Change to Reading List: Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year

Horne, Alistair. Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2009. xvi + 457 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-0-7432-7283-4. $30.00. Hardcover.

Read May 7-June 19, 2010.

A Treasure Trove of Books on the Fall of Communism

Philip Zelikow, one-time director of the 911 Commission, is an expert on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. So he's the perfect choice to write a review article on a spate of books that came out in 2009, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is a very good article, and gives one some good insight into what each of these books has to offer.

You can use the links provided here to read Zelikow's article, which appeared in the November/December 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs, but I'm going to provide you with the names of the books he reviewed.

The Red Flag: A History of Communism. by David Priestland. Grove Press, 2009, 688 pp. $27.50.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989. Edited by Jeffrey A. Engel. Oxford University Press, 2009, 208 pp. $27.95.
There Is No Freedom Without Bread! 1989 and the Civil War That Brought Down Communism. By Constantine Pleshakov. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009, 304 pp. $26.00.
Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment. By Stephen Kotkin with a contribution by Jan T. Gross. Modern Library, 2009, 240 pp. $24.00.
The Rise and Fall of Communism. By Archie Brown. HarperCollins, 2009, 736 pp. $35.99.
Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. By Victor Sebestyen. Pantheon Books, 2009, 480 pp. $30.00.
The Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall. By Michael Meyer. Scribner, 2009, 272 pp. $26.00.
1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe. By Mary Elise Sarotte. Princeton University Press, 2009, 344 pp. $29.95.
Mitterrand, the End of the Cold War, and German Unification. By Frederic Bozo. Translated by Susan Emanuel. Berghahn Books, 2009, 417 pp. $110.00.

I might note that 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe is also reviewed by Andrew Moravscik in the "Western Europe" section of Recent Books on International Relations in the same issue of Foreign Affairs.

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - January/February 2009

1. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America. Thomas L. Friedman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95. [Previous rank: 1]
2. The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, $32.00. [Previous rank: 2]
3. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Andrew C. Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, $24.00. [Previous rank: 6]
4. The Post-American World. Fareed Zakaria. Norton, $25.95. [Previous rank: 5]
5. The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower. Robert Baer. Random House, $25.95. [New Listing]
6. The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. James Bamford. Doubleday, $27.95. [New Listing]
7. America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft with David Ignatius. Basic Books, $27.50. [Previous rank: 12]
8. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran. Hooman Majd. Doubleday, $24.95. [New Listing]
9. The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. Bing West. Random House, $28.00. [Previous rank: 7]
10. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776. George C. Herring. Oxford University Press, $35.00. [New Listing]
11. The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Ron Suskind. Harper, $27.95. [Previous rank: 3]
12. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Jane Mayer. Doubleday, $27.50. [Previous rank: 4]
13. The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril. Eugene Jarecki. Simon & Schuster, $26.00. [New Listing]
14. Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. Linda Robinson. PublicAffairs, $27.95. [Previous rank: 15]
15. Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism. Bernard-Henri Levy. Random House, $25.00. [New Listing]

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - December/November 2008

1. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America. Thomas L. Friedman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95. [New Listing]
2. The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, $32.00. [New Listing]
3. The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Ron Suskind. Harper, $27.95. [New Listing]
4. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Jane Mayer. Doubleday, $27.50. [New Listing]
5. The Post-American World. Fareed Zakaria. Norton, $25.95. [Previous rank: 1]
6. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Andrew C. Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, $24.00. [New Listing]
7. The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. Bing West. Random House, $28.00. [New Listing]
8. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. Michael Dobbs. Knopf, $28.95. [Previous rank: 5]
9. Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Ahmed Rashid. Viking, $27.95 [Previous rank: 7]
10. Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. Ted Sorensen. Harper, $27.95. [Previous rank: 2]
11. A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East. Kenneth M. Pollack. Random House, $30.00. [New Listing]
12. America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft with David Ignatius. Basic Books, $27.50. [New Listing]
13. Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs, From Communism to al-Qaeda. Richard Wallace and H. Keith Melton with Henry Robert Schlesinger. Dutton, $29.95. [Previous rank: 8]
14. Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East. Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac. Norton, $27.95. [New Listing]
15. Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. Linda Robinson. PublicAffairs, $27.95. [New Listing]

I was shocked - shocked! - to realize that I had not posted one of these bestseller lists from Foreign Affairs magazine since March. I've been reading more books than periodicals lately, and I've been very busy. No excuses, just a fact.

I should note that, partly because this list is somewhat elderly, I have had the opportunity to read two of the books on the list: The War Within, by Bob Woodward, and The Dark Side, by Jane Meyer. I posted a review of The War Within to this blog some time ago. I have not reviewed The Dark Side here, although I read it some time ago. The Way of the World, by Ron Suskind, is in the stack of books I am planning to read. I hope you can find something in this list that you will think worth reading.

Reading and Reviewing

I've been reading the books listed on the sidebar on this blog. In the past couple of weeks, I have finished reading four of them: Legacy of Ashes, God and God, Marching Toward Hell, and The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State. A few minutes ago I posted a review of Legacy of Ashes. Soon, probably within the next few days, I'll post reviews of the other three books.

The next group I'm reading consists of Against All Enemies, The Dark Side, and War and Decision.

If you were to read one or more of these books in the next couple of weeks, we could have some fine discussions here. For one thing, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State is a fascinating little book, and it is little. At 189 pages in all, it's an easy read, but there are intriguing ideas on every page. God and Gold is another book that is just rich with new and interesting concepts and connections. In God and Gold, Walter Russell Mead pulls together all sorts of political, economic, social and religious ideas to explain the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon people for the past 400 years.

If you've read something really good lately, feel free to contact me about posting a review on this blog.

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - September/October 2008

1. The Post-American World. Fareed Zakaria. Norton, $25.95. [Previous rank: 1]
2. Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. Ted Sorensen. Harper, $27.95. [New Listing]
3. Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters. Richard A. Clarke. Ecco, $25.95. [New Listing]
4. War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq. Richard Engel. Simon & Schuster, $28.00. [New Listing]
5. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. Michael Dobbs. Knopf, $28.95. [New Listing]
6. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. Muhammad Yunus. PublicAffairs, $26.00. [Previous rank: 14]
7. Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Ahmed Rashid. Viking, $27.95 [New Listing]
8. Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs, From Communism to al-Qaeda. Richard Wallace and H. Keith Melton with Henry Robert Schlesinger. Dutton, $29.95. [New Listing]
9. War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. Douglas J. Feith. Harper, $27.95. [Previous rank: 4]
10. A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World. William J. Bernstein. Atlantic Monthly Press, $30.00. [Previous rank: 9]
11. Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. Andrew C. McCarthy. Encounter Books, $25.95. [Previous rank: 7]
12. Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making. David Rothkopf. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00. [Previous rank: 10]
13. The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century. Steve Coll. Penguin Press, $35.00. [Previous rank: 2]
14. Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy. Natan Sharansky. PublicAffairs, $26.95. [New Listing]
15. The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Robert Kagan. Knopf, $19.95. [New Listing]

The Economist's "Pick of the Pile" - 1

Every December the Economist magazine publishes a list of the best books of the preceding year. I decided that it would be worthwhile to publish this list, to assist my readers in planning their reading for the next while. I have omitted the short reviews which appeared with the list in the December 6, 2008, issue. Many of these books, if not all, had longer reviews in the Economist in the course of 2008. Here is the first section of the Economist’s best of 2008.

Politics and Current Affairs

The Rise and Fall of the Islamic State. By Noah Feldman. Princeton University Press; 200 pages; $22.95 and ₤13.50.

A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East. By Lawrence Freedman. PublicAffairs; 624 pages; $29.95. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; ₤20.

Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy. By David Marquand. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 496 pages; ₤25.

The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. Norton; 311 pages; $22.95. Allen Lane; ₤20.

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. By Jane Mayer. Doubleday; 400 pages; $27.50 and ₤22.85.

Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror. By Benjamin Wittes. Penguin Press; 305 pages; $25.95.

India: The Emerging Giant. By Arvind Panagariya. Oxford University Press; 544 pages; $39.95 and ₤19.99.

Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant. By Heidi Holland. Penguin; 280 pages; $30 and ₤17.99.

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - July/August 2008

1. The Post-American World. Fareed Zakaria. Norton, $25.95. [New Listing]
2. The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century. Steve Coll. Penguin Press, $35.00. [New Listing]
3. Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. Benazir Bhutto. Harper, $27.95. [New Listing]
4. War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. Douglas J. Feith. Harper, $27.95. [New Listing]
5. America: Our Next Chapter; Tough Questions, Straight Answers. Chuck Hagel with Peter Kaminsky. Ecco, $25.95. [New Listing]
6. Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Michael Scheuer. Free Press, $27.00. [Previous rank: 2]
7. Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. Andrew C. McCarthy. Encounter Books, $27.00. [New Listing]
8. The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. Norton, $22.95. [Previous rank: 8]
9. A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World. William J. Bernstein. Atlantic Monthly Press, $30.00. [New Listing]
10. Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making. David Rothkopf. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00. [New Listing]
11. Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century. Philip Bobbitt. Knopf, $35.00. [New Listing]
12. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00. [Previous rank: 6]
13. The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. Parag Khanna. Random House, $29.00. [Previous rank: 12]
14. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. Muhammad Yunus. PublicAffairs, $26.00. [Previous rank: 4]
15. Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East. Robin Wright. Penguin Press, $26.95. [Previous rank: 11]

There was another big turnover in the list between May/June and July/August 2008, with nine new listing. The top five slots are all held by new entrants, while the bottom four are books from previous lists. Several of these were new on the May/June list. I’m somewhere in the middle of Dreams and Shadows at the moment. I have posted a review of George Weigel’s Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism, which was in ninth place on the May/June list.

If you happen to have read any of these books, I’d enjoy hearing your impressions. If you’re prepared to write a review suitable for posting, please let me know by leaving a comment with this post.

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism - A Review

Weigel, George. Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Auckland: Doubleday, 2007. 195 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. $18.95.

George Weigel is a Catholic – very Catholic, one might say. He is also a conservative who has contributed to Commentary, the neoconservative magazine. Here we have a little book (157 pages of text), with a big title, that reveals its Catholic roots in numerous ways. For example, Weigel dedicates the book to George Pell, the cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Australia. There are many references to Pope Benedict XVI and his writings. The signature block at the end of the acknowledgments reads:

G.W.
Commemoration of St. George
25 April 2007
Washington, D.C.

But the main way in which this strikes me as a Catholic (not “catholic”) book is that it is structured as a series of lessons. This is a sort of catechism on the subject of Islam, “jihadism,” and the West’s relations with Muslims and Islamic societies. After a brief introduction, the book consists of fifteen “lessons,” divided into three sections: “Understanding the Enemy,” “Rethinking Realism,” and “Deserving Victory.” These reflect Weigel’s purpose in writing this book. “My purpose here is to identify what we should have learned, since September 11, 2001: about the enemy, about us – and about what must be done to see us through to a future safe for freedom.”

First, since there are so many terms applied to this particular movement, I should say that Weigel likes the term “jihadism” for what others have called “Islamism,” “political Islam,” “Salafism,” or “Islamic fundamentalism.” Islamic fundamentalism does not necessarily imply either political revolution or violent action. Salafism refers to the sub-set of Islamists who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is an unbeliever or an apostate and, thus, deserves to die. Political Islam includes movements seeking to gain power through electoral processes or other peaceful means. Jihadism expresses a movement based on the necessity of undertaking a struggle, if necessary a violent struggle, in order to impose Islamic law on society.

Like Christianity, Islam lays claim to being a universal religion. Allah is everywhere, and the Quran speaks to all men, so a good Muslim may believe that all men ought to submit to the will of God and become Muslims. Most Muslims worry about things close to home, however, and are not overly exercised by the existence of non-Muslim countries far away. The Jihadists, such as Sayyid Qutb, are, Weigel informs us, in the tradition of Taymiyya (1263-1328) and al-Wahhab (1703/4-1792), and are driven by the idea that conflict between Islam and non-Islam is inevitable. In this view, jihad is a defense against the foreign and sinful ideas assaulting the Islamic world from all sides.

In his first section, “Understanding the Enemy,” Weigel reviews much of the history of Islamic interactions with the West and the principles of jihadist belief. This is good and useful material, and it tells us something about the intractability of the cause arrayed against us. I have one problem with this section, Weigel’s contention in his first lesson that: “The great human questions, including the great questions of public life, are ultimately theological.” This statement assumes a kind of belief not everyone shares, and it implies that Weigel believes that only religious belief can defeat religious belief. In other words, Weigel presumes here that our struggle with jihadism is a religious war, and that it must be a religious war on our side, as well as on theirs, if we are to win it.

The second section, “Rethinking Realism,” lays out a program for opposing jihadism by recognizing wickedness and preparing the way for “responsible and responsive government.” Weigel also asserts that deterrence is unlike to be of much use against those who seek martyrdom. There are some useful suggestions here, including espousal of a major coordinated campaign of public diplomacy. But it concerns me that, by eschewing deterrence, Weigel is, by extension, dismissing the concept of containment. The alternative is, of course, aggressive action taken to the enemy’s ground. I’m not so sure that jihadism cannot be contained, during the time needed to help responsible governments to evolve in the Muslim world.

Next, in “Deserving Victory,” Weigel asserts that we need to believe that we deserve to defeat jihadism. “Cultural self-confidence is indispensable to victory in the long-term struggle against jihadism.” He urges the West to avoid making concessions to Islamists in the name of tolerance. He suggest depriving jihadism of much of its funding “by developing alternatives to” oil. He asserts, most interestingly, that only a domestic political coalition of the center can be victorious.

Finally, he states that U.S. leadership is indispensable.

This is an interesting little book. One fears that it might be read as suggesting that the United States needs to rally its allies under the banner of Christendom and begin a crusade against Islam. I think Weigel’s aims are more limited, and the means he would use less military, than those of, say, Paul Wolfowitz. I find it hard, however, to see how one can wage an explicitly religious war without arousing passions that are at best difficult to control.

Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed - A Review

Evans, Martin, and John Phillips. Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. xvi + 352 pages. Acknowledgements. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Martin Evans is an academic, John Phillips is a journalist, and together they have produced a readable and quite thorough book on Algeria. I noticed some minor errors, such as a reference to William Burns as the “Deputy Secretary of State for North African Affairs”, rather than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (p. 288). But there is a wealth of detail here, much of it not available elsewhere in English.

For the reader who has little or no background in Algeria, or in North Africa in general, this may be a particularly useful book. It has some material on the period before the French invasion in 1830, locating Algeria in the history of North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. This is very brief, and the authors really pick up the story on 14 June 1830, when French troops landed at Sidi Ferruch, just west of Algiers. The story of relations with the French, the continued Algerian attempts to throw off the colonizers, the suppression of Algerian culture, and the encouragement of European settlement on the fertile lands near the Mediterranean coast will be familiar to anyone who has read Alistair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace. But it is well-told here.

Horne’s book may be better on the period of the War of Independence and its precursors, beginning with the 1945 violence at Sétif, but Evans and Phillips tell the story competently, and they have the advantage of some additional information. They take us through the formation of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), which became the country’s single political party until the late 1980s. This is where the authors pick up their theme: they assert that many of Algeria’s current problems are rooted in the suppression of historical memory. Few, if any, Algerians know the history of their country, or they know it only through interested accounts by the French, the FLN, or Islamist preachers.

Thus, the French tried to suppress the memory of an independent Algeria, to privilege Europeans over Arabs, Christians and Jews over Muslims, and Francophones over speakers of Arabic. The FLN, in its turn, suppressed the history of the in-fighting within the independence movement, asserting that there was one war, led by the FLN, all of whose one million martyrs were victims of the French. Actually, the military formations of the FLN, which were based in Morocco and Tunisia, did relatively little of the fighting against the French, and were, therefore, in a position to wipe out internal opposition when the French gave up the fight. After Houari Boumedienne, of the Oujda group in the army, ousted Ahmed Ben Bella in a coup in 1965, Ben Bella’s role disappeared from accounts of Algeria’s early days.

The authors assert, as does Horne, that the Islamic (and Islamist) element in the fight for independence has been overlooked, partly because the FLN’s image of the revolution allowed for no divisions. When the Islamists arose in the 1980s under the banner of the FIS (Front Islamique du Salut), it was an unwelcome shock to the military leaders behind the government. The military coup of 1992, which stopped elections the FIS was certain to win, was welcomed in some circles (including in France and the United States), but it led to a period of bloodshed in which at least 100,000 and possibly close to one million Algerians died. Again the opacity of Algerian politics is demonstrated by the widespread ignorance of who committed many of the atrocities, and for whom they were ultimately working.

The authors take us up to the period of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was Foreign Minister, I believe, when I was in Algiers in 1979 and 1980. Evans and Phillips argue, with a good deal of supporting evidence, that Bouteflika has been a front for the generals, whose corrupt control of the Algerian economy, particularly imports and exports, would be threatened by any real change in the regime. Finally, the authors argue that the problems of the Algerian economy, society, and polity cannot be resolved without facing up to the past, acknowledging wrong-doing by the military and the security forces, as well as by the Salafists, and giving the Algerian people a real stake in their society.

Evans and Phillips, out of the good European leftist tradition, place too much emphasis, perhaps, on the forces of imperialism; France and the United States have certainly tried to influence the course of events in Algeria, and their interests may not be those of the Algerian people, but most of Algeria’s problems are internal. Evans and Phillips identify quite correctly Algeria’s single biggest problem: youth unemployment. Unemployment in Algeria may be as high as 30%, and 75-80% of those unemployed are young men. That unemployment, in turn, may or may not be due to corruption in the higher levels of government, but it is certain that the government has not managed to invest its oil and gas revenues to create productive employment.

These unemployed young men have become the foot soldiers of various insurgent movements, left, right, and Salafist. The Islamist rebel group GSPC (the French initials for the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) has renamed itself the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. Algeria is an obvious recruiting ground for extremist groups. And Evans and Phillips conclude that there is no chance of reforming Algeria as long as the generals have the “war on terror” as an excuse for their suppression of dissent.

This is grim reading, and a lot of the analysis in this book is very accurate. The real question, one to which the authors have no answer, is whether there is any way out of the impasse in which Algeria has entrapped itself. Another round of internal violence may have to play itself out, unless the government is prepared to commit itself to a thorough-going reform of the political system.

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - May/June 2008

1. The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. Philip Shenon. Twelve, $27.00. [New listing]

2. Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Michael Scheuer. Free Press, $27.00. [New]

3. Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership. Madeleine Albright. Harper, $26.95. [New]

4. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. Muhammad Yunus. PublicAffairs, $26.00. [Previous rank: 12]

5. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95. [2]

6. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00. [1]

7. Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. Samantha Power. Penguin Press, $32.95. [New]

8. The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. Norton, $22.95. [New]

9. Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism. George Weigel. Doubleday, $18.95. [New]

10. Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. Fred Kaplan. Wiley, $25.95. [New]

11. Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East. Robin Wright. Penguin Press, $26.95. [New]

12. The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. Parag Khanna. Random House, $29.00. [New]

13. The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future. Craig Unger. Scribner, $27.00. [4]

14. Condoleeza Rice: An American Life. Elisabeth Bumiller. Random House, $27.95. [5]

15. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00. [8]

There was a big turnover in the list between March/April and May/June. Among the new books, I picked up several to read. So far, I have read George Weigel’s Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism. I have started Dreams and Shadows, by Robin Wright, and The Commission, by Philip Shenon. The books by Michael Scheuer and Fred Kaplan sound interesting, though Kaplan’s title seems to state his thesis in rather bold terms.

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - March/April 2008

I should note that Foreign Affairs describes this list as "The top-selling hardcover books on American foreign policy and international affairs." That these are hardcovers explains the prices. You may want to watch for them at your local library, or wait until they appear in paperback.

1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00. [#1 in the previous list.]

2. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95. [6]

3. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations. John Bolton. Threshold Editions, $27.00. [4]

4. The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future. Craig Unger. Scribner, $27.00. [New]

5. Condoleeza Rice: An American Life. Elisabeth Bumiller. Random House, $27.95. [New]

6. The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets ... and How We Could Have Stopped Him. Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Twelve, $25.00. [New]

7. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, $27.95. [9]

8. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00. [3]

9. The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack. Ronald Kessler. Crown Forum, $26.95. [New]

10. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, $27.95. [7]

11. Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Basic Books, $35.00 [12]

12. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Fugure of Capitalism. Muhammad Yunus. PublicAffairs, $26.00. [New]

13. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Norman Podhoretz. Doubleday, $24.95. [2]

14. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Michael B. Oren. Norton, $35.00. [10]

15. The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. Steve Levine. Random House, $27.95. [New]

Among the new books, I would think that Creating a World Without Poverty might be the most interesting. The biography of Condoleeza Rice may also be worthwhile.

Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - January/February 2008

I recently posted a link to the current bestsellers list at Foreign Affairs. One of my reasons for publicizing this resource is my feeling that we have too little background to interpret international news. Too few of us have travelled overseas, let alone lived outside the United States. Our local newspapers tend to be short on foreign news. The television networks and the national newspapers have cut their overseas bureaus to the bone, and beyond. Thus, when there is a crisis in Georgia or Gaza, we don't have enough information to place it in context.

I am reading several books right now on the Middle East, reminding myself of material I have known, finding out about recent developments, and discovering other people's viewpoints on situations. But I was shocked to realize that I had read none of the books on Foreign Affairs' bestseller list for January/February 2008. Here it is, so that some of you may be able to do better.

1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00.

2. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Norman Podhoretz. Doubleday, $24.95.

3. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00.

4. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations. John Bolton. Threshold Editions, $27.00.

5. Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. Bob Drogin. Random House, $27.95.

6. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95.

7. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, $27.95.

8. The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control. Abraham H. Foxman. Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.

9. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, $27.95.

10. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Michael B. Oren. Norton, $35.00.

11. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark. Walker & Company, $28.95.

12. Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Basic Books, $35.00.

13. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Cullen Murphy. Houghton Mifflin, $24.00.

14. A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor, and Country. Wesley K. Clark. Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.

15. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. Mark Lilla. Knopf, $26.00.

Let me add a couple of notes. While I haven't read the book, I have read Norman Podhoretz' World War IV in the version serialized in Commentary magazine. This is scary stuff. After I learned that Podhoretz was a major foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani, I was really glad that Giuliani crapped out in the Republican primaries. If you think Paul Wolfowitz was a bad neoconservative influence in the Bush administration, imagine Podhoretz in a similar role.

Mearsheimer and Walt's book (#3) aroused a great deal of angst in the Jewish political community. Foxman's book (#8) is one of the responses to Mearsheimer and Walt. Maybe one should read them in tandem. From the use of the term "control" in Foxman's sub-title, I suspect he's using a strawman argument against Mearsheimer and Walt, but, as I haven't read either book, I can't really say.

The ones I think will probably prove most worthwhile:

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.

Those are the three I'm adding to my reading list.

Reading Lists: Foreign Affairs

One of the features of the journal Foreign Affairs is found on the last page of each issue: a list of best-selling books in international affairs. Trying to bring a little system to my reading, I copied that page out of a recent issue, and took it with me to the library. I didn't find all of the books on the list, and I didn't entirely confine myself to that list, but I did take out several books which appeared on it.

One of the problems with the old Great Books Cafe, as well as with this blog, is that everyone is reading different books. There's no uniformity in the reading, so there's seldom a basis for direct dialogue. I'm certainly not trying to impose any kind of common reading list, but I think it might be useful for others to consider the books on a list that's available to all of us.

I have attached the link to the Foreign Affairs bestsellers list to the title of this post, and I'll show it again here. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/book/bestsellers

I'm working on some books from an older list, but I suggest that you consider some of the books on this list for your future reading, and I'll do the same.

By the way, I just finished reading A Choice of Enemies, by Freedman. I'm working on Algeria: The Anger of the Dispossessed. I have also Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism, by George Weigel, and Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East, by Robin Wright.

Let me emphasize that anyone who wishes to contribute a review, or just personal comments, on a book you've recently read, is encouraged to do so. Let me know if you'd like to contribute in that way.