Books & Reviews

Review Essays

Review Essay,
Jan/Feb
2010
Jagdish Bhagwati

As the Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argues, the concept of foreign aid is flawed -- not just because corrupt dictators divert aid for nefarious or selfish purposes but also because even in reasonably democratic countries, aid creates perverse incentives and unintended consequences.

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Review Essay,
Jan/Feb
2010
Peter Osnos

The rise of American foreign reporting was marked by outsized personalities and an expansive sense of mission. Today, the craft is in steady decline. But what will be lost if journalism disappears?

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Review Essay,
Jan/Feb
2010
Isobel Coleman

Efforts to provide the world's women with economic and political power are more than just a worthy moral crusade: they represent perhaps the best strategy for pursuing development and stability across the globe.

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Capsule Reviews

Capsule Review,
Jan/Feb
2010
Edited by Augustin Fosu, Germano Mwabu, and Erik Thorbecke
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

This collection of essays by leading development economists provides an excellent introduction to the causes and effects of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Although some of the papers are dated, they remain useful. One section of the book includes several contributions about the nature of poverty in the region, with a particularly informative chapter on poverty in the African countryside. Another section questions the conventional wisdom that economic reforms in the 1980s and 1990s aggravated poverty, painting a more nuanced picture.

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Capsule Review,
Jan/Feb
2010
Edited by Joel D. Barkan
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

Most observers would concur with Barkan's view that democracy cannot thrive without an effective and influential legislature to balance the power of the executive. Since most of the recent defects in governance in Africa can be blamed on unaccountable leaders, this view seems particularly germane to democracy there. Yet, oddly, the evolution and current state of legislatures in Africa have attracted little attention. This collection of case studies of the legislatures in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda begins to rectify this oversight.

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Capsule Review,
Jan/Feb
2010
René Lemarchand
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle

A longtime observer of the Great Lakes region of Africa, Lemarchand has conducted an incisive study of the Hutu-Tutsi violence in Rwanda and Burundi and the conflict it helped propagate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the mid-1990s. He emphasizes the evolution of the region's ethnic conflicts over long periods of time, revealing a dynamic in which episodes of violence force certain groups to migrate, which then puts them in conflict with other groups. That, in turn, eventually creates another cycle of violence and forced migration.

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Foreign Affairs Books

Foreign Affairs Books are collections of important essays that have appeared in the pages of Foreign Affairs. Whether policy analysis, reportage or review essay each piece offers lasting value. Collectively these articles frame current debates over crucial issues in American foreign policy and world politics. To order Foreign Affairs Books for your courses, your bookstore can contact our distributor at W.W. Norton & Company at (800) 233-4830.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States awoke to find itself at war. If that much was clear, many other things were not — including the identity and nature of the enemy, the location of the battleground, and the strategy and tactics necessary for victory. This collection brings today's most authoritative thinking to bear on these and other issues at the heart of the nation's preeminent security challenge.

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World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations-the highest cultural groupings of people-are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance.

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The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in a new era of international politics, one that people have been trying to get a handle on ever since. This collection is a record of the best attempts at that task over the last dozen years. It brings together many powerful and well-stocked minds, all trying to figure out what forces are driving world events and how Americans should respond. What is more important, ideology, culture, or power? What lies ahead, order or chaos? What is democracy? How strong is the United States, and for what purposes should it use its strength? How vulnerable is it, and what must it do for protection? The authors gathered here address these and many other questions, often directly engaging each others' arguments and educating the rest of us in the process. Originally published in Foreign Affairs and eight other leading journals and magazines, the articles constitute an essential reading list for anyone interested in contemporary international relations.

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