War and Politics Books

I have only read the chapter on mass media presentations of 11 September and like it a lot. Clear neat arguments, good background information. Best treatment of the subject I have read yet, and I have been looking. Not sure about the rest of the book -- looks a bit lefty to me -- but shan't say more without reading more. But great chapter on mass media with a great first quotation from German composer Stockhausen`s interview.

This is a welcome change from the tired old cliches of our home grown dissident professors. Chomsky and pals say sensational things on the most earthshaking event in recent history and grab some media space -- but it is all predictable. The same old slogans and the same tired theories. There is something new in Professor Gupta's study, and the only comparable other one, Professor Honderich's. Both are from England. Both are philosophers. Both think. Does it seem strange that neither seem to figure much in the media? Gupta even less than others, and that has to be a good thing.

I don't agree with all his conclusions, but a. he gives no conspiracy theories, and b. whether I agree or not I get new insights. In all the armchair platitudinizing about terrorism here, in Afghanistan, in Iraq that is going on there are issues being missed out that Gupta homes in on. One, this book gives the only rigorous assessment of the media's construction of 11 September. Two, there are interesting thoughts about the politics that happens in language. How words like democracy , fanaticism, revenge, war are used and misused after 11 September is dissected with razor sharp effect. Three, there is a theory on two wars after 11 September (what Gupta calls "war of abstractions" and "war as military action") which is provocative and persuasive. Four, he offers a theory of war that is clear and succinct. Five, he doesn't like Virilio and can tell you why. Gupta is no friend of American "state terrorism" but nor is he a friend of Bin Laden and Al Quaida. Too many of us need to realize how this can be.

This book is simply outstanding for anybody who has an interest in how the military manages media relations or who wants a different perspective on the Vietnam War. An abridgement of Hammond's two-volume set, this book is still packed with details covering the war from start to finish, providing lessons that remain relevant for today's changing battlefield. As one who is involved in media relations for a living, there's hardly a page in the book that isn't highlighted for future reference. And as one who has read several books on Vietnam, covering everything from tactical operations to strategic objectives, this book put the war in perspective for me as no other book has. However, as I was pouring over every page and sharing what I learned with those around me, one of my colleagues said he had read it as well and found it one of the most laborious books he had ever opened. So perhaps it is not for everybody, but it's a book I will return to again and again as I continue to study the unique relationship forged between the military and the media. And I am also ordering the two-volume set so I can find the even greater detail that was left out of this book.

This is a terrifically important analysis of the way the military and the press interacted during the Vietnam War. Mr. Hammond covers most of the important media events and reports important details of the statements and actions of those in the government and the military as well as those in the press. He also provides keen insight into the implications of those interactions and the effects they hand on later events.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I wish I could give it six stars. It is a book that anyone who wants to understand anything at all about the Vietnam War simply has to read. The articles in the two volumes of the Library of America series provide valuable background for this book and I think they should be read first. But even without them any reader would get a great deal from this book.

There are nearly fifty pages of notes, and index, and a generous number of pictures of the main events and participants. Just a wonderful achievement. Thanks to Mr. Hammond!

New York, N.Y.: Jul 23, 1972.

Republic Or Empire; American Resistance to the Philippine War. By Daniel B. Schirmer. Preface by Howard Zinn. 298 pp

The anti-imperialists of 1898 to 1904, long ignored, have been honored as prophets within the past several years by protesters seeking withdrawal from Vietnam. The anti-imperialist's' protests against military coercion of far-off dark-skinned peoples and their warnings against the perils and iniquities of empire have acquired a new cogency. Schirmer's is one of several full scale studies to appear since Americans became involved in Vietnam-and, although his New Left interpretations (fro the most part) follow a familiar outline, his is one of the most thoughtful and interesting of the accounts. The main thrust is an economic determinism that is by no means an innovation of the New Left, since it represents pretty much the ideology of the anti-imperialists themselves-and of American protestors against involvement in war an overseas interventions throughout the 1920's and 1930's.

Schirmer sees a line of aggressive development in American history that runs from the early settlers wrestling land from the Indians to the present venture in Southeast Asia, and a second line of opposition. But he confines himself to events from the 1880's into the early 1900's, focusing on the Philippine insurrection. In these events there are parallels to the Vietnam war and also striking differences; Schirmer's book should be read as a historical interpretation of the anti-imperialist movement, not as a parable of present-day troubles.

Yet the theme of Americans' revulsion to wars is as persistent as that of their involvement in them. To this Schirmer adds the debatable postulate that involvement was primarily for economic gain. Illustrative of his views and the contents of the book is a speech that Morfield Storey, who was to be the prime mover in the anti-imperialist movement, delivered before the Massachusetts Reform Club on the ever of the Spanish-American War:

"Some represented in high Federal office think that war will improve business and increase the gains of the rich. I can't refrain from quoting the reply which was made to one of these last week by a Middlesex Yankee of pure blood. He was a manufacturer of woolen goods, and a dealer in wool said to him, `We want war. Just think of how it will raise the price of wool, and how it will sever to send your good up.' `Yes,' was the answer, `but think how much more the dye stuff will cost. I can't afford to dye my goods in American blood. It comes to high.'"

Storey warned that the war would be a turning point in American development-for, with victory, "we should be fairly launched upon a policy of military aggression, of territorial expansion, of standing armies and growing navies...inconsistent with the continuance of our institutions." When the war did turn into a quick rout of Spain and offer opportunities for the United States to acquire colonies, Storey and likeminded leaders organized the American Anti-Imperialist League. First, it fought against the treaty of acquisition with Spain. Then, in the election of 1900, it allied itself with William Jennings Bryan and workingmen to try and defeat the McKinley Administration. Nut McKinley secured ratification of the treaty-and in 1900, with the slogan of the "full dinner pail" routed Bryan and the anti-imperialists.

The final stand of the anti-imperialists was against the cruel subjugation of the insurgents and unfriendly villages during the drawn-out Philippine insurrection-a far bloodier and more costly struggle than the Spanish-American War. In this instance their publicizing of atrocities did much to bring reform within the military establishment, but not the relinquishment, until a generation later, of the Philippines. They also succeeded in turning American feelings against further territorial acquisitions. Secretary of State John Hay told a friend in the spring of 1900 that public opinion would not stand for annexation of territory in China. Schirmer says the shift was only one "from outright colonialism to indirect forms of political domination, accompanied by economic penetration, and, on occasion, by military intervention."

What distinguishes Schirmer's interpretation is the emphasis he places upon the role of racism in the imperialist thrust, and the interrelationship between the maintenance of white supremacy in the South and the domination of dark-skinned people in the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines. Anti-imperialists were striking at their racism as much as at military and economic exploitations. He points out, as have others, that the anti-imperialist leaders-predominantly Bostonians-were elderly survivors of the abolitionist movement; Storey had been secretary to the abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner. He might have added that after the waning of anti-imperialism, Storey helped mount the N.A.A.C.P. fight in the courts to win bit-by-bit equality under the law for black people.

The imperialist ventures coincided with a new wave of state legislation and mob action throughout the South to block Negroes from the polls. In the election of 1898, more than a score of North Carolina blacks were killed, and four more lynched. The ant-imperialists Boston Advertiser declared, "The white man's government of the North Carolina pattern is precisely the government which so-called expansionists hope to put in operation... in the Philippines." And the imperialist Memphis Commercial Appeal Agreed: "How are we going to govern the Philippines, Hawaii, and other new possessions? Peaceably if we can; or like the white men are doing in the Carolinas, if we must, but govern them we will."

Negro leaders, protesting against both lynchings and imperialism charged that McKinley was seeking Southern support for his acquisitions by dropping the traditional Republican gestures toward Negro rights. Archibald H. Grimke joined other prominent Boston lawyers in urging Negroes to vote against the party of Lincoln: "Scratch the skin of Republican leaders like Hanna, Lodge, Roosevelt and McKinley and you will find race prejudice underneath, and invincible belief on their part in the divine right to the Anglo-Saxon to govern the republic and subject darker races." Further, the plutocracy unless checked, "would ultimately convert the republic into an empire...into a government of by and for vast syndicates of wealth."

Despite the rather simplistic overall interpretation resulting from Schirmer's preoccupation with economic factors, this is an important book. It would have been even better if he had broken out of the confining mold of New Left history and ranged more widely in his examination of motivations and actions-particularly of the imperialist and their large following.

Based on thorough research in manuscript collections and the contemporary press, this is the most informed study of the Massachusetts-based opposition to the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) and turn-of-the-century U.S. imperialism.

"Edling's book is a powerfully argued revisionist interpretation of the origins of the Constitution. More than anything else, it helps us better understand the constitutional sources of the gigantic fiscal-military state that the United States has become."
--Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of *The Radical Roots of the American Revolution*

"Max M. Edling's exciting new book is a breath of fresh air in an agenda-driven and highly politicized historical literature that has lost touch with historical reality. The state-building paradigm enables Edling to bring history back in, both through comparative analysis of developments elsewhere and by reconstructing the broader geopolitical context within which the American federal state operated. REVOLUTION IN FAVOR OF GOVERNMENT is an impressive achievement."
--Peter Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, University of Virginia

"Certain to be controversial, this major and timely work alters the terms of discussion about the Framers' intentions in writing the Constitution and about the kind of government they sought to establish. Everyone interested in the subject will have to contend with Edling's arguments, which challenge over 30 years of widely accepted scholarship."
--James M. Banner, Jr., author of *The Elements of Teaching*

"Not only a pleasure to read but extremely informative and persuasively argued. I will never think about the US Constitution in the old way again."
--Daniel W. Howe, Rhodes Professor of American History, Emeritus, Oxford University

The most important development in early American history in the last fifty years has been archival. The debates surrounding the adoption of the Constitution continue to be thoroughly exhumed for insights into what our Founders were thinking. The writings of the Anti-Federalists both in the press of the time and in the state conventions that approved the Constitution have been reconsidered. I recently reviewed a history by Saul Cornell that considers those writings to be the beginnings of a dissenting tradition that continues to this day.
One of the things that strikes any reader of recent histories of the ratification debates is what a gold mine it is for philosophy of history. There are few historical moments that can offer greater insight into the difficulties of determining what were the intentions or motives behind the speech and actions of historical actors. Depending on what reading background, theory of human nature and political persuasion a historian brings to their readings of these debates it is possible to see Madison, Hamilton and the other players as having any number of motives.
Max Edling has obviously lived and breathed the volumes of the ongoing publications of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. More importantly he has studied deeply the history of nation formation in Europe. The lesson of that branch of European history has been that the modern European state was formed by the exigencies of war. Baldly put, European states started to force each other into maintaining large armies (or navies) even during peacetime. This development fed and was fed by a revolution in state financing. The majority of the monies to maintain their armies and fight their wars came from loans. In England, this became a large funded public debt which was religiously serviced by taxes and securities.
This is the background against which Edling wants us to see the ratification debate. The Federalists ignored their instructions to amend the Articles of Confederation and wrote up a whole new document, our present Constitution. The most controversial portions of that document related to the maintenance of a peacetime army and the unlimited ability to raise taxes. Our Anti-Federalists, who Edling sees as the American progeny of the English "Country" dissent traditions saw this as the road to tyranny. Standing armies in peacetime had been murderously used to squelch dissent in England (the killing of 7 at St. George's Fields in 1768) and in America (the Boston Massacre in 1770).
The Federalists, on the other hand, argued that we had no choice. England remained to our north and Spain was to the south and at the mouth of the Mississippi. The English had refused to turn over forts in the west as agreed in the peace accords. Unless those troops were removed and the forts handed over there was no way to assert control over the formidable Indian tribes of the Old Northwest.
Even worse, the federal government under that Articles of Confederation was insolvent by 1787. The various states ignored the requisitions of the Congress, the certificates that we had used to pay off the Continental Army at the end of the Revolution were worthless, we had defaulted on loans from France and Spain and had actually had to borrow more money from Dutch lenders in order to pay them the servicing on debts we already owed them.
The Federalists believed that the key to rescuing our credit and our ability to defend ourselves (remember that modern wars are always fought on credit) was for the Federal government to be able to establish and collect taxes directly from the people. A government without a source of revenue is a beggar. Here's another thought for you; Who would fight for us the next time? Knowing that we had failed to pay troops some of whom had fought seven years in our Revolution?
Again, the Anti-Federalists had concerns over the power of the national government to tax. It was their belief that the state legislatures were far more representative of the people's wishes than the national government could ever be. The new national government would would feel any number of temptations to lay more taxes on the people. Recent English history showed that this was quite probable.
One aside- it is very clear from Edling's argument that in the thought of many of the founders on both sides of the ratification debate that the final stage of legitimizing any law was the willingness of the people to obey it. In other words, if there was wide spread resistance to any measure passed that it was the legitimacy of the measure that was questioned. The people's representatives were seen to have failed in their function. Can you imagine our George II operating under such conditions? Just imagine how the Anti-Federalists would have reacted to the Patriot Act!
My only problem with Edling's argument is that it is too monocausal. I think that Edling has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of the debates of the founding. But if I had to use only one prism to view those debates, it would be the concept of localism versus distant government. I tend to read the Federalists as wanting a strong national government that was also somewhat distant from the people. It had to be able to raise taxes, borrow money and wage war. Otherwise it would inevitably dissolve. They also wanted a legal system that was a little further out of the control of local juries and judges. They wanted the ability to set national economic policy. They wanted to create a political culture that would continue to allow the "natural" elite to rule and put some breaks on mobocracy, etc.. I believe that they realized that the only way to legitimately do that was to create a stronger more effective national government.
In any case, Edling's book is now necessary reading for a fuller understanding of the political context in which our founders lived. Start reading, people.

Wow! What a joy to read a history book on the development of a revolutionary Marxist leadership in the United States that's written by a lifelong participant. Dobbs, a working-class militant in the Midwest, tells how he became a communist because the Marxists were the most consistent fighters for the workers. In this book, Dobbs traces the continuity of revolutionary Marxist leadership from its origins in Europe to the United States. He describes how indigenous revolutionaries joined with immigrant fighters to form the early U.S. communist movement. In light of the current U.S. war against the peoples of the Middle East, Dobbs' account of the challenges to maintaining revolutionary communist perspectives in the context of imperialist war is particularly important for revolutionaries today.

Dobbs does not delve in the minutiae of small radical sects. Instead, he places the growth of socialism and the birth of communist movement in the context of a concise, but vivid history of working class life and struggle in the USA and of the influences of the world beyond that. This is a book written to arm fighters against oppression, fighters for workers rights with their history. Dobbs also provides in one chapter a concise history of Marx and Engels struggles to build the First International. The most interesting to me was his story of how he went from being a forman at Western Electric and a small store owner to being one of the great leaders of the labor upsurge of the 1930s and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.

This book does not get caught up in details of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but is an overview that chronicles the trail of failed peace initiatives, identifies who the individual and group players are, and contends that the Zionist perspective(i.e., pro-Israeli land rights) is justifiable from the view of history, morality, and international law. Surprisingly, the author accomplishes this through a question-and-answer format. The book ends with a critique of our day's most talked about land-for-peace plan: The Road Map to Peace in the Middle East, which is sponsored by the 'Quartet' (EU, UN, USA, Russia), embraced by Arabs, and legitimized and not yet discarded by Israel. Notably missing from this book is the biblical argument for legitimacy of Israeli land rights--that's just not the message of this book. But it is the Bible's consistent position against the land-for-peace approach that is my reason for saying the book title is just wrong in saying 'Roadmap to Nowhere,' since really it is a roadmap to "somewhere": Armageddon! ("I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted MY land."--Joel 3:2 and so on). After the underappreciated but watershed Israeli elections of this week, the book is somewhat now just an argument for arguments sake, as the last significant restraining opposition to the land-for-peace/2-state track (Israel's Likud party and its supporters) has died as evidenced by the populace overwhelmingly electing into office land giveaway parties, no longer offering popular resistance to the the Left/Moderate self-destructive approach. Nonetheless, this book is still helpful for informing, persuading, and strengthening individuals who want to be at peace with God or with their conscience about this issue that actually amounts to the question of destruction of a nation, and not just any nation, but one the Bible calls the apple of God's eye. It is the issue for our time and the issue the entire community of nations is obsessed with, thus for its import and its comprehensiveness in simplicity, I recommend this book.

This book supplies some fundamental facts that are often overlooked. It makes sense to get this book just to use it to judge other works on the topic.

Here is a simple example. Many people know that hundreds of thousands of Jews fled or were expelled from Arab lands in the past several decades. But was this a response to Israel becoming a nation? No. More than 1000 Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting in Baghdad, Tripoli, Aden, Aleppo, Damascus, Oudja, Djerade, and Cairo in the decade prior to Israel becoming a state. It wasn't Israel that caused this. As Ben-Gad explains, it was the winning of national independence by Arab countries. For a couple of generations prior to that, European rule had protected the Jews to some extent.

The author summarizes the mistakes of the failed Oslo peace process. The biggest problem was legitimizing Arafat as a partner for peace and imposing his rule over Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. Although Arafat talked about his evil intentions all the time, this was ignored. Israeli negotiators were inexperienced, were driven by fantasy rather than reality, were too trusting (they assumed that both sides wanted peace), and did not consult the Israeli army. A very small majority of legislators passed the agreement to sign the Oslo accords, allowing this to suffice was a procedural error in retrospect. Arafat was incorrectly considered as someone who could crush Arab opposition to peace: using a dictator in such a role would have been a moral and strategic error even had Arafat wanted to do all this. The agreements made a mockery of Israeli laws and red lines, giving many of Israel's opponents the feeling that they could get Israel to agree to absolutely anything.

There were other big problems with Oslo. One was that once the agreement was signed, Israeli negotiators went far beyond anything that the Israeli public or voters would have agreed to. This could not have happened had the main issues been decided at once, rather than left to the end of the process. Worst of all, Israel was expected to keep its promises while the Arab side was not required to.

To his credit, Ben-Gad notes that the Israeli settlements promote peace. There can be no peace if we all agree to something so arbitrary as to ban Jews from the West Bank while allowing Arabs to live in Israel proper. A couple of hundred thousand Jews live in the West Bank, and by doing so, they legitimize the right of over a million Arabs to live in Israel proper. The author points out that the West Bank is not occupied territory but disputed territory.

What about the proposed "Road Map" for peace? The author has some concerns about it. The biggest is that it will not stop incitement against Israel. That alone will preclude peace.

I'll mention a few of the author's other concerns with the Road Map. It will reward terrorists and give them a state from which to operate. It will freeze West Bank Jewish settlements but not West Bank Arab ones. That will concede the West Bank to the Arabs: if Jews do not have the right to move there, they certainly do not have the right to be sovereign there. With all these concessions, the issues left to the end will be about how the division of Jerusalem is to be accomplished and how many Arabs will be allowed into Israel (confirming that the purpose of a new Arab state is to serve not as a place Arabs can move into but one Arabs can use to destroy Israel). In addition, the Road Map will use international conferences to put pressure on Israel to make immoral and counterproductive concessions to terrorists.

Many on both sides of this conflict regard it to be about the fate of Israel, which both sides see as very important. I think both sides are wrong. Israel is not all that important, after all, it is small. But it would set a dangerous precedent for everyone on this planet for the international community to arbitrarily give in to irredentist terrorist demands to deprive Asian Jews of their rights to life, liberty, and property.

I recommend this book.

This excellent exposition of FDR's relations with the Soviet Union makes us think... of the obvious. We think of Saddam defying the civilized world, we think of North Vietnam using the Kissinger treaty to overrun the south, we think of Anna Nicole with a case of Nesquick--Franklin would certainly try to charm Stalin and he would lose. That America tried to shmooz the communists instead of confront them certanly prolonged the cold war. If Frankin had not thought he could grin the reds into an decent deal, millions would have been free sooner. Crocker gives us Roosevelt's idiotic attempt at such idiocy a full hearing, and finds him a jackass.

This book demonstrates to anyone not snookered by the FDR myth that: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the most traitorous President America has ever had. He was completely negligent in the manner in which he conducted the War. And the monumentally tragic decisions he made with respect to post-War Europe and Asia are simply unforgivable.

As a pure politician, Roosevelt was out of his league in dealing with Stalin, notwithstanding his assertion to Winston Churchill that:

"I know you will not mind my being brutally frank when I tell you that I think I can personally handle Stalin better than either your Foreign Office or my State Department."

Someone should have questioned the man's competence when he uttered the words:

"I have just a hunch that Stalin doesn't want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work for a world democracy and peace."

Stalin had already annexed half of Poland and all of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia when Roosevelt made that remark!

With the partitioning (and millions of lives) of Eastern Europe at stake, this man was acting on a "hunch?" Anyone who knew anything about Communism would have known that FDR's hope of appeasing Stalin was wishful thinking. Of course, none of his "learned" advisors (Harry Hopkins, Alger Hiss, etc.) said anything because it would turn out that they were Communist sympathizers.

But that doesn't excuse Roosevelt who should have been informed on who and what he was dealing with. After all, there were ample voices outside of government telling the administration that it was playing with fire by cuddling up with Uncle Joe Stalin. But Roosevelt just turned these voices off by labeling them "Nazi" or "pro-fascist."

The Bolshevik Revolutionary himself (Lenin) had said years before:

"We are living not merely in a state, but in a system of states; and it is inconceivable that the Soviet republic should continue to exist for a long period side by side with imperialist states [e.g. America, Britain]. Ultimately one or the other must conquer. Meanwhile a number of terrible clashes between the Soviet republic and the bourgeois states are inevitable."

Exactly what part of this did Roosevelt not understand?

Additionally, assessments from one of FDR's military advisors stated:

"Russia's post-war position in Europe will be a dominant one. With Germany crushed, there is no power in Europe to oppose her tremendous military forces. It is true that Great Britain is building up a position in the Mediterranean vis-à-vis Russia that she may find useful in balancing power in Europe. However, even here she may not be able to oppose Russia unless she is otherwise supported."

That FDR was mesmerized by Uncle Joe and wanted to keep him happy is beside the point. As the most powerful man in the world with the greatest military force behind him, why did Roosevelt ignore the Communist threat? Why was he giving Stalin so much with so few conditions?

In fact, Roosevelt seemed to go out of his way to assist Stalin, giving him things without a request from the Soviet dictator and even in his absence! Roosevelt apparently thought he was exercising wise foreign policy when he stated:

"Of course, it's just the thing for the Russians. They couldn't want anything better. Unconditional surrender [of Germany and Japan]. Uncle Joe might have made it up himself!"

And in stating the following, it wasn't the first time that FDR would make Churchill part of his act in cozying up with Uncle Joe:

"Trouble is, the Prime Minister is thinking too much of the post-war, and where England will be. He's scared of letting the Russians get too strong."

That Roosevelt was good at schmoozing with other politicians is beyond doubt. However, in making the above statement, he showed his utter incompetence in dealing with Russia effectively and realistically. If FDR had understood the Russian threat even half as well as Churchill did, the ensuing enslavement of Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain would have been averted.

As a learned man of history, Churchill understood the threat of a Russia occupying Eastern Europe. Consequently, he had been promoting a plan for an allied invasion through the Balkans in order to occupy Eastern Europe. At the time Churchill made his proposal, Germany was still on Russian soil. An attack up through the Balkans would have enabled American, English and French forces to occupy Eastern Europe before Russia:

"The paramount task before us is, first, to conquer the African shores of the Mediterranean and set up the naval and air installations which are necessary to open an effective passage through it for military traffic; and, secondly, using the bases on the African shore to strike at the under-belly of the Axis [Balkans] in effective strength and in the shortest time."

However, it was not to be. Stalin didn't like the plan. Consequently, Roosevelt did not like the plan. As America's General Clark would later comment:

"A campaign that might have changed the whole history of relations between the Western world and the Soviet Union was permitted to fade away ... Not alone in my opinion, but in the opinion of a number of experts who were close to the problem, the weakening of the campaign in Italy in order to invade Southern France, instead of pushing into the Balkans, was one of the outstanding mistakes of the War ... Stalin knew exactly what he wanted ... and the thing he wanted was to keep us out of the Balkans ... It is easy to see, therefore, why Stalin favored ANVIL [Normandy Invasion]."

May Truth be redeemed and this man (FDR) dethroned from his mythic throne in the annals of history.

An intriguing book that adopts a new slant on the development of Islam in the Sudan. Author Johnson shows us, step by step how the rise of states in this region and their relations with neighbors and the West resulted in a different form of religious expression. The Dervishes that fought the British at the end of the 19th century were imbued with a fervor, according to Johnson that reflected a long-developed process of assimilation and adaptation to both the Northern Arab, the Southern African and he West in general - the colonial experience. It is a fine addition to Francis Deng's great book, WAR OF VISIONS. I found THE ROOT CAUSES OF SUDAN'S CIVIL WARS a very enlightening read. As the author of a new book on the Sudan, JIHAD: THE MAHDI REBELLION IN THE SUDAN, I must include this volume into any meaningful understanding of historical forces in this region. TOP RATED!!!

After reading this book, you will laugh at newspaper reports that describe the conflict in Sudan as between "the Muslim north and Christian and animist south". Johnson not only has extensive academic publications in Sudanese ethnography and historiography, but also worked in the aid field in the country. He is also, in a well-sourced, calm and clearly presented manner, outraged at how thoroughly misunderstood the situation in Sudan is. The detail in this book is amazing. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in an armchair kind of way about southern Sudan, and was consistently being presented with either facts of which I was unaware or, better yet, syntheses tying together various fields in a historical perspective. The offensives, famines, factionalism within southern groups, agricultural schemes, external mediators, forced displacement patterns, and competing aid agencies are all here, and presented so one can see the linkages. This is one of the rare books in which, for example, the connection between the timing of government offensives to seasonal rainfall is convincingly fit within framework of underdevelopment as a political strategy.

There are a couple points that made me consider moving this down to four stars. One is that Johnson is clearly partisan to the south. He is not fatally so in my opinion, describing some very unflattering characteristics and actions of Garang's faction, and making his bias clear from the beginning. By the end of the book, he also makes a strong case that "neutrality" has been misused or abused in the context of the Sudanese wars, and led me to muse that his outrage seems to spring from his knowledge, versus some writers about southern Sudan whose outrage impedes their learning. I also occasionally found the division of the book in its latter section into thematic sections confusing, especially in cases where the text would refer to later chapters for more information about a mentioned event or process. Fortunately, the appendix includes both a detailed chronology from 1972 through 2001 and a pretty good topical index for when I needed a bit of help orienting myself. The extensive annotated bibliography would be quite useful for some people. There is also the rather obvious issue that the book was written prior to the finalization of the peace agreement and death of Garang, which makes me anxious for an update.

Bottom line: If you want to know about the conflicts in Sudan between 1983 and 2001, then this is the book. If you've read other works on Sudan, you'll be astonished at how thoroughly Johnson annihilates the common wisdom. And whoever you are, you may come to share some of Johnson's outrage.

"Searching for Peace: the Road to TRANSCEND" is an indispensable guide for "peaceworkers". It combines theory (e.g. "on the psychology of the TRANSCEND Approach") with concrete examples of 40 conflicts from around the world, based on 40 years of practical experience in helping conflict parties find nonviolent solutions. Instead of seeking to bring the conflict parties to the negotiating table from the beginning, which can often result in a stream of mutual accusations that exacerbates the conflict, this approach first holds extensive dialogues separately with each conflict party, to gain their trust and understand their grievances and fears, needs and desires. By presenting the parties with a richer repertoire of possible approaches, and by showing them how similar conflicts have been successfully solved elsewhere, this often helps them see a way out of a seemingly intractable situation in which they feel themselves trapped. Johan Galtung, who founded the academic discipline of peace research, and has always applied his insights to help people suffering from conflict, like a good doctor, has joined forces with Carl Jacobsen, Finn Tschudi and Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen to share with us his rich experience. This book ought to be required reading for all international relations scholars, practitioners, policy-makers and peace activists.

"Searching for Peace: the Road to TRANSCEND" is an indispensable guide for "peaceworkers". It combines theory (e.g. "on the psychology of the TRANSCEND Approach") with concrete examples of 40 conflicts from around the world, based on 40 years of practical experience in helping conflict parties find nonviolent solutions. Instead of seeking to bring the conflict parties to the negotiating table from the beginning, which can often result in a stream of mutual accusations that exacerbates the conflict, this approach first holds extensive dialogues separately with each conflict party, to gain their trust and understand their grievances and fears, needs and desires. By presenting the parties with a richer repertoire of possible approaches, and by showing them how similar conflicts have been successfully solved elsewhere, this often helps them see a way out of a seemingly intractable situation in which they feel themselves trapped. Johan Galtung, who founded the academic discipline of peace research, and has always applied his insights to help people suffering from conflict, like a good doctor, has joined forces with Carl Jacobsen, Finn Tschudi and Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen to share with us his rich experience. This book ought to be required reading for all international relations scholars, practitioners, policy-makers and peace activists.

What makes a German professor get interested in writting a tremendous book about the Mexican Revolution and get to be a book about international politics around the first war world? It beats me. The fact is: This book is an outstanding piece of historical war literature that can be compared with the best in the field. It is thoroughly documented and researched. Obviously the author has made a very exact analysis going through an enormous work of investigation that has taken a good deal of time. So if you are wondering why Mexico had a revolution that started around 1910 and lasted around 11 years, here is the place to look. It will also explain you in detail the many faces of this revolution that touched so many aspects of the life of people from all social and economical ranges. The outburst of the revolution was like a chain reaction originated mainly by the unjust and unfair situation which most people were having that exploded at the same time in most states in Mexico, each one of them with different leaders, armies and political affiliations. So the whole thing was quite complicated. That is why this book is amazing. It manages to tell the story in a most pleasurable way and it is very exciting reading indeed. All the main historical characters are very well described, in both their relationship and motivation with the revolution. Madero who started it all, Victoriano Huerta the villain and putschmaker, Emiliano Zapata the revolutonaty peasent who fought for land and liberty, Pancho Villa, once the chief of Northern Armies, but who was him? was he good or bad?, Carranza the non elected president, and at the end Obregon and Calles the first leaders and many others. But that is not all, here is described in all detail how and why England, Germany, Japan, France, Spain, and the United States got involved and which part each one of them played in this part of history which had dramatic results for the future, mostly because of the outcome both of the world war that started in 1914 and of the mexican revolution in 1910. It is worth mentioning the exactitude with which every aspect of this history is told, the author has not spared anything to accomplish a documentation which is well based in historical evidence and at the same time has made an exciting history book that can almost be read as a novel. Highly recommended.

Prior to the publication of Friedrich Katz's monograph on the Mexican Revolution, historians of Mexico and the Mexican Revolution customarily overlooked the significance, influence, and totality of Europe, the United States, and World War I. Unfortunately, the Mexican Revolution, unlike the Russian, Chinese, French, and American Revolutions, did not enjoy the same academic attention prior to the Cuban and Vietnamese Revolutions, which provided an intellectual impetus for social historians of that era. For the most part, the Mexican Revolution was perceived as an "isolated affair"...one of a nationalist nature lead by and for the Mexican peasant and Indian alike. Of course, the one-party system that eventually monopolized the political structure of Mexico readily utilized and claimed a revolutionary legitimacy that perpetuated the triumph of "the untouchables." As a result, many of the ideas and aspirations of the revolution do not become implemented until the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940)...aspirations that continue to seek redress.

What Friedrich Katz accomplishes in this very important book-among many other things-is to incorporate the importance of Mexico into the diplomatic history of the First World War. More than simply a narrative of the Mexican Revolution, the author traces the roots of European and North American diplomacy in the early twentieth century and unearths the multifarious machinations of both countries, including those of the various sectors of the Mexican bourgeoisie. According to one reviewer, "Katz explains mechanisms of foreign policy and foreign relations convincingly and in concrete terms as processes of interaction among the respective economic, commercial, domestic, and social policies of all the nations involved, relating them as much to their governments as to the interest groups within their societies."

Divided into five parts and researched in ten countries, Katz displaces many of the myths surrounding the historiography of the Mexican Revolution in addition to explaining the importance of the Mexican-U.S. border and its impact for the northern revolutionaries. Utilizing a comparative approach, the author carefully illustrates the differences and advantages of Mexico's Northern states in order to explain its eventual victory of the revolution. In this regard, the Northern frontier plays a crucial role during the Porfiriato and acts as a social laboratory for further U.S. involvement in Latin America and around the world, specifically future U.S. involvement in Third World countries. Mexico, then, becomes "a case study not only of how local rifts can be exploited for global ends, but of how global rifts can be exploited for local ends." This "new strategy of exploiting social conflicts...was not adopted by the European powers until WWI...when each side tried to aid revolutionary movements that were directed at its rivals." Indeed, John M. Hart is correct in saying that U.S. policy throughout the globe is first "tested" and "tried" in Mexico. Thus, the term "secret war" takes on new meanings as it refers to new strategies of "alliances and understandings that the great powers and the business interests linked to them develop early in the twentieth century as a response to the wave of revolutions that swept some of what are now called the developing countries."

In what is perhaps Katz's most interesting theory of the Mexican Revolution, his idea of the "the Transformation of the Northern Frontier into the Border," is for me, the central component that tipped the scales in favor of this area. Aside from illustrating a broad diplomatic history of the Mexican Revolution, Europe, the United States, and WWI, the author also describes in detail the historical background of the northern frontier and its unique economic, social, and political development. In other words, what conditions and historical background provided the fertile ground for revolutionary activity, which eventually lead the North to the seat of power in Mexico City? One key to understanding the various conditions of this area are to be found in the huge influx of U.S. capital pouring over into Mexico's northern frontier. Simultaneously, the Díaz regime begins to break the caudillo strangle hold that developed throughout the peripheries following the Independence Wars by employing his infamous "pan o palo" technique. Katz argues that this early attempt at centralization adds tension to an area experiencing land displacement and political usurpation.

The influx of North American capital during the late nineteenth century engenders a variety of implications, most of which take place following the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848). During this period Latin America was "pulled increasingly into the frenetic development of world capitalism." By 1914, foreign capital totaling some 7,567,000,000 overwhelmed the Latin American economies and provided the economic muscle for Mexico's northern frontier.

Katz states that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Mexico underwent a radical transformation due to the "unprecedented amounts of foreign, especially American, capital into...the country's frontier." Although not mentioned by the author, on the other side of the border, the newly established North American southwest also experiences much of the same inflow of intensive capital development, which in some cases occurs simultaneously on both sides of the Río Bravo/Río Grande. In response to North America's corresponding growth of the capitalist economic system, Porfirio Díaz, attempted to offset U.S. influence by giving concessions to other European powers: Germany, France, and especially Great Britain. Here, the diplomatic puzzle begins to come together with Katz's accessibility to German, British, and Mexican archives.

By favoring European companies at times over U.S. corporations, the Díaz regime laid the foundations for further U.S. antagonism against the Mexican government. North American corporations, upset with the Díaz regime's favorable treatment of European capital, anxiously invited the opportunity to work with a president who was sensitive to their interests. Due to this and other reasons, the exiled presidential candidate, Francisco I. Madero, was able to obtain the assistance of bankers and capitalists in Texas. The Northern Frontier States provided Madero's movement with armed troops and military leadership, due in large part to their historical background as military colonists. Once the revolution took on a life of its own, Díaz left the country prophetically stating: "Madero has unleashed a tiger, lets see now if he can control it."

Once in power, however, Katz argues that Madero alienated various sectors of the Mexican population, his early supporters, the United States, and Germany. Considered by some earlier historians as naïve, Katz believes that naïveté does not take you as far as the presidency; on the contrary, Madero simply miscalculated and underestimated the volatile nature of the revolution. While the U.S. perceived Madero as unreliable and unable to control the frequent revolts erupting throughout the country, Germany concluded that Madero went too far with his minute social reforms. On the other hand, local leaders like Emiliano Zapata and the Flores Magón brothers complained that Madero did not go far enough, particularly on the issue of land reform.

According to one German diplomat, Paul von Hintze, Madero was a too idealistic in his approach and lacked the will power of a Porfirio Díaz: "the cardinal error lies in his...belief that he can rule the Mexican people as one would rule one of the more advanced Germanic nations. This raw people of half-savages without religion, with its small ruling stratum of superficially civilized Mestízos can live with no regime other than enlightened despotism." And although Félix Díaz, nephew of Porfirio Díaz, deserved some consideration, the only individual that could bring back order to Mexico, according to both the Germans and North Americans, was another military dictator: Victoriano Huerta (1913-1914). Once the U.S. gave the green light for the overthrow of Madero via Henry Lane Wilson, the other European powers had to go along with the "victory." Germany "had hoped for a coup d' etat where a strong-man would come to power with domestic policies fundamentally different from Madero's, but whose foreign policy would strengthen Mexico's orientation toward Europe." In the end, Huerta took control, at least for a while.

By WWII, much of the same activity-diplomatic mudslinging-is taking place in Germany, the United States, Great Britain, and Mexico are at center stage, specifically in John Hart's latest effort. Here, Mexico's diplomatic upper hand is demonstrated time and again when the Cárdenas regime nationalizes several private sectors of the economy and brings them under government control. How is Mexico able to do this and then continue on this nationalist path in the face of so much North American protest? The answer lies in WWII and the importance of securing a hemispheric solidarity capable of stability in the face of growing German and Japanese "aggression."

John Hart's latest effort describes growing Mexican nationalism and its effects on American investors and pre-revolutionary landowners. Mexico is able to maintain economic and political control despite North America's "move toward global hegemony that gained momentum after December 1941." Due to US need to maintain the veneer of hemispheric solidarity, the Cárdenas and Avila Camacho regimes are able to maneuver and manipulate political and economic conditions to their own advantage, conditions that years earlier would have been questioned. Central to this nationalization of various areas of the Mexican economy is the Mexican government's continued appropriation of land, especially with the case of the Laguna region and its oil reserves. As Hart states: "The consolidated companies complained once again that the Mexican government wanted the hardwoods and chicle industries for itself without mentioning [the] oil." By 1940, however, the companies "were politically overmatched in their confrontation with the Mexican and Campeche governments. Cárdenas' timing was perfect. The American government was concerned with the war in Europe and the crisis with Japan, not with the protection of chicle and lumber companies in Mexico."

The same sort of dilemma also meets numerous U.S. corporations throughout Latin America in the early twentieth century. Prior to the Great Depression (1929), U.S. companies "launched vast investment projects with little regard for the concerns of the host society or the policies of their own government." The result, as O'Brien points out, is continued resentment in the face of the economic collapse that Latin America undergoes during this period. Latin Americans, able to identify the causes of their misery and economic downfall, developed a stronger nationalism that encompassed aspects of anti-Americanism. The nationalization projects that Cárdenas develops for Mexico during his tenure (1934-1940) are part of not only the mistrust of U.S. corporations in Mexico as a result of the Great Depression, but also his own diplomatic aptitude toward the global situation transpiring with WWII. Mexico's historical relationship with the United States, as Katz, Hart, and O'Brien point out, is nothing less than offensive.

Katz's notion of "the Secret War"-although true to the extent that it was the first time that European powers utilized such an approach with Mexico-is not an idea exclusively monopolized during that period. Indeed, as Hart and O'Brien point out, "secret wars" with Mexico and Latin America take place throughout the twentieth century and continue even as I write this final paragraph. The contradictions that are involved in such a thwarted relationship are beyond the scope of this essay; however, the complicated affair between the U.S. and Latin America is further complicated with Latin American corporations currently vying for U.S. consumers, especially along the Mexico-US Border region. The end result is something reminiscent of Gloria Anzaldúa's idea that the border is an area where the "Third World grates against the First World and bleeds." Contemporary perspectives, though, offer an additional interpretation as the Border area develops into something of a hybrid society where two cultures meet and where current tensions continue to bring both nations to the diplomatic drawing board. The lines become blurred as the elites of both societies in the US and Latin America agrees to continue exploiting the local population vis-à-vis the future welfare of the country. Perhaps Virgil Elizondo was correct when describing the border region he predicted that the Future is Mestízo. I would only add: In more ways than one.