Foreign Affairs articles from May 2005

Foreign Affairs archives from May 2005

Waste Not.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... To the Editor: In "The Development Challenge" (March/April 2005), Jeffrey Sachs has correctly and forcefully emphasized how stingy the U.S. government is with foreign aid. Regarding Africa, Sachs points out that if sums for emergencies,...

The UN's Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The UN's Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq By James Dobbins et al. : RAND, 2005, 318 pp., $35.00 Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has increasingly been called on to dispatch multinational forces to enforce the...

Democracy From Above: Regional Organizations and Democratization.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Democracy From Above: Regional Organizations and Democratization By Jon C. Pevehouse : Cambridge University Press, 2005, 262 pp., $75.00 (paper, $29.99) Given that U.S. presidents from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush have made the...

The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-first Century.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-first Century By Scott Thomas : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 320 pp., $75.00 (paper, $24.95) The global...

The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights By Naomi Roht-Arriaza : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005, 272 pp., $55.00 The 1998 arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London on charges...

Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project By National Intelligence Council : , 2005, 124 pp., Free As Niels Bohr noted, prediction is difficult, especially about the future. That said,...

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time By Jeffrey D. Sachs : Penguin Press, 2005, 396 pp., $27.95 This unusual book is part autobiographical odyssey of Sachs' consulting with countries in crisis, part passionate...

The German Economy: Beyond the Social Market.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The German Economy: Beyond the Social Market By Horst Siebert : Princeton University Press, 2005, 416 pp., $60.00 Siebert, a distinguished German economist who was for 12 years a member of Germany's five-member Council of Economic...

Globalization: What's New?(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Globalization: What's New? By Michael M. Weinstein : Columbia University Press, 2005, 296 pp., $64.50 (paper, $22.50) Globalization has been occurring at least since the European expansion of the sixteenth century, when coffee,...

Understanding the Process of Economic Change.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Understanding the Process of Economic Change By Douglass C. North : Princeton University Press, 2005, 208 pp., $29.95 These two books focus on the institutional aspects of economic transformation -- the incentives they create and...

Scarcity, Conflicts, and Cooperation: Essays in the Political and Institutional Economics of Development.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Scarcity, Conflicts, and Cooperation: Essays in the Political and Institutional Economics of Development By Pranab Bardhan : MIT Press, 2004, 328 pp., $62.00 (paper, $25.00) These two books focus on the institutional aspects of...

Chasing Dirty Money: The Fight Against Money Laundering.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Chasing Dirty Money: The Fight Against Money Laundering By Peter Reuter and Edwin M. Truman : Institute for International Economics, 2004, 248 pp., $23.95 Successful criminal activities produce lots of cash, which must be...

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin : Knopf, 2005, 736 pp., $35.00 In this stunning blockbuster, two accomplished Cold War historians have come together to tell...

The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis By Sheldon M. Stern : Stanford University Press, 2005, 256 pp., $37.50 (paper, $14.95) The discovery that President John F. Kennedy had installed a system for...

Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons By Paul Lettow : Random House, 2005, 352 pp., $25.95 Lettow has made a major and thoroughly researched contribution to the study of Ronald Reagan's presidency. He demonstrates...

Every War Must End.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Every War Must End By Fred Charles Ikle : Columbia University Press, 2005, 208 pp., $64.50 (paper, $16.95) The reissuing of Ikle's classic is to be welcomed, if for no other reason than because it demonstrates how with clear prose,...

No End in Sight: The Continuing Menace of Nuclear Proliferation.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... No End in Sight: The Continuing Menace of Nuclear Proliferation By Nathan E. Busch : University Press of Kentucky, 2004, 512 pp., $40.00 The title of this book is somewhat misleading. Busch starts with the debate between Kenneth...

The Geography of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Geography of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats By Colin Flint : Oxford University Press, 2004, 480 pp., $85.00 (paper, $35.00) Geopolitics -- the view that geography creates its own enduring strategic logic that...

The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000 By Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton : Viking, 2005, 400 pp., $27.95 Anderson has written important books on colonial military history (notably Crucible of War);...

Freedom's Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War Through the Civil Rights Era.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Freedom's Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War Through the Civil Rights Era By Paul Harvey : University of North Carolina Press, 2005, 360 pp., $34.95 At a time when politicians and policymakers...

The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan By John Ehrman : Yale University Press, 2005, 304 pp., $27.50 This book serves admirably as an introduction to the 1980s for the ever- increasing number of students for whom the Age of...

Martin Van Buren.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Martin Van Buren By Ted Widmer : Times Books, 2005, 208 pp., $20.00 For readers who dismiss Martin Van Buren as a forgettable minor figure, Widmer's short biography may come as a revelation. Van Buren was in many respects the...

The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World By Franklin Lambert : Hill and Wang, 2005, 240 pp., $23.00 Since September 11, politicians and pundits looking for historical precedents have turned to the United...

The American Enemy: A Story of French Anti-Americanism.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism By Philippe Roger. Translated by Sharon Bowman : University of Chicago Press, 2005, 536 pp., $35.00 Roger, a French cultural historian, has written a doubly invaluable...

Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century By Mark Leonard : Fourth Estate, 2005, 170 pp., $17.14 Of all the recent books that celebrate the merits and the promise of the European Union, this short work, written by the director of...

Democracy and Federalism in the European Union and the United States: Exploring Post-national Governance.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Democracy and Federalism in the European Union and the United States: Exploring Post-national Governance By Sergio Fabrini : Routledge, 2005, 224 pp., $122.50 (paper, $34.95) This comparison between the institutions of the European...

Irresistible Empire: America's Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Irresistible Empire: America's Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe By Victoria De Grazia : Harvard University Press, 2005, 608 pp., $29.95 This wonderful book, written with extraordinary erudition and verve by a social...

The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna Under Hitler.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna Under Hitler By Thomas Weyr : Oxford University Press, 2005, 384 pp., $30.00 Weyr is a half-Jew who was born in Vienna but had to flee his native city after the Anschluss. His book mixes memoir with...

And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina By Paul Blustein : PublicAffairs, 2005, 320 pp., $27.50 Economists have long warned that boom-and-bust financial markets are the...

Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy By Coletta A. Youngers and Eileen Rosin : Lynne Rienner, 2004, 418 pp., $65.00 (paper, $25.00) The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) has long maintained that...

War and Drugs in Colombia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... War and Drugs in Colombia By the International Crisis Group : International Crisis Group, 2005, 39 pp., Free The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) has long maintained that U.S. international drug policy not only fails to...

Institutional Reforms: The Case of Colombia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Institutional Reforms: The Case of Colombia By Alberto Alesina : MIT Press, 2005, 420 pp., $75.00 (paper, $35.00) A prestigious team of U.S., European, and Colombian social scientists apply standard economic analysis and...

The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela By Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, 368 pp., $49.95 This sobering postmortem reveals with depressing clarity the conditions that...

Mexico's New Politics: The PAN and Democratic Change.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Mexico's New Politics: The PAN and Democratic Change By David A. Shirk : Lynne Rienner, 2004, 279 pp., $58.50 (paper, $23.50) The author of this authoritative history of the National Action Party (PAN) was one of the few Mexicans...

Ivan the Terrible.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Ivan the Terrible By Isabel De Madariaga : Yale University Press, 2005, 416 pp., $35.00 For all his infamy, there are few serious English-language biographies of Ivan the Terrible. De Madariaga fills that void masterfully. She has...

The Soviet Century.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Soviet Century By Moshe Lewin : Verso, 2005, 352 pp., $36.00 Lewin asks a metahistorical question: What was the Soviet Union all about? The answer, he says, is in the essence of the system. With the benefit of hindsight and...

Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape By Julie A. Buckler : Princeton University Press, 2005, 432 pp., $35.00 This is not Peter's historic window on the West, nor is it St. Petersburg as a historical window on Russia....

Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front By Constantine Pleshakov : Houghton Mifflin, 2005, 320 pp., $26.00 We knew Stalin had his head in the sand as the Nazi invasion approached in June...

Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans By John Phillips : Yale University Press, 2004, 240 pp., $30.00 The six-month war in Macedonia in 2001 between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians so imitated a decade of prior...

Beyond Memory: The Crimean Tatars' Deportation and Return.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Beyond Memory: The Crimean Tatars' Deportation and Return By Greta Lynn Uehling : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 320 pp., $75.00 (paper, $24.95) Uehling is less interested in the story of Stalin's savage deportation of 190,000 Crimean...

Uncharted Journey: Promoting Democracy in the Middle East.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Uncharted Journey: Promoting Democracy in the Middle East By Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway : Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005, 300 pp., $50.00 (paper, $24.95) Decades ago, Western policymakers and pundits...

Modernization, Democracy, and Islam.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Modernization, Democracy, and Islam By Shireen T. Hunter and Huma Malik : Praeger, 2005, 376 pp., $109.95 (paper, $29.95) This book may mark a transition in scholarly usage: 7 of the 19 articles collected here use both...

The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921 By Reeva Spector Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian : Columbia University Press, 2004, 200 pp., $59.50 (paper, $19.50) Observers of late have dusted off the history of the United Kingdom's occupation of...

Understanding Iraq: The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, From Genghis Khan's Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Understanding Iraq: The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, From Genghis Khan's Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation By William R. Polk : HarperCollins, 2005, 240 pp., $22.95 Unlike many...

Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War By Lawrence G. Potter and Gary G. Sick : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 240 pp., $59.95 The organizing theme of this book is the impact of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War on the two states -- but since...

China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia By Peter C. Perdue : Harvard University Press, 2005, 752 pp., $35.00 In this major work, Perdue challenges historians' focus on China's struggles with European powers and...

Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China By Timothy Brook : Harvard University Press, 2005, 302 pp., $49.95 Brook has with great care taken up the sensitive topic of Chinese collaboration with the Japanese...

Finding George Orwell in Burma.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Finding George Orwell in Burma By Emma Larkin : Penguin Press, 2005, 304 pp., $22.95 Larkin (a pseudonym) is a Burmese-speaking American journalist who decided to go to Burma to retrace all the steps George Orwell took as a young...

Korean Attitudes Toward the United States: Changing Dynamics.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Korean Attitudes Toward the United States: Changing Dynamics By David I. Steinberg : M.E. Sharpe, 2004, 400 pp., $72.95 (paper, $28.95) This volume, the product of a conference organized by Georgetown University, examines rising...

Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region By T.J. Pempel : Cornell University Press, 2004, 330 pp., $49.95 (paper, $22.95) This volume brings a variety of perspectives to the emergence of East Asian regionalism. Objective...

Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire By David Anderson : Norton, 2005, 320 pp., $25.95 Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. Caroline Elkins. Norton, 2005, 496 pp....

Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya By Caroline Elkins : Henry Holt, 2005, 496 pp., $27.50 Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire. David Anderson. Norton, 2005, 320 pp....

Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa By Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi : Cambridge University Press, 2004, 486 pp., $75.00 (paper, $34.99) Observers of sub-Saharan Africa are sharply divided...

Coups From Below: Armed Subalterns and State Power in West Africa.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Coups From Below: Armed Subalterns and State Power in West Africa By Jimmy D. Kandeh : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 272 pp., $64.95 After an initial flurry of research in the 1960s and 1970s, the role of the military in African...

Hotel Rwanda.(Movie Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Hotel Rwanda By Terry George : United Artists, 2004, 121 minutes, Reviews of this excellent film have hailed the stellar performances of Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo and noted the great pathos of its true story: a Hutu hotel...

A Global Answer to Global Problems.
May 1, 2005... In 1995, the peso crisis struck Mexico, and Latin America seemed to teeter on the brink of economic collapse. A few years later, some of Asia's leading economies faced similar disaster. Then, in 1998, came the Russian default -- and with it,...

Pitch Imperfect.
May 1, 2005... Of the various ironies besetting U.S. foreign policy at the moment, one is both particularly acute and little recognized: even as the realization grows that the international image of the United States is in steep decline, the country's best...

Reflection: Lessons from German History.
May 1, 2005... This article is adapted from the author's remarks at the tenth annual dinner of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, at which he was honored for distinguished scholarship in German history and for contributions to good relations between the...

The Autumn of the Autocrats.
May 1, 2005... THE MEANING OF LEBANON They quarreled with Rafiq Hariri's way of rebuilding Beirut, dismissing his renewal project as an assault on the capital's archaeological heritage and the graceful old city of fabled memory. They wrote off his...

Freedom and Justice in the Modern Middle East.
May 1, 2005... CHANGING PERCEPTIONS For Muslims as for others, history is important, but they approach it with a special concern and awareness. The career of the Prophet Muhammad, the creation and expansion of the Islamic community and state, and the...

Gaza: Moving Forward by Pulling Back.
May 1, 2005... THE OPPORTUNITY After four and a half years of terror and violence, the proverbial stars seem to be aligned for a new push for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Unlike his predecessor, the newly elected Palestinian Authority...

"In Larger Freedom": Decision Time at the UN.
May 1, 2005... OUR SHARED VULNERABILITY Ask a New York investment banker who walks past Ground Zero every day on her way to work what today's biggest threat is. Then ask an illiterate 12-year-old orphan in Malawi who lost his parents to AIDS. You will...

Saving the World Bank.
May 1, 2005... MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? In the past five years, the world has created the International Criminal Court; the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; and the Kyoto carbon-trading system. Scarcely a month goes by without statesmen,...

What If the British Vote No?
May 1, 2005... EU CONSTITUTION AT STAKE In June 2004, the member states of the European Union concluded the negotiation of a treaty that, if ratified, would establish a European constitution that would make substantive changes to the way the union works....

How the Street Gangs Took Central America.
May 1, 2005... WHILE WASHINGTON SLEPT Last December, a bus driving through the northern city of Chamalecon in Honduras was stopped by gunmen. The assailants quickly surrounded the bus and opened fire with their AK-47s, killing 28 passengers. The...

Down to the Wire.(Industry Overview)
May 1, 2005... BROADBAND NATION? In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United States dropped from 4th to 13th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage. Today, most U.S. homes can access only "basic" broadband, among the...

New Balance.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... To the Editor: In "A Nuclear Posture for Today" (January/February 2005), John Deutch asserts that reductions in the number of nuclear weapons have not occurred fast enough, nor gone far enough. He also makes the important point that...

Shades of Black.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... To the Editor: John Deutch correctly notes the potential utility of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to a more militant China or a revanchist Russia. He is also correct to point out that the U.S. nuclear umbrella has aided nonproliferation...

Snowball Effect.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... To the Editor: John Lewis Gaddis makes an excellent point in "Grand Strategy in the Second Term" (January/February 2005) when he touches on the quandary over finding a balance between security and sovereignty that the world has found...

A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility By The Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change : United Nations, 2004, 143 pp., Free The United Nations was founded when the gravest danger facing...

Happy Thoughts.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... To the Editor: In "Iraq: Winning the Unwinnable War" (January/February 2005), James Dobbins writes that "the ongoing war in Iraq is not one that the United States can win." The evidence does not support this assertion. Dobbins also asserts...

Sisyphus as Social Democrat.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics By Richard Parker : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005, 820 pp., $35.00 If there were justice in the world, John Kenneth Galbraith would rank as the twentieth century's most...