Books

Here is a list of books on contemporary politics and theory suitable for preparations for the AP Comparative Gov't class or of interest to the Model UN team.

• Cooper, Robert.  The Breaking of Nations. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003.  172 pp.

Cooper's book makes the case for a postmodern or supra-national concept of statehood, as opposed to a lawless "pre-modern" state like Afghanistan or Somalia or a "modern" state such as Brazil or Pakistan. The postmodern state (similar to Friedman's argument below in his Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention) is one of open-ness and interdependence, modeled upon countries like Japan or the EU.  This text is a bit thick and difficult to outline, but the briefest of the choices.  Some fair understanding of statehood concepts is required before reading.

• de Cuéllar, Javier Pérez. Pilgrimage for Peace. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. 502 pp.

Secretary-General of the UN from 1982-1991, de Cuéllar describes the political condition of the world leading up to the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism.  He discusses Reagan, Thatcher, Bush (senior), Gorbachev, Mitterand, Hussein, Mandela, de Klerk, and other key figures as they worked through problems in Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Namibia, Angola, Western Sahara, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, the Falklands, Central America, Desert Storm in Iraq, and others.  The chapters are thick, but easy to read as de Cuéllar writes of his story and the role of the UN in each of the these conflicts.  A great choice to get a perspective of UN successes and failures and to understand the history which led to this postmodern age.

 

• Etzioni, Amitai. From Empire to Community.  New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.  214 pp.

Etzioni is a co-founder of the Communitarian movement, a re-ordering of the simplistic left-right political spectrum; it's motto: "Rights and Responsiblities."  As such, his books are often attacked from both sides. In this book, he applies his argument to international politics, speculating about a "normative synthesis" of US approaches to foreign policy and what a global community might look like.  He argues that the US must simultaneously "detyrannize" and accept the responsibility for building a "global safety authority" from the antiterrorism coalition, that national sovereignty must be limited and that new global social authorities must take the stage.  Provocative theoretical read, but expect many references to figures from history which may be unfamiliar. 

 

• Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005. 469 pp.

Friedman is an open proponent of free market capitalism, at times naive, but not so much as to fail to recognize the limits to his argument.  His book is rich in stories from around the world about how companies and trade work, about how international technology agreements can help avert war, bring a middle-class and democracy to the developing world, and save American lifestyles.  Outsourcing, he says, is a boon for an America responsive to the changing world where political hills and tariff fences are leveled and three billion new workers and consumers get quickly added to the free market mix.  At times, this book is a real page-turner, and it makes its case in clear, well-organized sections.

 

• Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations. New York: Touchstone, 1996. 321 pp.

Ten years ago this book dazzled the international community by erasing national borders and examining politics from a perspective of cultural borders and conflicts. While his argument has more recently been critiqued as overly simplistic, it remains a powerful read and does a great job of attacking other global models of politics: one world order, us vs. them, and a collection of independent states.  None of these, Huntington demonstrates, adequately describe how the world works.  His book is rich in statistical data and hypothetical scenarios, and he offers great theoretical language for discussion: definitions of civilizations, identity, etc. His final chapter on the origin of a future global war is still . . . chilling.

 

• Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005. 225 pp.

Perkins writes of his career in the 1960s through the 1980s as an exploiter of developing nations, fabricating economic forecasts to convince them to accept World Bank loans; his goal was to make profits for his US engineering companies while saddling countries with debts they could never repay, placing them politically in the pockets of the US.  Perkins offers mostly anecdotal but frightening accounts of his work in Ecuador, Panama, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, and Venezuela.  He also reveals some of the connections between politics, oil companies, and terrorists. 

 

• Rischard, J.F. High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them. New York: Basic Books, 2002.  204 pp.

While Rischard is VP of the World Bank for Europe, this is a book of his own writing.  However, it's clear that his commitment to interdependent and multi-lateral problem-solving is colored by his experiences there.  This very easy to read text is filled with key statistics and over-arching views of global demographics and economics, and this marks a great companion text for Friedman's or Cooper's books above.  He attacks issues of poverty, biodiversity loss, information age taxation, water shortages, and financial complexities as problems which simply cannot be solved with 20th century solutions.  His idea of "global issues networks" takes economic supply-chain theories and applies them to politics. Quick and easy read.

 

• Zerzan, John, ed. Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections. Los Angeles: Feral House, anti-copyright 2005.  269 pp.

Okay, maybe the solution to global problems isn't to reinvent civilization but simply to bring it down. This is an often frightening collection of essays and documents (each from 1-5 pages long) from the 17th century to anti-modern times which diagnoses the peculiar antipathies and pathologies of civilization along with calls for action. Unlike popular anarchist books, however, this is a well-documented and often well-informed (though emotional) collection.  It certainly is a great text for discussion, often (un)grounded in postmodern literary and social theory.  Since the language is sometimes censorable, parental permission will be required for the reading of this text for the course.