A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium
by Peter J. Katzenstein
"In this grandly illuminating study of Asian and European regionalism, Katzenstein claims that world politics is built around regions that have been deeply influenced by the United States' postwar "imperium." Rich in themes and insights, the book provides a sort of sweeping archaeological account of the layers and complexities of postwar European and Asian territorial groupings. " —G. John Ikenberry
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International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction
by Richard Caplan
"Caplan explores the complex interaction between the administrative demands placed on international organizations (introducing a modicum of law and order, dealing with refugees, rebuilding the economy) and the political context . . . With its detailed and shrewd analysis, it is hard to see how Caplan's measured account will be bettered. His scorecard on these undertakings is by no means negative, but the reader is left in no doubt about the problems, including the pitfalls of managing an effective transfer of power to the local people." —Lawrence D. Freedman
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Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition
by Robert W. Merry
"This provocative and challenging book, one of the best and most thoughtful of a recent mini-spate of critiques of the Bush foreign policy from conservative realists, argues that Washington's current democratic zeal is misguided and misplaced. . . . For Merry, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West is a better guide to the future than Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree." —Walter Russell Mead
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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
by Tony Judt
"Nobody is more qualified than Judt to combine serious descriptive history with incisive, original political analysis, to cover both western and eastern Europe, and to pass stinging yet informed judgments on the behavior and evasions, the deeds and the failings, of his subjects. . . . This monumental work is a tour de force." —Stanley Hoffmann
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The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939
by Richard J. Evans
"The second of a three-volume history of the Third Reich, Evans' new book is a masterly and exhaustive account of the transformation of Germany by the Nazi regime as Hitler prepared the nation for war. Nazism, in Evans' view, was not a new religion, but rather a militaristic enterprise. . . . This is a most impressive study — and an endlessly distressing one." —Stanley Hoffmann
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Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture
by Eiko Ikegami
"This is a pathbreaking study of how historically, Japanese personal networks, both vertical and horizontal, operated to establish powerful norms of beauty, propriety, and good manners, which in turn gave a distinctive dimension to Japanese political behavior. . . . a rich and detailed cultural history from medieval times to the Meiji period." —Lucian W. Pye
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Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa
by Daniel N. Posner
"Posner's important new book is the best recent work on ethnic politics in Africa and should be read by anyone interested in ethnicity and contemporary Africa. In prose always clear and free of jargon, Posner lays out an extremely sophisticated theory of the formation and evolution of ethnic identities, with data from the southern African country of Zambia. . . . this major advance in the study of ethnic politics has important implications for both scholars and policymakers." —Nicolas Van de Walle
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