Books & Media Reviews
Earth Grab: Geopiracy, the New Biomassters, and Capturing Climate Genes
January 11, 2012 Human induced climate change is rapidly becoming an environmental crisis unprecedented in scope. As the crisis takes hold, with examples such as increasingly unpredictable and destructive weather patterns, unrestrained deforestation, the disappearance of arctic ice, risi...
Reviewed By: Michael Abouzelof
The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics
What is the impact of putting former national leaders on trial for massive violations of human rights? Surely, most who are aware of the crimes, and certainly the surviving victims, find value in the trials and convictions of murderous leaders and their associates. On the other hand, there are cases...
Reviewed By: Micheline Ishay
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Appearances often deceive. Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature” landed on my desk in the immediate aftermath of that terrible massacre in Norway. As I read the book, Syrian forces slaughtered pro-democracy protesters, riots engulfed English cities, and murders punctuated the news....
Reviewed By: Gerard Degroot
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
Most books about Congo’s war focus, understandably, on the victims. Perhaps 5 million have died in this central African inferno, though that is a guess — no one is counting the corpses. Some were murdered with clubs, knives or farm tools. Most died more slowly, of war-induced hunger and disease....
Reviewed By: Robert Guest
UNWARRANTED INFLUENCE Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex
The history of the Victorian age, wrote Lytton Strachey, can never be written: We know too much about it. The wise historian ought rather to examine specimen...
Reviewed By: Josiah Bunting III
PROPHETS OF WAR Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex
The history of the Victorian age, wrote Lytton Strachey, can never be written: We know...
Reviewed By: Josiah Bunting III
We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People
Keep the lights on? How can it be that in 2011, blackouts are still part of daily life, drinking water remains a luxury, and only about a quarter of the population has sewage? If reliable utilities are fundamental to both the grand goal of nation-building and the narrower mandate of counterinsurgenc...
Reviewed By: Marisa Bellack
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
Earlier versions of this book review incorrectly said that the United States has the highest homicide rate in the world. In her book, Mara Hvistendahl describes the United States as the most violent industrialized nation in the world. This version has been corrected....
Reviewed By: Elaine Showalter
Monetization of Food Aid: Reconsidering U.S. Policy and Practice
“Monetization” is one of the more misunderstood and increasingly controversial forms of US food assistance abroad. It has rarely been reviewed by an independent entity. In June 2009, the DC-based non-profit, the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, published an important, 56-page rep...
Reviewed By: Steven Hansch
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira Vieira de Mello and the fight to save the world
Sergio Vieira de Mello was singular in the humanitarian aid world for being at the same time more handsome, well-spoken, charming, and accomplished than any of his contemporaries. He was also intrepid, swooshing in ahead of others in his own emergency agency into post-conflict war zones....
Reviewed By: Steven Hansch
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