Books & Media Reviews

Tinderbox : How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It
Just a few months ago, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a leading firebrand of the global AIDS movement, Stephen Lewis, said at a conference that the money given to Africa by the U.S. global AIDS initiative called PEPFAR and by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria amounted to “partial ...
Reviewed By: John Donnelly
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
This is an astonishing book.eye view of the “undercity” of one of the world’s largest metropolises; as an intensely reported, deeply felt account of the lives, hopes and fears of people traditionally excluded from literate narratives; as a story that truly hasn’t been told before, at least n...
Reviewed By: Shashi Tharoor
World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development
The 2012 World Development Report (WDR) is a watershed moment: it is the first time that the World Bank, the world’s largest and most influential development institution, has devoted its flagship publication to gender. Kate Bedford of the University of Kent argues that the report leaves the Bank f...
Reviewed By: Kate Bedford Bretton
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