Main Page | Month Archive | Resources | Email Updates | RSS Feed

THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM: HOW AMERICANS ARE SEDUCED BY WAR
By Andrew Bacevich


Reviewed by Gerald Loftus
SEP 19, 2007

Whatever emerges from America’s predicament in Iraq, at some point we will say “post-Iraq” just as we speak of “post-Vietnam.” Andrew Bacevich, in The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War provides a vital guide on how to avoid the kind of post-Vietnam reaction that saw the military hit its drug-ridden nadir in the seventies, only to be elevated to the all-in-one American miracle cure for foreign headaches. He shows how the national narrative of the joys of “power projection” was woven by decades of persuasion in churches, on television, in scholarly journals. Bacevich has a good cinema sense, as seen in his analysis of the role of such Reagan-era films as An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun in the glamorization of the military. When first published in late 2005 (now out in paperback), The New American Militarism was a timely critique of what Bacevich sees as a decades-old bipartisan affliction. The passage of time only makes his book more relevant—and, as we shall see, more poignant. You don’t get more credible commentators on the American fascination with things military than Andrew Bacevich. West Pointer and retired career Army officer, Bacevich teaches at Boston University. He writes extensively on international affairs, and has been highly critical of the Bush Administration’s willful march to war in Iraq. But don’t expect another lefty screed; Bacevich is (perhaps was) a “self-described conservative.” Citizen soldier of the Cold War and Vietnam, Bacevich is concerned with the imperial-sized defense budgets that…...  -->

AMERICA’S DIALOGUE WITH THE WORLD: A REVIEW ESSAY
By William P. Kiehl


Reviewed by Patricia Kushlis
MAR 29, 2007

This review first appeared on WhirledView. The Public Diplomacy Council’s book America’s Dialogue with the World is to be released today—Wednesday, December 6—in a launching at Washington, D.C.‘s prestigious National Press Club. This coincides, unfortunately, with the MSM’s feeding frenzy revolving around the release of the Iraq Study Group’s long awaited assessment of what went wrong in Iraq and how to fix it—much of which had been leaked already. In fact, both of these problems need serious attention, and now. The question this latest work published by the Public Diplomacy Council asks—and proposes remedies for—is what went wrong with America’s image abroad and what can we do about it. The Council’s first publishing endeavor was the well received Engaging the Arab & Islamic Worlds through Public Diplomacy edited by William A. Rugh and released in 2004. Most chapters in the Council’s latest readable, 194 page book follow the format of a conference on public diplomacy which the organization held in October 2005. A few additional chapters have been added to fill in gaps. The book’s introduction and conclusion were written by the Council’s Executive Director, retired veteran U.S. Foreign Service Officer William P. Kiehl. The appendices feature a report and five recommendations from the Council on what needs to be done to improve America’s image abroad, a dissenting report by four of the 20 member Council and a transcript of remarks by Karen Hughes, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, at that October conference. This book is written…...  -->

DIPLOMACY LESSONS: REALISM FOR AN UNLOVED SUPERPOWER
By John Brady Kiesling


Reviewed by Patricia Kushlis
MAR 29, 2007

This review first appeared on WhirledView. Brady Kiesling’s Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower (Potomac, 2006) is a book which, as Harvard University’s veteran international relations professor Stanley Hoffman wrote in the August 10, 2006 New York Review of Books, should be required reading for anyone contemplating a career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. I also think it should be required reading for students of international politics and American foreign policy as well as on the list of any American concerned about the direction of our national security policies. Why? Because this readable, 277 page book demonstrates—through myriads of examples drawn from Kiesling’s own experiences to illustrate his points—the Byzantine complexities of U.S. foreign policy making, its too often tortured implementation and the short and long term repercussions when mistakes are made. In so doing, Diplomacy Lessons demonstrates the dilemmas and limitations of a career professional service and its talented members when run over and beaten down by an arrogant administration with no respect for their expertise—preferring instead to take the ill-founded “advice” of a coterie of idealistic political ideologues lacking real world experience and self-serving Iraqi con men. Together they led an inexperienced and unqualified president down the path to nowhere and caused—among other things—Kiesling to resign in protest years before his time. When I taught international politics several years ago, I described the U.S. foreign policy making process to incredulous university students who had no idea how “the sausage was made.” Eyes grew wide. Yet, none…...  -->

ISLAM’S POLITICAL MOSAIC & THE WORLD: “THE WAR FOR MUSLIM MINDS”
By Gilles Kepel


Reviewed by Patricia Kushlis
MAR 29, 2007

This review first appeared on WhirledView. Warning. This is a rave review. The book is Gilles Kepel’s “The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West” and it was published in English translation earlier this fall. Kepel is first and foremost a specialist in Islam and politics. And, by the way, he is French. A month or so ago he appeared on the U.S. talk show circuit promoting this book—his latest. It is just under 300 pages. It explains precisely why militant Islamists hate us, what their aims and goals are, how militant Islam is not a single, closely knit movement but rather far more fragmented—and in this sense much more dangerous now—than before the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq. Throughout “War for the Muslim Minds,” Kepel places militant Islam in the context of Middle East politics, ideology, history, socio-demographics, and economics. He tells us, for instance, not only why 15 out of the 19 of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, but also shows that many of the 15 were from a single poverty-stricken tribe whose sons and daughters saw only bleakness ahead. In his first rate chapter entitled “Saudi Arabia: The Eye of the Storm,” Kepel describes how the fabulously oil-rich kingdom is governed—through increasingly untenable familial and religious relationships—and warns us of impending political disaster which could have tremendous worldwide repercussions. Kepel also succinctly demonstrates how 9/11 and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict directly relate—the first time I remember seeing this argument made so successfully, if at…...  -->

Previous posts « First  <  3 4 5

	Resources: Overview PD Book Reviews Home Book Review Archive

Call for Book Reviews The USC Center on Public Diplomacy invites book reviews submission from scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals. To read the Call for Book Reviews, click here