New Books in World Affairs

In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies, and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to remake the world. Driven by the utopian visions of Communist Internationalism, Indian revolutionaries yearned and struggled for a global upheaval that would overthrow European imperialisms and radically transform India and the world. In an age marked by political upheavals, intellectual ferment, collapsing empires, and global conflicts, Indian revolutionaries stood alongside countless others in the colonized world and beyond in their desire to usher in a future liberated from colonialism and capitalism. In Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge UP, 2020), Raza demonstrates how Communist Internationalism was a crucial project in the struggle for national liberation and inaugurates a new approach to the global history of communism and decolonization.Dr. Ali Raza is Associate Professor of History at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.Samee Siddiqui is a former journalist who is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation explores discussions relating to religion, race, and empire between South Asian and Japanese figures in Tokyo from 1905 until 1945. You can find him on twitter @ssiddiqui83 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

A sadist. A madman. A sociopath seduced by the terrible allure of nuclear weapons. These are but a few of the pejoratives commonly used to describe United States Air Force General Thomas S. Power, Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1957 to 1964. Power’s remit as CinCSAC was twofold: deter the Soviet Union from launching a nuclear first strike on the United States and plan to unleash Armageddon if they did. Neither was easily achieved. Effective deterrence hinged upon the actual possession of qualitatively superior weapons systems combined with the perception that the United States was willing to use them. Loosing the nuclear dogs of war, in turn, depended on the exacting coordination of those weapons systems under combat conditions. Further complicating matters was the incredible compression of time and space brought on by the advent of new delivery systems like the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). SAC's mission was truly a Gordian Knot—one Power was determined to cut. Power approached the problem with an alacrity that transformed SAC into a formidable nuclear instrument, but which simultaneously earned him a less than flattering reputation. Within the Kennedy administration and among many members of the media, Power was seen as fatally unhinged, obsessed with nuclear weapons, violently anti-communist, and liable to start a nuclear war with the Soviets of his own volition. Whether accurate or not, this view dominated popular and historiographical appraisals of Power for the better part of seven decades.In To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of Strategic Air Command in the Cold War (US Naval Institute Press, 2021), historian Brent Ziarnick takes aim at this mainstream historiographic narrative. Telling in detail for the first time the story of Power’s personal and professional life, Ziarnick refocuses our attention away from the hyperbole and onto Power’s substantive contributions to the development of America’s strategic air and aerospace capability.Brent D. Ziarnick is an assistant professor at the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. He has been published in Wired, Politico, and The Hill. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.Scott Lipkowitz holds a MA in History, with a concentration in military history, and a MLIS, with a concentration in information technology, from Queens College, City University of New York Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Adom Getachew, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, is the author of Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton University Press, 2019). The work has received immense praise from academics and non-specialists alike, winning a plethora of awards, including the Frantz Fanon Prize, the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award, and the J. David Greenstone Book Prize. Getachew renarrates the twentieth-century history of decolonization and shows that African, African American, and Caribbean anticolonial nationalists were not solely nation-builders. Responding to the experience of racialized sovereign inequality, dramatized in the book by interwar Ethiopia and Liberia, Black Atlantic thinkers and politicians challenged international racial hierarchies and articulated alternative visions of worldmaking. Seeking to create an egalitarian postimperial world, they attempted to secure a right to self-determination within the newly founded United Nations, constitute regional federations in Africa and the Caribbean, and structure a New International Economic Order. Worldmaking after Empire traces the richness and ambition of postwar efforts to reimagine the international order, uncovering a multiplicity of political projects that decolonization entailed. Vladislav Lilic is a doctoral candidate in Modern European History at Vanderbilt University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Immigration in the 21st Century: The Comparative Politics of Immigration Policy (Routledge, 2020) is an excellent primer for those looking to understand the complexities of immigration not only as a policy arena, but the study of immigration and migration, and to get a sense of the different approaches to immigration from a variety of kinds of countries. Terri Givens, Rachel Navarre, and Pete Mohanty have written a sophisticated and accessible text that would be of interest to anyone who wants to learn a bit more about immigration. The authors explain the different approaches to immigration taken by different countries, depending on the historical and political contexts of those countries. They group countries together into categories, with defining characteristics that contribute to the form and shape of the immigration policies that have been implemented. Attention is paid to the post-World War II European shifts in immigration and policies that provided avenues for workers to help with the rebuilding of places like Germany and France. There is also a discussion of the way that globalization has contributed to the evolution of immigration processes, and how migration is also participating in the shape of newer policies and political responses. In our conversation, Givens explains the way that sovereignty and nation building provide the framing for immigration policies and how nations think about those whom they allow to become citizens.Immigration in the 21st Century provides an understanding of immigration from a practical perspective, contextualizing it in the world that came out of World War II. This book also integrates the role that the Cold War played in both immigration and migration during the period of tension between the East and the West, and then what happened after the end of the Cold War. In our conversation, Givens notes the differences between immigration, which is generally a public and political policy that a nation puts into place, and migration, which follows the flow of people from one place to another place, often because of a triggering event, like war and conflict, or climate change. We also discuss the different policies that govern the trade of goods across borders and the more complicated nature of implementing policies that govern the movement of people across borders. Immigration in the 21st Century is a useful and thoughtful analysis of the complexities of immigration in the modern world.Terri Givens also has a website devoted to the book itself and updating information about immigration. Here is the link to that website, which also includes a coupon for a discount on the book: https://www.terrigivens.com/immigration/Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Our democracies repeatedly fail to safeguard the future. From pensions to pandemics, health and social care through to climate, biodiversity and emerging technologies, democracies have been unable to deliver robust policies for the long term. In Can Democracy Safeguard the Future? (Polity Press, 2021), Graham Smith, a leading scholar of democratic theory and practice, asks why? Exploring the drivers of the short-termism that dominate contemporary politics, he considers ways of reshaping legislatures and constitutions and proposes strengthening independent offices whose overarching goals do not change at every election. More radically, Smith argues that forms of participatory and deliberative politics offer the most effective democratic response to the current political myopia as well as a powerful means of protecting the interests of generations to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Today we are joined by Bruce Berglund, author of The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports (University of California Press, 2020). In this sweeping look at hockey, Bruce Berglund examines how a niche sport became a global favorite. Hockey has crossed cultures from North America to Europe and Asia, and has been a political flashpoint several times, most notably during the Summit Series of 1972 and the “Miracle on Ice” at the 1980 Winter Olympics. Berglund’s research combs the archives of Central and Eastern Europe, and he gives a thorough overview of hockey from its beginnings in the nineteenth century. The impact of players like Wayne Gretzky, the influence of youth leagues and the emergence of women in the sport are areas that Berglund explores. Berglund weaves his research with his own personal experiences with hockey to create a compelling narrative. An “anxious child of the Cold War,” Berglund examines the rise of the Soviet hockey team — the Red Machine — and how it took over the international game. Berglund also explores the beginnings of hockey, which descended from a game called bandy. He demonstrates that hockey, while a passion for fans in Canada, has spread worldwide. The Stanley Cup, long a Canadian point of pride, now resides in Tampa, Florida, showing how even in warm-weather climates, hockey has made inroads.Bob D’Angelo earned his master’s degree in history from Southern New Hampshire University in May 2018. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida and spent more than three decades as a sportswriter and sports copy editor, including 28 years on the sports copy desk at The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune. He can be reached at bdangelo57@gmail.com. For more information, visit Bob D’Angelo’s Books and Blogs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Jeremy Black, one of the most prolific and punchy of historians of modern Britain, has written a new account of a period on which he has previously published. A Brief History of Britain 1851-2021: From World Power to ? (Robinson, 2021) traces an arc of decline and opportunity, from the confidence that was reflected in the Crystal Palace’s Great Exhibition of 1851 to the uncertainty about national purpose or international significance that was reflected in the construction of the Millennium Dome. Balancing hard and soft power with the homogenisation and diversification of lived experience, while thinking about politics, culture, demographics, and the impact of conflict, Black asks some far-reaching questions about the kind of country that Britain has become.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

This is a reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, tries to shed new light on a hitherto overlooked but central aspect of Britain and Italy's war experiences: the uneasy and only partial overlap between Britain's strategy for imperial defense and Italy's ambition for imperial expansion in his book: Britain and Italy in the Era of the First World War: Defending and Forging Empires (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Taking Anglo-Italian bilateral relations as a special lens through which to understand the workings of the Entente in World War I, Dr. Marcuzzi reveals how the ups-and-downs of that relationship influenced and shaped to a limited degree Allied grand strategy. Dr. Marcuzzi considers three main issues – war aims, war strategy and peace-making – and examines how, under the pressure of divergent interests and wartime events, the Anglo-Italian 'traditional friendship' turned increasingly into competition by the end of the war, casting a shadow on Anglo-Italian relations both at the Peace Conference and in the interwar period. While not everyone will be convinced by some of his arguments and propositions (such as the partial rehabilitation of such rightly discredited figures as Salandra and Sonnino), that does not take away from the great effort that Dr. Marcuzzi has made.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Technology is breaking politics - what can be done about it? Artificially intelligent "bot" accounts attack politicians and public figures on social media. Conspiracy theorists publish junk news sites to promote their outlandish beliefs. Campaigners create fake dating profiles to attract young voters. We live in a world of technologies that misdirect our attention, poison our political conversations, and jeopardize our democracies. With massive amounts of social media and public polling data, and in-depth interviews with political consultants, bot writers, and journalists, Philip N. Howard offers ways to take these "lie machines" apart. Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives (Yale UP, 2020) is full of riveting behind the scenes stories from the world's biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives--including those used in Brexit and U.S. elections. Howard not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and shows us how to shut them down. As dangerous as things are now, they will only get worse; the enormous flood of data coming from the so-called Internet of Things, along with the growing sophistication of artificial intelligence, will make disinformation easier to generate and disseminate and much harder to spot and remove. Howard tackles the tough task of suggesting the changes that are needed to create a radically redesigned social media ecosystem that would reinforce, rather than erode, democracy.Medha Prasanna is an MA candidate at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. Her current research focuses on International Organizations and Human Rights Law. You can learn more about her here or email her medp16@gwu.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) arrives at an extraordinarily consequential moment for the future of asylum protections. Even as more and more people around the world find themselves displaced and endangered by violent conflict, climate change, and material deprivation, the small set of countries that once welcomed refugees and asylum seekers have closed themselves off. From the outside, we see Fortress Europe, kids in cages, and the criminalization of asylum seekers--but look closer, and there are far more elaborate geographical games taking place to effectively erase the possibility of asylum. In this award-winning book, Mountz traces the global chain of remote detention centers used by states of the Global North to confine migrants fleeing violence and poverty, using cruel measures that, if unchecked, will lead to the death of asylum as an ethical idea, along with the continued death of asylum seekers themselves. Alongside her written work, Mountz and her colleague Kim Rygiel have started a podcast called Displacements that follows ongoing ongoing scholarship and activism in the migration space. Alongside her collaborate Lisa Molomot, she has released a documentary film called Safe Haven that follows Vietnam-war era resistors who sought protection in Canada. Alison Mountz is Professor of Geography and Canada Research Chair in Global Migration, and she is Director of the International Migration Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.You can follow Alison on Twitter @AlisonMountz, and the host, Dino Kadich, @dinokadich. The New Books in Geography Twitter page is @NewBooksGeog. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs