. Military technologists decided a few decades ago that information is the ultimate weapon, and ever since, obtaining and processing information has been the cornerstone of all short-term and long-term military strategies. The authors illustrate their points with excellent references that include historical events and rich military research; they also discuss all possible theaters of conflict, including space warfare involving other planets and other civilizations. A solid dose of sci-fi-inspired discussion offers a fresh perspective of what is likely to come. The broad spectrum of topics makes this book a great read. Not many information technology-inspired books written by techies (or even high-tech journalists) offer so much breadth and depth when discussing the past, the present, and the future. Artificial intelligence and politics rightfully take center stage in many sections of this book, which includes many detailed and engaging discussions about cutting-edge military technologies and their evolution over the centuries.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Anderson (Univ. of Manitoba, Canada) and Jessee (Univ. of Glasgow, UK) have edited this excellent volume about perpetrators of genocide. While genocide studies have tended to focus on "survivors, rescuers, and bystanders," this volume advances a greater understanding of those who perpetrate genocidal violence. Beyond providing readers with more context about perpetrators, the book also asks, "What are the 'best practices' for those conducting qualitative research among perpetrators of genocide?" The chapters that follow engage with these questions in Rwanda, Argentina, Syria, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. The volume's strengths are its willingness to tackle challenging methodological questions as well as its acknowledgment of the "colonial quality" of most genocide scholarship and its call for other researchers to do more to "incorporate research by scholars in the Global South." The editors share some best practices for engaging with this work, from research design to fieldwork to analysis, to advance these questions ethically. This is an essential volume for libraries serving advanced undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners studying genocide, political science, history, and anthropology.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

Drawing on experiences of 44 academics from political science and related disciplines, Stories from the Field offers a wealth of personal insights, methodological discussions, and ways of creatively coping with the unexpected during research carried out around the globe. Krause (Boston College) and Szekely (Clark Univ.) divide the volume into eight sections comprising 42 contributed articles that deal with topics ranging from designing research, first steps upon arrival, and data collection under difficult circumstances to ethical dilemmas and staying safe (not only personal safety in fraught situations, but also considering the need for both physical and mental security). The stories told--from gripping events to daily life--range broadly from work in archives or online to large-scale surveys and interviews under challenging circumstances (e.g., in war zones or prisons, with sex traffickers or terrorists). Research topics are likewise varied (security, terrorism, politics, and religion), as are the types of local people who contribute to projects directly or indirectly (enumerators, translators, those one happens to meet). The contributing authors are candid about blunders made, the creativity and serendipity of fieldwork, ethical issues not within the scope of institutional review board processes, interpersonal dynamics, and the role of one's personal identity in research. This is a good volume for use in a methods course.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Populist radical Right parties are common in Continental Europe, although those in the Netherlands stand out from most as the Dutch parties have been very liberal on sexual freedoms and women's rights. In this unique, detailed analysis, Oudenampsen (Univ. of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) explains such parties in the process of outlining the intellectual history of the Dutch New Right. Reacting belatedly to the Left liberalism and secularism of the 1960s, Dutch conservative critics largely acknowledged that such progressive moral values were broadly accepted in the Netherlands--producing what Oudenampsen calls a "complex backlash" in contrast to developments in the US. Moreover, Dutch New Right thinkers and politicians have used such moral issues as part of their nationalist anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim arguments. The book focuses not just on the newer Populist parties in the Netherlands but also on the traditional right-of-center ones and how these became more right-wing in recent decades--again tying these changes back to conservative intellectual circles in the Netherlands. The book also emphasizes the role of the internet in the Dutch New Right. Very useful as a complement to works on Dutch and Western European party politics.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

In this book, Wurman (Arizona State Univ.) seeks to educate Americans on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. More specifically, Wurman's goal is to use the history of the 14th Amendment and the meanings of its three key provisions--the privileges and immunities clause, the due process clause, and the equal protection clause--at the time of the amendment's crafting and ratification to demonstrate how the Amendment has been misunderstood and thus misapplied by the courts for years. Wurman argues that these errors have significant real-world consequences, and attempts to make the case that a proper understanding and application of these key elements of the 14th Amendment would result in a more just society, with fewer judicial acrobatics (and less confusion) required to maintain a civil society. Wurman is a very effective advocate. Deftly weaving centuries of history into his narrative along with relevant court decisions and legal precedents, Wurman provides strong support for his claims. That being said, he does not shy away from relevant weak spots and/or potential challenges to his position. This is an extremely well researched and written book that all Americans should read.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.