April 16, 2008
Books I haven’t read
Three more books arrived today. I shouldn’t let this get me down. Obviously, in many ways it’s a very nice aspect of my job that I keep being sent interesting new books - for free. But the pile of unread tomes on my desk is a bit lowering.
One of the British Sunday papers has a quiz that includes the question “what percentage of the books on your shelves have you actually read?” My answer has always been - “about 50%” - and even that is probably charitable. But with new books arriving all the time, my hit rate is going down fast.
The three that arrived today are “Fidel Castro, My Life” (Penguin) by - well - Fidel Castro; “The Powers to Lead” (Oxford) by Joseph Nye - he of “soft power” fame. And “In Sickness and in Power” (Methuen) - a tome by David Owen, a former British foreign secretary and doctor, about people who fell ill when in power. I have put all three on the pile and I look at them occasionally - and they look back at me, reproachfully.
But before listing all the zillions of books that I haven’t yet got round to reading - or indeed opening - let me mention three good ones that I have read.
I really enjoyed Mark Leonard’s “What Does China Think”. Some Sinologists are a bit sniffy about the book, since Leonard is a generalist and doesn’t speak Chinese. I can see their point. What is the point of learning a fiendish language, if some newcomer can just breeze in and start pronouncing on China - without putting in the hard work first? But the fact is that Leonard’s book would make an excellent primer for anyone with an interest in politics and foreign policy. It is just short enough to get through on a flight to Beijing. And there is a clever idea behind it. The argument is that there is plenty of real debate within China. It is just that it is taking place within the Communist Party and the one-party state system.
By talking to leading Chinese intellectuals and then imposing a pattern on their arguments, Leonard (it seems to me) is able to give a real flavour of the kind of debates that will shape China’s future and its relations with the rest of the world. The arguments include debate between apostles of free-market capitalism and a group that Leonard characterises as the “new left” who worry increasingly about social inequality and the environment. Another big dividing line is between advocates of competitive elections and those who want to develop some sort of internal democracy within the Communist Party. Anyway, its a fascinating read.
Two other books that I’ve enjoyed recently are by Samantha Power. I didn’t read “A Problem from Hell” the first time around - and only picked it up before my recent lunch with Power. But its a very rare example of a serious foreign policy book that is also a real page-turner. Power’s second book - “Chasing the Flame” - a biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello looks like it is going to be less successful. It’s longer, the story is less dramatic and it’s less clear what the thesis is. But I found it interesting. And - in many ways - it makes sense as a sequel to “A Problem from Hell” - since it is about a man who spent his life trying to bring order and peace to some of the world’s most hellish spots.
Another book that I’m definitely going to have to read - if only because I’m reviewing it - is Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World (Norton). So far it seems pretty good.
Zakaria’s book is about the decline of American hegemony - and that is a theme of a lot of the books that I intend to pick up and read, any day now. There is “The New Asian Hemisphere” by Kishore Mahbubani. And then there is the work by Bill Emmott (my old boss at The Economist) - “Rivals - How the power struggle between China, India and Japan will shape our next decade” (Allen Lane). As the fashionably-massive sub-title implies, Emmott’s book is actually less about the relationship between the US and Asia - and more about rivalries within Asia itself. That - at least - makes a change from the plethora of decline of America titles.
What else? Well, I think I should definitely read Misha Glenny’s “McMafia - Crime without Frontiers” (Bodley Head). It’s an original and important subject - and, I think, as well-researched as anything on that topic is likely to be, given the obvious constraints (not being killed etc…)
Further down the pile, I see Philip Shenon’s “The Commission” (Little Brown), a book on the 9/11 commission, which I’ve been told is really good. Then there is Larry Diamond’s “The State of Democracy” (Times) - perhaps I’ll content myself with the “Foreign Affairs” article by him.
And then there is something that I have been promising myself that I will read for about a year. Its called “Addicted to Oil - America’s Relentless Drive for Energy Security” (IB Tauris). It came to my attention when I wrote a column which - in passing - dismissed the idea that the invasion of Iraq was about oil. The author Ian Rutledge sent me a polite note - begging to differ - and included his book as evidence. I’ve occasionally opened it and flicked through a few pages, and it looks fascinating and well-researched. But I really must sit down and read it from cover-to-cover. Soon. I promise.
With all this unread stuff lying around, this is obviously a foolish question - but what other new books on international relations should I be reading?
You must read “Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration” by Felipe Fernandez, in part because it is so readable! It is all about how migration and discovery moved people about past and present to make up our world!…great stuff!
I have “China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future”/ James Kynge- to read yet…and “The Great Arab Conquests” by Hugh Kennedy…current read…turns out the conquests were led by some great generals, however they were aided by a sweeping bubonic plague epidemic reducing and weakening the populations they were conqueroring!
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 16th, 2008 at 10:59 pm | Report this commentHave you and colleagues ever thought about setting up a small public library somewhere in an under-used corner the FT offices donating all those freebie books that you’ll probably never read to it. The rest of us would be sure to appreciate access to a library of up-to-date books.
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | April 17th, 2008 at 10:05 am | Report this comment.
I’m reading now ” After the Victorians 1901-1953 ”
Posted by: jeannick | April 17th, 2008 at 10:10 am | Report this commentby A.N. Wilson
thoroughly recommended , a great book to have , to be picked up without haste
the subject period start as Near history and finish as late memories ,strolling down the years
in some kind of very British expulsion from paradise .
Why not send them out to FT readers to write a short summary of them for you, max 3 pages of A4 perhaps?
If you like it they send it back; if you don’t like the sound of it the reviewer keeps it but with the proviso that he posts the review on to the soon to be created FT “Gideon Rachman at Book Bank” (GR@BB) of yr Blog!!
Best (most witty and penetrating) reviews as voted by readers of the GR@BB get a bottle of Champers / a night with your wife, etc.
Posted by: tim | April 17th, 2008 at 10:23 am | Report this commentOn the oil side have a look at Duncan Clark’s “Empires of Oil”. Good on bleak future for oil majors and the rise of National Oil Coys and the problems associated with NGOs, governments and incresingly scare resources.
For Caspian/Great Game oil IR issues, try Steve LeVine’s “The Oil and The Glory”. If you have ever worked in that industry in that region (as I have) it brings a wry smile to your face - for similar reasons as to why you commend Glenny for writing as much as he dared about the Mafia. As I told a very prominent American academic who wanted to write up the Caspian oil story with me as co-authoer in the 90s, “yep, we could do it; as long as you are prepared to walk around with yr head under yr arm for the rest of yr life”. Read between the lines of this book and it will reward you and exaplain much about the present IR of the Caucasus/central Asia.
Posted by: tim | April 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am | Report this commentIt’s amazing how many rivers of words, how many Amazonian trees felled, how much endless theorising on a subject so in flux as “international relations”. As if none of this could not be conveyed in short on-line articles. “Uni-polar”, “multi-polar”, “non-polar”; “soft power”, “hard power”,”3-D chessboard” — how many books are needed to convey these ideas? And how is this considered science or scholarship? All for the purpose of these writers’ fame.
Posted by: RCS | April 17th, 2008 at 11:06 am | Report this commentTrue RCS,
But do bear in mind that the subject of IR as an academic, scholarly subject comprising (originally) of the international aspects of the following subjects: history, politics, and law was borne out of the carnage and horror of the First World War. The formal creation of the discipline of International Relations was one of the better outcomes of the Treaty Of Versailles.
It seems to me that once one has a better and more rigorous understanding of what makes governments and citizens “tick” one can then make a better contribution to a blog.
Or do you think the boys at Versailles were more interested in creating a future book market than trying to find a way to understand why Europe vountarily allowed itself to butcher an entire generation of its menfolk?
Posted by: tim | April 17th, 2008 at 1:59 pm | Report this commentI strongly suggest “Lion of Jordan” Avi Shlaim (Penguin), an excellent bio of the late King Hussein of Jordan. V useful read for anybody who is interested in middle east post WWII.
Posted by: Manfredi Bargioni | April 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm | Report this commentI agree with RCS. Too many writers repeat themselves or each other. The facts and ideas in their books have been said and aruged already in papers, columns or onlines. There is definitely overcapacity in publishing business today.
Posted by: jin | April 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm | Report this commentFor a bit of light relief I’d suggest “Jingo”, by Terry Pratchett.
Posted by: Harvey | April 17th, 2008 at 3:06 pm | Report this commentDear Gideon,
Dear all,
Thank’s for your advice.
I advise you to read C. Dale Walton, Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century : Multipolarity and the Revolution in in Strategic perspective, Routledge, 2007.
It is a work in progress (it’s short, less than 150 p.), but full of promise and it fills the gap between “Asian balance of power” studies and “uni/multi/non polar” studies.
The most interesting part deals with the US options in Asia. From a european point of view, this point is particularly striking: the author affirms that if the US power retires from Asia, it will become a sort of second European Union. He doesn’t seem to wish nor expect that (ot surprisingly), but he is trying to find a third way between this option and the risk of overstrech . In the meantime he admits that an asian balance of power could emerge without the US… The debate goes on.
For those who have doubts about this book, there’s a brief comment by Gilles Andreani in Survival january/feb. 2008.
Best,
Posted by: Guillaume | April 17th, 2008 at 3:14 pm | Report this commentGuillaume
Dear Gideon,
Dear all,
Thank’s for your advices.
I advise you to read C. Dale Walton, Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century : Multipolarity and the Revolution in in Strategic perspective, Routledge, 2007.
It is a work in progress (it’s short, less than 150 p.), but full of promise and it fills the gap between “Asian balance of power” studies and “uni/multi/non polar” studies.
The most interesting part deals with the US options in Asia. From a european point of view, this point is particularly striking: the author affirms that if the US power retires from Asia, it will become a sort of second European Union. He doesn’t seem to wish nor expect that (ot surprisingly), but he is trying to find a third way between this option and the risk of overstrech. In the meantime he admits that an asian balance of power could emerge without the US… The debate goes on.
For those who have doubts about this book, there’s a brief comment by Gilles Andreani in Survival january/feb. 2008.
Best,
Posted by: Guillaume | April 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm | Report this commentGuillaume
Don’t worry you don’t see double…
Posted by: Guillaume | April 17th, 2008 at 3:20 pm | Report this commentsorry for that,
Best,
G.
I am in a re-reading period of my life…find myself re-reading books I read in college…recently re-read Jacque Ellul’s :Propaganda”…and “The Technological Society”…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 17th, 2008 at 3:28 pm | Report this commentI’ll also be checking out Zakaria’s latest. His indictment of the cult of democracy (The Future of Freedom) changed the way I see the world.
Posted by: Rollo | April 17th, 2008 at 6:16 pm | Report this commentI can’t think you’ve missed it, but if any of your readers have, I strongly recommend Eric Hobsbawm’s “Age of *” books on the long 19th and the short 20th centuries. And in a more contemporary vein, Chalmer’s Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire”.
Another “Must Read” would have to be Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” and for pleasure, “Empires of the Word”, by Nicholas Ostler… and of course for fun, anything you stumble upon by Slavoj Žižek, just to get the juices running.
Posted by: David Seaton | April 18th, 2008 at 12:31 pm | Report this commentI can’t think you’ve missed it, but if any of your readers have, I strongly recommend Eric Hobsbawm’s “Age of *” books on the long 19th and the short 20th centuries. And in a more contemporary vein, Chalmer’s Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire”.
Another “Must Read” would have to be Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” and for pleasure, “Empires of the Word”, by Nicholas Ostler… and of course for fun, anything you stumble upon by Slavoj ?i?ek, just to get the juices running.
Posted by: David Seaton | April 18th, 2008 at 12:32 pm | Report this commenthttp://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
Hi,
I was hoping for an enthusistic response to my “brilliant” idea about setting up an FT library of unread books forwarded for review.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | April 18th, 2008 at 1:41 pm | Report this commentFirst, I would like to say that I am very inspired by GR’s and all the other great reading suggestions mentioned above. Second, a comment about “The New Asian Hemisphere” by Kishore Mahbubani, mentioned by Mr. Rachman. This book has some useful insights, among which one might count his somewhat belabored comment that the Financial Times is too centered on Europe and North America, and not enough on Asia. I also enjoyed his pointing out that China may very likely have far greater numbers of serious and talented students of Western classical music than any other country on earth.
I recently heard some actual evidence of this when I happened to run across a recent CD of Mahler’s “Das Lied Von Der Erde” performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, led by an Asian conductor and featuring two Asian singers. The most remarkable feature was that Mahler’s German lyrics were “retranslated” back into Chinese, from which the poems were originally taken, and sung in modern Cantonese. The performance struck me as deeply moving, more so than most versions of Mahler songs by European orchestras that I have heard, even including one by Mahler’s own friend, the celebrated 20th Century conductor Bruno Walter.
Having said this, I must also add that Mahbubani’s book struck me as more than a little one-sided and polemical, even though I agreed with his general principle that the future belongs to Asia even more than many of us in the West are ready to acknowledge. I found another book dealing largely with this same theme a good deal more balanced and incisive, namely “The Second World” by Parag Khanna, whom the FT, described in its recent review, if I recall correctly, as a “young man in a hurry”.
While I would hesitate to accept the author’s comparing his work with Toynbee’s (no false modesty here, it would seem), I enjoyed it a great deal for its clear writing, backed up by a wealth of detail, describing the multipolar world we now live in. Even though the book is far from being a simplistic rehash of the “Decline of America” theory, it does have a number of painfully accurate things to say about the US which we are not likely to hear very often in the ongoing farce known as the presidential campaign. Especially in his concluding chapter, Mr. Khanna describes clearly and eloquently how America’s middle class is disappearing, as the elite get richer while more and more people fall into poverty amid crumbling infrastructure, health care and educational systems which in some ways are coming to resemble those of the third world. A recommended read.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm | Report this commentJust finished “What’s Left?” by Nick Cohen. Pretty much spot on.
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 3:36 pm | Report this commentTo AYC:
I haven’t read N Cohen’s Book. The specific ideas of his narrative were written on the “Comment” blog of the Guardian by himself. In the ensuing discussion he was torn apart. You can look up the discussion in the Comment blog.
Posted by: Cassandra | April 18th, 2008 at 3:44 pm | Report this commentI would also recommend “China Price”, by former FT correspondent Alexandra Harney, exposing the deplorable labor conditions on which China’s economic power is based.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 3:49 pm | Report this commentCassandra, that doesn’t surprise me. The fact that he allowed the very people he talks about in his book to comment on his work, in my view, merits a medal. He is scathing, and it doesn’t surprise me that revenge was the main dish of the day.
Whatever the Trots, Stalinists, Islamist apologists and other assorted loons of the left have to say is of little importance.
What I found so compelling in the book is the irresistable logic with which he rips into the so-called liberal left. Admittedly, it does play to my prejudices, however Cohen himself is a man of the left and the positions he takes are only arrived at after a lifetime spent in leftwing politics. Indispensible.
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm | Report this commentTo GR: From the strictly professional point of view Mark Leonard
has produced a masterpiece of lucidity on a very difficult subject: The ideological landscape of a country. Exceedingly difficult to do. In this the Brits are better than the yanks.
(they are longwinded)
I definititely in for a suprise when i read the book: I knew the chinese owing to class polarisation had a problem which would hit them ; as well
the environmental story. What i did not know was the existence of “New Left” wave which seems to be flourishing and which with the food/rice crisis will push the authorities to respond by essentilly tilting towards the peasantry by increasing the price paid to their goods.
Next development to keep track of is what inflation will produce on the political side inside china and to the countries that trade with it outside especially the us.
Lastly but not least one is impressed by the existence of people who are capable of changing governmnet policy when a serious problem shows up.
It is the political sociology problem Michael Mann treats in his “The Incoherent Empire”
Posted by: Cassandra | April 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm | Report this commentI second the nomination of “Jingo” by Terry Pratchett. And add “the Fifth Elephant” by the same author.
Fiction is nowadays closer to the truth than (so-called) non-fiction.
Posted by: RR | April 18th, 2008 at 4:37 pm | Report this commentLovely article! It is always sort of envigorating to see that I’m not the only one who is just witness of this massive pilling up on the table, there. Actually, I believe it all started at the age of 18 with “Ulysses”, which still might be hidden in the left corner under the tons of other volumes.
P. S.: Hip, hip, hooray to pacifist’s idea!
Posted by: Ondřej | April 19th, 2008 at 2:21 pm | Report this commentMochael T Klare’s : Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics
Posted by: Cassandra | April 20th, 2008 at 8:29 am | Report this commentof Energy is the latest of Klare’s books. His analysis is a must for those
who want to understand one of the most
important dimensions of modern international relations. Here you will find a useful intro. :
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174919/michael_klare_oil_rules_
SIR, seriously,the great titles have been too common-place for you,I believe. The American style of international relations research have been built largely upon the basis of their enthusiam for digits; then their computer-aided analysis, put in the east, may seem too cold and impersonal. I suggest you read some Hong Kong-living westerners’ fictions on the grassroot society and common people to perceive how the hell people living on the eastern end of this globe think of and struggle for life, which may help you figure out the vision of “harmonious international relations”.
Posted by: al | April 23rd, 2008 at 5:35 pm | Report this comment