Book review: “The Making of Global International Relations” by Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan
Oliver Stuenkel (2020) The making of global international relations: origins and evolution of IR at its centenary, Global Affairs, DOI: 10.1080/23340460.2020.1789484 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23340460.2020.1789484?journalCode=rgaf20 In what is certainly one of the most ambitions International Relations books written over the past years, “The Making of Global International Relations”, by Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, is addressing a […]
Book review: “The decline of the West: Europe in the new global order of the 21st century” by Joschka Fischer
Book review: “Der Abstieg des Westens. Europa in der neuen Weltordnung des 21. Jahrhunderts”. [in German]. By Joscka Fischer. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2018. U$ 29.36 (hardcover), www.amazon.com Things will never be the same again for the West, Joschka Fischer, Germany’s former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, writes in his new […]
Book review: “Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989”, by Rodric Braithwaite
Book review: Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989. By Rodric Braithwaite. Oxford University Press, 2011. 432 pages. US$16.49 (paperback, amazon.com) —— The Communists did not lack noble ambitions in Afghanistan. “Our aim was no less than to give an example to all the backward countries of the world of how to jump from feudalism […]
Book review: “Avengers of the New World. The Story of the Haitian Revolution”
Book review: Avengers of the New World. The Story of the Haitian Revolution. By Laurent Dubois. Harvard University Press/ Belknap Press, 2005. 384 pages. US$ 25.75 (paperback, amazon.com) ——– “I swear that you will see all my blood flow before I consent to your freedom, because your slavery, my fortune, and my happiness are inseparable.” […]
China’s Asian Dream
Book Review: China’s Asian Dream. By Tom Miller. Zed Books, 2017. 256 pages. $21.16 (kindle, amazon.com) Four years ago, at a talk at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that China would fund a New Silk Road Economic Belt (usually referred to as OBOR) across Eurasia to connect China with […]
La presencia militar de Estados Unidos en América Latina: bases y cuasibases
https://egob.uniandes.edu.co/images/books/tribuna/tb-14.pdf US Military Bases,Quasi-bases, and Domestic Politics in Latin America. Sebastián Bitar, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 204 páginas. Su versión en español será: La presencia militar de Estados Unidos en América Latina: bases y cuasibases, que será publicado por Ediciones Uniandes en 2017 Por Oliver Stuenkel Empezando con la pérdida de la base aérea de […]
“Why Govern? Rethinking Demand and Progress in Global Governance” by Amitav Acharya (ed.)
Book review: Why Govern? Rethinking Demand and Progress in Global Governance. Cambridge University Press (2016), 350 pages. U$15.40 (kindle, amazon.com) http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/book-review-why-govern-rethinking-demand-and-progress-in-global-governance/ The need for global governance has never been greater, but the system of international cooperation built after World War II around the UN is facing unprecedented challenges. Not only have these challenges become […]
China’s Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa
Review: China’s Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. By Howard French. Vintage; Reprint edition (February 3, 2015). 304 pages. U$ 16.50 (Kindle, amazon.com) China’s growing influence in Africa is, without a doubt, the most important event in African history since the end of the Cold War. Given […]
Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know
Review: Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know. By P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman. Oxford University Press; 1 edition (January 3, 2014) U$ 15.37 (paperback, amazon.com) New communication technologies erode hierarchies, collapse time and distance, and empower networks. That will have a massive impact on international relations, and cybersecurity will be a key element of […]
Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio
Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio. By Misha Glenny. Knopf (February 9, 2016); 338 pages U$15,00 (Kindle, amazon.com) As the first week of 2017 has seen repeated bloodshed in an escalating feud between Brazil’s biggest drug gangs, the country’s public debate again focuses on Brazil’s medieval prison system, its controversial drug policies […]
What is Populism?
Book review: What is Populism? By Jan-Werner Müller. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 136 pages. U$ 12.81 (Kindle, amazon.com) With Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Rodrigo Duterte and Victor Órban on the rise, a global consensus has emerged that we are witnessing a wave of populism. Yet the term populism remains vague and difficult to […]
The Political Economy of China’s New Silk Road
Review: The Emerging Political Economy of OBOR. The Challenges of Promoting Connectivity in Central Asia and Beyond. A Report of the CSIS Simon Chair in Political Economy. By Alexander Cooley. October 2016. Full report available here. ——– In September 2013 at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that China would fund […]
Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century
Book review: Easternisation. War and Peace in the Asian Century. Gideon Rachman. Vintage Digital, 2016. 320 pages. $28.19 (kindle, amazon.com) The Financial Times‘ Gideon Rachman recently told his readers about a profoundly unsettling experience. A group made up of “plenty of eminent people” from the West, including former prime ministers and billionaires, traveled to […]
Book review: “BRICS: A Very Short Introduction” by Andrew F. Cooper
Logo of the upcoming BRICS Summit in Goa, in October 2016 ———– Book review: BRICS: A Very Short Introduction. By Andrew F. Cooper. Oxford University Press, 2016. 144 pages. $7.67 (kindle, amazon.com) Considering how significant the BRICS grouping has become for international politics, it is remarkable how few books there are on the […]
Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War
Book review: Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War. By Marvin Kalb. Brookings Institution Press, 2015. 230 pages, $20,20 (Hardcover, amazon.com) Published in: Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS). Edition 1-2017. ISSN:1802-548x —————— […] without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, […]
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel
Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord, supported charity and football clubs. Just like any other global corporation, drug cartels engage in corporate social responsibility programs, particularly effective where public services are weak. Book review: Narconomics: How to run a drug cartel. By Tom Wainwright. PublicAffairs, 288 pages, U$ 16.02 (hardback, amazon.com) ——— Drug-related violence is […]