McMafia - Misha Glenny

The subtitle of this book is 'A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld'; however, it would be better described as 'how better to understand the worldwide shadow economy.' I say this because, regardlessof whether various criminal activities detailed in the book are legal or not in various countries, they do take place and are part of the worldwide economy. In other words, they are industries, with particular bases in the world, various groups who take part in them, and various products that are purchased throughout the world.

The book takes a look at various regions and various activities. For regions, most of the focus goes to the former USSR and Eastern bloc countries, expanding from there to Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

In terms of economic activities, the book covers a gamut of businesses that run in the spectrum from illicit to gray to legal. The author is thorough, with his choices for topics including arms trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, natural gas trading, human trafficking, drug smuggling in various shapes and forms, merchandise counterfeiting, money laundering, gambling, identity theft, the 419 scam, and racketeering.

In terms of revelations, I would say that the description of Dubai's real estate industry as a massive money laundering factory was one of the most novel pieces of information contained in the book. Additionally, I had not known that Israel was one of the main terminii of women trafficked through Eastern Europe from Moldova and other parts of the former USSR.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins

This book discusses international economic development. Comprised of vignettes from over 35 years of the author's life, it follows his career as a development economist working in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

The author's thesis, simply stated, is that the world's economy has developed in a perversely unsustainable fashion. He places much of the blame for the problems caused by development on the overemphasis on GDP as an indicator of development, regardless of social inequalities and externalities that may be caused by GDP growth.

Furthermore, he states that he worked to give extremely optimistic economic forecasts in order that developing countries could be saddled with huge loans from international financial institutions so that such countries would be unable to repay. The developing countries would thereby be placed in debt to international financial institutions and developed countries.

The book asks interesting questions about the nature of development, international trade, international organizations, and economic theory. Furthermore, the fantastic nature of the stories told in the book increases the level of fascination for the reader, as I repeatedly asked myself 'could this be true'?

The Road to Wigan Pier - George Orwell

Oddly enough, while this book provides great food for thought regarding modern life and the role of coal in it, as well as about socialism, and the reasons that societies adopt socialist measures, it does not talk very much about Wigan Pier. Therefore, the choice of title a slightly disjointing to a contemporary reader, who likely has no conception of where Wigan is, or what its connection is with coal mining. To provide a similar example, imagine if John Steinbeck had set 'Cannery Row' in a vineyard.

In fact, the book splits cleanly down the middle. The first half of the book describes conditions in coal mining in England in the 1930s, while the second half of the book details Orwell's thoughts about the reasons for lack of success of socialism in the world of 1937. Regardless of the passage of time, much of Orwell's thinking continues to resonate today, just as we continue to depend on coal despite the passage of over 70 years.

Pirates and Emperors, Old and New - Noam Chomsky

A good study of most any subject requires formalism and consistency. Lacking clear definitions, we have difficulty in expressing our ideas or building frameworks of those ideas. Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT certainly understands the need for rigorous standards in the use of words. This book compiles four different essays by Chomsky on the subject of terrorism- two essays come from the 1980s, while two more came from 2001.

Chomsky uses a differing definition of terrorism than such writers as Walter Laqueur or Graham Allison. Lacqueur defined terrorism in his 1999 book 'The New Terrorism' as actions taken by states or nonstate actors whose main effect is psychological rather than physical. Lacqueur did not, however, deliniate strict boundaries of the differences between ‘terrorism’, ‘psychological warfare’ and ‘insurgency’. Of course, we all know terrorism when we see it, but it remains unspoken that terrorism is essentially a perjorative term applying to psychological warfare efforts or insurgencies which are not favored by a certain group, in this case, the United States of America.

Chomsky, on the other hand, defines two types of terrorism- one is ‘state terrorism’- the use of coercive violence by a state-level actor on a second party. A second type of terrorism is the type highlighted by Laqueur. In his essays, he highlights the differing treatment given by various high-level media sources in the United States and Israel to conflicts around the Middle East, Central Asia, and Latin America. Dr. Chomsky pays particular attention to the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as magazines such as Newsweek and non-American newspapers such as the Jerusalem Times. In the sense that every individual makes decisions on the basis of information gathered secondhand from media sources, the topic of how much heed to pay to news reports is one that every individual should consider – without a modicum of skepticism, any reader is at the mercy of the sources that he chooses.

Seeing Like a State - James C. Scott

The trail of history shows a steadily increasing level of technology and efficiency, or so we would believe. This book looks at the connections between 'high modernism', i.e. the belief that implementation of new technology can solve the world's problems, and various tragedies that have occurred in the past two hundred years. Several aspects of the book fascinated me, including:

The idea that states will seek to organize things in order to maximize control to ensure both stability, and, more importantly, tax revenues;

The history of state building, through changes in social institutions, societal structure, and even simple things such as creation of maps;

The juxtaposition of small-scale and large-scale farming, and the relative strength and sustainability of small-scale farming;

Case studies of development projects in the former USSR, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, as well as planned cities in Brazil and India and urban modification of Paris; and,

The idea that formal laws and codes cannot fully substitute for real-world experience, with the example of 'work-to-rule' strikes in France, in which workers strike simply by carrying out the duties required of them by law and no more.

Special Providence - Walter Russell Mead

Written and published in the Summer of 2001, this book takes a historical view of American Foreign Policy. The author sets out to answer a question which I would loosely paraphrase thus: 'Why, with its wavering foreign policy, has the United States been so successful in the international system and risen to such global prominence at the end of the 20th century'.

A main feature of the book is the author uses a multi-level analysis of the Unisted States' past international actions, with relatively strong emphasis on economic and trade issues, and the way that they interact with great-power strategy. He posits that the strong emphasis on trade by the United States has allowed it greater flexibility in its international policy, regardless of which of the four 'schools' which he describes had principal control over the international actions of the United States. The United States' relatively nuanced foreign policy approach contrasts with various other schools of international relations, such as Continental Realism and Idealism, which focus mainly on great-power politics and which have a relatively centralized elite foreign-policy decision maker.

According to the book, the schools of American Foreign Policy vary greatly in their approach to both trade and international intervention, with the influence of each school waxing and waning depending on system, state, and substate level factors. Briefly, the Hamiltonian school focuses on big business and high-level international trade, the Wilsonian school on spreading human rights and other values which enhance the standard of living of non-American peoples around the world, the Jeffersonian school focuses on protecting American democracy, which is easily compromised when the United States overextends itself around the world, and the Jacksonian school focuses on the standard of living and honor of the American people.

In many ways I feel that the book comes across as somewhat a product of its times, those being the early months of the George W. Bush administration, when the United States had not yet become fully mobilized in what we now entitle the Struggle Against International Terrorism. The author wrote that the US should emphasize a Jeffersonian approach in the future. However, interceding events have led to nearly a tide of Wilsonian/Jacksonian action that the current administration does not seem to have fully abandoned.

Honorable Survivor - Lynne Joiner

The Republican period in Mainland China continues to occupy a position of extreme importance in understanding both the subsequent rise of the People's Republic of China and the relationship between the United States and the PRC. Service, along with other diplomats working in China, predicted in the early 1940s that corruption and abuses of the populace by the Republican army, led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, would cause the Republican side to be unsuccessful in the event of a Chinese civil war. While history proved Service correct, the death of President Roosevelt led to the rise of President Truman, who decided to support the Republicans unilaterally in order to oppose the Stalin-led USSR, thus leading to a deep freeze on PRC-US relations.

For his part, due to his meetings with Chinese Communists in Yan'an as a part of his work in China, Service was accused of 'association with known Communists' during and forced out of his post at the US Foreign Service in 1951. While he successfully won all hearings in court and was eventually reinstated to the foreign service, he was unable to pass the security clearance process due to previous indiscretions and eventually found a job at the University of California at Berkeley in 1972. The book serves as a cautionary example of an individual being right, but not having the political power to protect their judgement. The example of the United States' continuing support of the Nationalists also shows the damage that an overreliance on Wilsonian idealism can cause if the process of vetting and auditing of the relationship with a foreign government becomes hijacked.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter Thompson

Once again I relapse to making analogies to the Michelin guide. The Michelin Guide uses a three star system for rating restaurants which proceeds as follows:

one star ("a very good restaurant in its category")
two stars ("excellent cooking, worth a detour")
three stars ("exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey")

There are books, and there are Books.
And then, there are BOOKS

In particular, Hunter Thompson's analysis of the appeal of Candidate George McGovern to dissatisfied voters in the primary election of 1972, as well as his thoughts on the Democratic party's inability to produce a coalition able to defeat Nixon, an anecdote regarding Nixon's obsession with professional football, as well as repeated references to the author's unsuccessful bid to be elected Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado on the Freak Power ticket when members of the Democratic and Republican parties put aside their differences and united in a coalition against him. The combination of subject matter and the author's no-nonsense treatment of the coverage given to the campaign makes this book meaningful as a study of politics, media, and America of the 1960s and 1970s.

The China Fantasy - James Mann

Two things sprung out to me on reading this book-

First, I would have hoped that the author could have made reference to cooption and paternalistic behavior by the Chinese government towards the urban middle class in China.

Second, I would have drawn a parallel between the mainstream of US society in the 1950s and the attitude of a significant portion of current mainland Chinese society towards democracy: as long as I have my money and raise my family, I don't feel a great need for politics.

The book takes a fairly deconstructivist approach towards US policies towards China: the author casts a discerning eye towards US policies of engagement and the hopes that economic growth will improve the level of democratic governance in China. The author discounts out of hand any long-range propositions on the part of the Chinese government to raise such levels as being mere window dressing- on the other hand, I am not yet 100% certain of this fact. The author recommends a closer level of scrutiny by Congress of the China-US relationship, but does not go into explicit detail beyond stating that human rights should be more heavily emphasized.

Covert Action as a Tool of Presidential Foreign Policy - John J. Carter

Eisenhower
Kennedy
Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan

They all used covert action in some form or another. This book discusses the way various presidents saw covert action and the ways in which they used it. While the book does not go into exhaustive detail, the way the author described the interaction between various presidents' personalities and their use of covert action gave great perspective on contemporary history.

Embattled Garrisons - Kent Calder

The United States' presence around the world is more dramatic than one would imagine at first thought.

Published in 2007 during the final days of the G.W. Bush presidency, this book examines that presence around the world.

Not only the United States, but also Britain, France, and Russia continue to have facilities in various places.

The book devotes particular study to various different types of negotiation scenarios between the basing nations and the countries where bases are placed, with the variables being payments and coercion.

Examination of difference between the US as liberator and the US as colonial power, as well as the subject nation being a conquered developed country or a developing country with a weak government.

On the whole, I found the book a fascinating overview of the hard security presence of the United States around the world.