Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium
by Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O'Rourke
"This new history of the last thousand years of world trade is remarkable in both its grand sweep and its scholarly depth. It pieces together the story of global commerce from the medieval spice traders and nomads of Central Asia to the discovery and incorporation of the New World, to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of Europe, and to the globalizing forces of the postwar world economy." —G. John Ikenberry
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Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Latin America
by Kurt Weyland
"In this important scholarly polemic, a well-regarded political scientist takes aim at dependency theorists who exaggerate U.S. coercive power as well as at mainstream scholars who assume the simplifying maxims of full rationality to be true. . . . As demands for social justice grow in Latin America, Weyland's formidable findings will take on particular urgency for both theorists and practitioners alike." —Richard Feinberg
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The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus
by Christoph Zürcher
"This is an uncommonly well-argued and well-written explanation of the violent conflicts that erupted across the Caucasus during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union." —Robert Legvold
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The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace
by Aaron David Miller
"[Miller] is best known for having argued that Washington has been too much 'Israel's lawyer' and not a truly honest broker. This book, an insightful critique of U.S. policy packaged as a personal memoir, relates how he came to that conclusion, along with much more . . ." —L. Carl Brown
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Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea
by Ricardo M.S. Soares de Oliveira
"Soares de Oliveira has written an important study of the impact of oil on the region's politics. . . . That oil represents a curse is no longer a novel insight, but Soares de Oliveira's study provides a rich political sociology of the oil curse in West Africa." —Nicolas Van de Walle
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