Foreign affairs 2016 09-10

Recent Books payoffs. Like many philosophical inquiries, evaluate the effects of the accords and the book is a bit heavy at times, but it argue that they serve as an exemplar offers a thoughtful examination of the for macroeconomic cooperation among fundamental assumptions on which major countries. That position was modern society is based. controversial at the time and remains so today, partly because some influential International Monetary Cooperation: Chinese economists maintain—wrongly, Lessons From the Plaza Accord After as this books demonstrates—that the Thirty Years accords led to the bursting of the Japanese stock market and real estate bubbles at EDITED BY C. FRED BERGSTEN the end of the 1980s, an outcome that present-day China, with its overheated AND RUSSELL A. GREEN. Peterson equity and land markets, is eager to avoid. Institute for International Economics, 2016, 300 pp. The administration of U.S. President Collapse and Revival: Understanding Ronald Reagan was philosophically Global Recessions and Recoveries committed to free markets, in particular the foreign exchange market. It was BY M. AYHAN KOSE AND MARCO E. therefore a major surprise when, in September 1985, the finance ministers TERRONES. International Monetary of France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Fund, 2015, 304 pp. and West Germany met at the Plaza Hotel in New York City with the The result of a collaboration between secretary of the U.S. Treasury, James the International Monetary Fund and Baker, and publicly announced that the World Bank, this is a fine primer the U.S. dollar was overvalued and on the four global recessions that have that they would take collective action occurred since the Great Depression to encourage its depreciation and a of the 1930s—in 1975, 1982, 1991, and corresponding appreciation of the four 2009—and on how economies recovered other major countries’ currencies. The from them, with an emphasis on the Plaza Accord was followed 17 months Great Recession of 2009. It features later by the Louvre Accord, in which useful summaries of the factors that the same group declared that the depre­ caused the recessions and examines the ciation had gone far enough and that dynamics of the recoveries, drawing they would consequently take steps to largely from scholarly literature. It stabilize exchange rates. How to properly also provides a good deal of informed manage exchange rates remains a vexing com­mentary on the practice of macro­ question for many countries today, one economic analysis and on the transmis­ for which there seems to be no enduring sion of economic shocks across national correct answer. The 16 contributors to borders. The publication includes this book—which include Baker and then many charts and tables, so it’s not for Fed Chair Paul Volcker, the leading numerophobes. It also comes with a U.S. participants in these events— dvd that contains documentary-style interviews with the authors and other economists. September/October 2016 169

Recent Books Military, Scientific, and Waging Insurgent Warfare: Lessons From Technological the Vietcong to the Islamic State BY SETH G. JONES. Oxford Lawrence D. Freedman University Press, 2016, 328 pp. Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Most recent books on insurgencies have Scenarios to Manage American Strategy concentrated on how to counter them. Jones turns this around by instead asking BY MICHAEL F. OPPENHEIMER. what it takes for an insurgency to succeed. This allows him to look at recent conflicts, Oxford University Press, 2015, 272 pp. including those in Kosovo and Libya, in which Western powers supported Governments do not like being insurgents. He combines quantitative caught by surprise, but it data with careful observations to craft a happens all the time, leaving thoughtful, original, and comprehensive them looking foolish when they fail to analysis of how insurgencies start; the anticipate events that challenge the strategies, tactics, and organizational found­ ations of their policies. Oppen­ approaches they adopt; and their need heimer believes he has a remedy for for foreign support. Not surprisingly, this problem. He does not try to fore­ the most successful insurgents tend to cast the future; instead, he constructs be those who can challenge the state detailed scenarios that could plausibly on its own terms by using conventional take shape, by starting with what is force with support from an external known about the current situation and power. Guerrilla warfare is a less then imagining different ways in which promising option, since it relies on events and decisions might unfold. exhausting one’s enemies rather than Oppenheimer explains his methodology defeating them. One slightly misleading and details a number of scenarios he element of Jones’ analysis is the firm developed in the recent past for coun­ distinction he draws between some of tries such as China, Russia, Syria, and the communist-inspired insurgencies Ukraine. These illustrate the value of of the Cold War era and the Islamist the exercise but also, as Oppenheimer ones that have arisen since the early acknowledges, its limits. The scenarios 1990s, which has the effect of obscuring reveal more about what was known and the essentially anticolonial character understood at the time that Oppenheimer of both kinds of movements. drew them than about what actually happened. Oppenheimer makes a persua­ Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story sive case that scenario planning can BY MAT TI FRIEDMAN. Algonquin encourage more agility and flexibility Books, 2016, 256 pp. in policymaking. He also presents a scathing indictment of U.S. grand There was a time when military strategy—but his proposed remedies memoirs focused on climactic battles of for it are not convincing. great historic importance. But like other 170 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

Recent Books contemporary additions to the genre, anger, focusing less on the military side Friedman’s describes a war without any of the nato intervention in Afghanistan real battles—a conflict in which the than on the developmental side. As an weaker side used ambushes and booby anthropologist working in Kabul during traps to demonstrate to the notionally and after the “surge” of U.S. forces that stronger party that its position was began in 2009, he tried to figure out why untenable. In 1998, Friedman was efforts to improve the lives of ordinary deployed to the Pumpkin, an Israeli Afghans fell far short. His book reveals military outpost in southern Lebanon. an intervention that developed its own (“Flowers” refers to a code word for culture and ways of doing business, casualties.) The outpost’s value had by neither of which was well suited to the that time been called into question, task. One unfamiliar but alarming notably after a collision between two problem he identifies is the role played Israeli helicopters that took 73 lives. by professional grant writers, who were Helicopters had become necessary employed by large nongovernmental because of the vulnerability of Israeli organizations and contractors because vehicle convoys to improvised explosive they knew the precise terminology to devices laid by the militant group use when seeking funds from the nato Hezbollah. After the Israelis withdrew bureaucracy, which allowed their clients from Lebanon in 2000, Friedman used to sweep up money, often at the expense his Canadian passport to return to the of smaller and more modest groups that area as a civilian, meeting people who might have done more good. were friendly but also encountering a good deal of anti-Semitism. Friedman Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War is a gifted writer, able to capture the Criminals From Nuremberg to the War on tedium and anxiety of life at the Pumpkin Terror with a spare, restrained, laconic style that keeps the reader engaged even when BY ERIC STOVER, VICTOR PESKIN, Friedman narrates incidents that lack drama. The result is a thoughtful medi­ AND ALEXA KOENIG. University of tation on both the nature of modern war California Press, 2016, 504 pp. and a changing Israeli society. Human rights activists maintain that Losing Afghanistan: An Obituary for the the perpetrators of atrocities must be Intervention brought to justice. Diplomats agree in BY NOAH COBURN. Stanford principle but worry in practice. What if University Press, 2016, 264 pp. the pursuit of justice disrupts a valuable spy network, or produces administrative The title of this book suggests yet chaos as key government personnel are another polemic on the Western failure purged, or leads to political upheaval if to appreciate just how difficult it would one social group considers itself to be be to defeat the Afghan Taliban. Yet unduly targeted? That tension is at the Coburn writes more in sorrow than in heart of this fine and troubling book, which describes the efforts to track down individuals responsible for terrible September/October 2016 171

Recent Books crimes who have been hidden by past than a distillation of a culture’s sympathetic regimes or protected by biases and illusions. And they can have those who fear that raking over the past a sinister impact on contemporary will prove destabilizing to the present. politics; Rieff looks at how in the United The book covers the Nazi hunters, the States, the glamorous myth of the “Lost international tribunals set up in response Cause” of the Confederacy has served to crimes against humanity committed to promote racial polarization and hate in Rwanda and during the Bosnian war, since the Reconstruction era. He argues and the establishment of the Interna­ that forgetting even historical crimes on tional Criminal Court and the cases it the scale of the Holocaust is ultimately has sought to address, almost all of both inevitable and beneficial. It is a which have involved crimes committed shocking idea, and readers may wonder by African leaders. The authors also whether the process of forgetting will argue that in the aftermath of the 9/11 not be shaped by the same forces of attacks, the United States began to use pride and self-interest that distort the unlawful methods to capture and detain process of remembering. Nevertheless, those it suspected of having ties to in an age in which the memory of ancient terrorism and so shifted from being “a grievances functions too frequently as a vocal proponent of the international pretext for new crimes, Rieff is correct rule of law to a vocal proponent of to observe that oblivion has some appeal. American exceptionalism.” The United States His Final Battle: The Last Months of Walter Russell Mead Franklin Roosevelt BY JOSEPH LELYVELD. Knopf, 2016, 416 pp. In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory Among the many paradoxes of Franklin and Its Ironies Roosevelt’s extraordinary career was BY DAVID RIEFF. Yale University the degree to which the most famous Press, 2016, 160 pp. man in the United States managed to keep the truth about his failing health In this slender volume bristling with so effectively shrouded for so many years. erudition, Rieff wrestles with one of Lelyveld, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the most explosive forces of modern succeeds to a remarkable degree in times: mythologized historical “memories” finding out what Roosevelt and his that encourage people to cultivate old doctors knew about his deteriorating grudges and settle historical scores. The condition and how Roosevelt’s lead­ historical memories that bind people ership was affected by his gradual into political and cultural communities decline, which was brought on by are, Rieff demonstrates, often inaccurate— arterial disease and congestive heart less a set of lessons learned from the failure. This is a difficult task, since most of Roosevelt’s medical records were destroyed long ago. His Final 172 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

Recent Books Battle is a gripping book that will wasting culture; antipoverty activists substantially deepen readers’ under­ point to the ways that government standing of a critical time in U.S. housing policy, including zoning regu­ history. One scene in particular shows lation, traps the poor in inner cities, Roosevelt at his greatest. Weak and where jobs are scarce, and creates new sick, the president visited a hospital forms of racial and class segregation. for wounded soldiers and had himself Since the financial crisis of 2008, which wheeled slowly through all the wards was driven in part by a real estate bubble, for amputees, making sure the young fierce debates have raged over whether men would see his own withered legs: housing policy should continue to favor after a bout of polio earlier in life, suburbanization and the owner-occupied Roosevelt had been paralyzed from single-family home. the waist down. By today’s standards, the secrecy that kept all knowledge of Two recent books will enrich readers Roosevelt’s health away from the public understanding of the American suburbs. would be deemed unacceptable. It is Lane’s Houses for a New World delivers not, however, clear that Americans are an engaging and surprisingly positive better led now than they were in 1944. account of how the suburbs came to be. In Lane’s view, the development Houses for a New World: Builders and of suburbia represented a grass-roots Buyers in American Suburbs, 1945–1965 approach to urban planning and housing BY BARBARA MILLER LANE. design. Where the folksinger Pete Seeger Princeton University Press, 2016, 320 pp. saw “little boxes made of ticky-tacky,” Lane sees a new kind of American Detached America: Building Houses in community where large windows and Postwar Suburbia open lawns allowed parents to keep an BY JAMES A. JACOBS. University of eye on their kids and their neighbors’ Virginia Press, 2015, 272 pp. kids. The postwar suburbs also served as a great driver of integration for immi­ There is no subject so fundamental to grant groups who had grown up in modern American life and yet so little homogeneous urban neighborhoods. studied as the history of U.S. housing Lane’s respect for the suburbs runs after World War II. With $15 trillion in counter to fashionable opinion but equity, residential real estate represents serves as a useful corrective to accounts the most important asset for a majority that see the “great American suburb” of U.S. families. The federal, state, and in purely dystopian terms. local policies that provided the financial services and physical infrastructure for Jacobs’ Detached America is a less suburban living have done more to shape accessible book but an excellent resource American life than any government for anyone interested in a deep dive initi­ative since the Homestead Act. into suburban planning. In particular, Environmentalists blame suburbs for Jacobs offers a comprehensive overview promoting a gas-guzzling, energy- of the politics that promoted and enabled the great suburban shift. For tens of millions of U.S. households, the rise of the suburbs meant significant increases September/October 2016 173

Recent Books in personal wealth and well-being. But critics. But for Chollet, as for Obama, Jacobs also documents the ways in which this apparent defect is actually a strength, African Americans were excluded from and the current world disorder is less the benefits of the greatest system of the result of flawed U.S. strategies than government-supported middle-class the birth pangs of a new and better order. wealth creation in U.S. history. Time will tell. The Long Game: How Obama Defied Western Europe Washington and Redefined America’s Role Andrew Moravcsik in the World BY DEREK CHOLLET. PublicAffairs, 2016, 288 pp. The essence of U.S. President Barack Devolution and the UK Economy Obama’s grand strategy, writes Chollet, a former Obama administration official, EDITED BY DAVID BAILEY AND can be expressed as a checklist: “balance, sustainability, restraint, precision, LESLIE BUDD. Rowman & Littlefield, patience, fallibility, skepticism, and 2016, 240 pp. [American] exceptionalism.” This list, he argues, represents a distinctive and In normal times, a book on local enduring legacy that historians will economics in the United Kingdom praise and that future presidents should edited by two business professors heed. When it comes to assessing the would pass unnoticed. But these are not administration’s foreign policy track normal times, and the issue of whether record, Chollet’s verdict is more measured. British territorial subunits can prosper He gives high marks to both phases of on their own has taken on vital impor­ Obama’s approach to Russia (the “reset” tance. The volume sets forth some clear and “the bear roars back”) and lauds and convincing findings on the matter. the Iran nuclear agreement. Other One is that Scotland’s relative poverty initiatives, including the outreach to means that independence from the Muslim publics, the 2011 Libyan United Kingdom would be economic intervention, and the so-called pivot suicide. No matter what they say, the to Asia, get mixed reviews. (There is leaders of the pro-independence Scottish one reader who is certain to enjoy The National Party likely have little interest Long Game: Hillary Clinton, for whom in changing the current arrangement, in Chollet has nothing but praise in her which they rule Scotland with the help role as secretary of state.) Chollet’s of massive economic aid from London. approach is both provocative and intrigu­ This is paradoxical, because Scots who ing: the fact that Obama’s strategy voted for independence in 2014 were consists of a list of desirables rather motivated primarily by a desire for than a hierarchy of goals is one of the greater economic equality and not by main charges made by the president’s nationalism. As for Wales, political apathy and the lack of a regional party have put the region at an economic 174 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

Recent Books disadvantage compared to Scotland. In Catholics have viewed Europe, favor­ Northern Ireland, the quest for greater ably, as fostering a single universal economic autonomy through relatively culture that transcends nation-states, low tax rates has had only a marginal whereas Protestants have seen the effect on corporate investment—but nation-state as an essential bulwark it has reduced tax revenues, which has against just that sort of universalism, required the region to seek even more which they tend to fear. The book’s subsidies from London. Some individual historical and statistical analysis is more English cities have also sought greater suggestive than conclusive, and it fails autonomy, but with the exception of to demonstrate that any correlation Manchester, they have met with little between Catholicism and pro-European success. Although local economic policy sentiments results from the cultural remains obscure, it may have a greater factors the authors highlight. Yet it is effect on British citizens than the big nonetheless a provocative and original political issues that make headlines. analysis that might help launch further debate on the historical origins of today’s Religion and the Struggle for European conflicts over the eu. Union: Confessional Culture and the Limits of Integration Coercive Concern: Nationalism, Liberalism, and the Schooling of Muslim Youth BY BRENT F. NELSEN AND JAMES L. BY REVA JAF F E-WALTER. Stanford University Press, 2016, 232 pp. GUTH. Georgetown University Press, 2015, 384 pp. In the past several years, the rise of the Jaffe-Walter is an anthropologist whose radical right and the spread of Euro­ research involves spending time in skepticism, and, more recently, the vote schools in various countries and talking in favor of a British exit from the eu, to immigrant students about how they have focused attention on the cultural and think and feel about the schools’ treat­ ideological sources of support for and ment of them. This book is based on opposition to European integration. interviews with Muslim girls in a liberal, This book focuses on religion, and in multicultural school in Denmark—a particular the split between Catholics place where one would expect to find and Protestants, which was perhaps the open-minded attitudes toward other most important division at the time that cultures and ways of life. Yet the author integration began in the 1950s. Nelsen claims that the school’s teachers, despite and Guth revive the notion, once widely their good intentions, tend to have nega­ held by historians, that Catholics naturally tive views of the cultures from which favor integration whereas Protestants the students come and seek to inculcate naturally oppose it. There are many reasons into the students a narrow model of why one might think this is so, but the proper Danish behavior, especially when authors emphasize how current political it comes to sex, marriage, religion, and attitudes are rooted in the battles of the external appearance. The students feel Reformation era. Ever since that period, stereotyped and find much of their September/October 2016 175

Recent Books teachers’ advice unwelcome. The author and the genocide was hardly conducted makes no effort to show that her sample in a consistent manner. Although not all is representative and relies on the type of Cesarani’s evidence supports this of jargon that drags down so much interpretation, his book is a useful and academic writing. Still, this book is compelling reminder that reality is far worth reading for the verbatim notes more complex than popular memory. of her conversations with her subjects, which bring to life the difficulties Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy and dilemmas of cultural assimilation Roman Empire in Europe. BY PETER H. WILSON. Harvard University Press, 2016, 1,008 pp. Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933–1949 Most educated readers know very little BY DAVID CESARANI. Macmillan, about the Holy Roman Empire beyond 2016, 1,056 pp. Voltaire’s quip that it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” For years, Cesarani, who passed away last year, historians derided its institutions as was a leading historian of Jewish life archaic and ineffective. In this ambitious and a prominent public advocate for and challenging book, Wilson sets out proper commemoration of the Holocaust. to show that the empire was in fact This massive work demonstrates that quite successful. He points out that it those two vocations often conflict survived for a millennium, from 800 to with each other. Cesarani criticizes the 1806, during which time it fostered a tendency of people and groups with uniquely decentralized, consensus-based political agendas, as well as purveyors style of international decision-making. of popular culture and designers of This system encouraged imperial classroom materials, to portray the subjects to adopt multiple identities: Holocaust as a deliberately managed individuals could simultaneously be project that followed necessarily from citizens of cities, principalities, and Nazi ideology. He claims that this view the empire. Imperial policies rested on is, in large part, simply inconsistent compromises among all these groups, with current scholarly research. The which could be slow and ineffective. Nazis, he argues, had no master plan Yet the system bolstered local rule to exterminate the Jews on an industrial and patronage networks, fostered a scale. Hitler initially intended to send distinctive church hierarchy, oversaw them to Mozambique or Siberia. The legitimate courts, consistently collected war, however, limited his options, and taxes, and even produced institutional the genocidal Final Solution was the innovations, such as the first public result. Nazi bureaucracy was chaotic, postal service. Wilson concludes by with competing imperatives, such as reflecting that this multilevel system of exploiting the Jews as laborers but also governance, with its divided loyalties, exterminating them. The result was might even serve as a model for today’s administrative conflict and confusion, faltering eu. 176 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

Recent Books Western Hemisphere bulk up police forces. And countering global criminal networks requires Richard Feinberg international cooperation. Wainwright comments favorably on Colorado’s Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel experiment with controlled marijuana decriminalization, New Zealand’s BY TOM WAINWRIGHT. authorization of a limited number of lower-risk recreational narcotics, and PublicAffairs, 2016, 288 pp. job-training programs that the government of the Dominican Republic has offered Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing for those convicted of drug trafficking. Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America BY IOAN GRILLO. Bloomsbury Press, Grillo, another British journalist, digs 2016, 384 pp. deep into the gruesome businesses of four “gangster warlords” operating in Brazil, Wainwright, an editor at The El Salvador, Jamaica, and Mexico. In vivid Economist, astutely applies detail, he describes the lethal cocktail of the logics of corporate rational calculation, intimidating violence, strategy and market forces to better and philanthropy through which these understand the resilience of the global criminal organiz­ ations ensure their trade in illicit narcotics. Costly law surv­ ival. But he is careful not to exaggerate enforcement efforts to suppress the drug their political power. “They are a shadow trade fail, he persuasively argues, when power rather than a shadow government,” they ignore basic economic forces. Grillo writes. “They want a weak and Narconomics reminded me of my own corrupt government, which they can live frustrations when I served on the U.S. off, like a tapeworm feeds off a host.” National Security Council during the Like Wainwright, Grillo is contemptuous Clinton administration. I asked the of the entrenched Washington bureauc­ intelligence community for a report on racy and its ossified, ineffectual counter­ the narcotics industry that relied on the nar­cotic policies—which neither President tools of economic analysis, treating drug Barack Obama nor the presidential organizations primarily as economic candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald actors. “Can’t do it,” a senior official in the Trump have dared to directly confront. intelligence community told me. “We Along with many others who have studied anticipate that our political overseers won’t and experienced the endless drug wars much like the results.” It seemed that the and the dreadful tolls they take on slums skittish Clinton White House was less in developing countries, Grillo advocates interested in really understanding the selective drug legalization combined problem than in tough-on-drugs stories with more spending on prevention and that would counter Republican critics. rehabilitation in “consumer communities” Two decades later, Wainwright’s findings in the United States and other rich coun­ are instructive. When consumer demand tries. Meanwhile, he urges governments for narcotics is strong, efforts to restrict on the supply side of the drug trade to supply are likely to fail. It’s more cost scale up their efforts to reform and effective to get someone off drugs than to strengthen law enforcement and to put September/October 2016 177

Recent Books in place carefully targeted, community- by myriad other matters. Long’s case based antipoverty programs. studies also suggest that Latin American countries can gain more through persis­ Latin America Confronts the United States: tent diplomacy and cooperative solutions Asymmetry and Influence than through aggressive confrontation or BY TOM LONG. Cambridge University by pursuing a negative form of autonomy. Press, 2015, 274 pp. Tulchin concedes that during the Latin America in International Politics: nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Challenging U.S. Hegemony few Latin American countries sought to BY JOSEPH S. TULCHIN. Lynne define and defend their national interests, Rienner, 2016, 235 pp. beyond pleading for noninterventionism on the part of larger powers. More Long and Tulchin join a growing list of recently, however, governments in Chile, scholars who have challenged the deeply Costa Rica, and Cuba have carried out held assumption that hegemonic U.S. more sophisticated forms of diplomacy power has left little space for Latin at both the regional and the global level. American countries to take the initiative Still, Tulchin laments that some Latin in their relationships with Washington. American governments remain captives Both authors demonstrate that in fact, to history, trapped in defensive anti- when dealing with the United States, Americanism. He is also frustrated that capable Latin American leaders have the region is too internally divided to not only successfully defended their create a genuine regional community that interests but also astutely intervened could exercise more influence in global in U.S. domestic politics to alter the affairs. Nevertheless, he is cau­tiously way that Washington defines and pursues optimistic that the information technology its interests in the region. Having delved revolution, the rise of educated middle into Latin American archives and inter­ classes in the region, the emer­gence of viewed Latin American leaders and networks of scholars, and, hopefully, diplomats, Long narrates four revealing enlightened U.S. leadership will allow for case studies to demonstrate how appar­ more fruitful inter-American relations. ently weaker states can come out on top in their dealings with larger, seemingly Open for Business: Building the New more powerful states. Indeed, smallness Cuban Economy can be a source of strength, as govern­ BY RICHARD E. FEINBERG. Brookings ments wrap themselves in the popular Institution Press, 2016, 264 pp. banners of sovereignty and justice and rally other states to their cause, which The dramatic resumption of U.S.-Cuban Long dubs “collective foreign policy relations has focused attention on the power.” Smaller states may also be more economic and political outlook of the single-minded in pursuit of their diplo­ Caribbean island. Although the long- matic goals, whereas a global power such standing U.S. embargo of Cuba remains in as the United States may be distracted effect and can be lifted only by Congress, restrictions on U.S. companies doing 178 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

Recent Books business in Cuba are clearly easing. The Rather than write a political history of political backlash in the United States has the country, Montefiore traces in exquisite been notably muted; Cuba is less and less detail the mind-bending story of the of an issue, even among Cuban Americans. 20 tsars and tsarinas who for three The question, however, is whether, even centuries ruled Russia: how they got, after the rapprochement with Washington, used, and lost power. And what a story Cuba is prepared to open up its economy it is. Montefiore consulted an immense and politics. Feinberg offers a scrupulously number of sources, many of them original, researched and judicious analysis of the to do what he does best: capture the economic changes that have unfolded tumultuous, often grotesque politics since 2008, when Raúl Castro replaced his that dominated the inner sanctum of brother Fidel as president and initiated power while vividly bringing to life the a reform process. Feinberg rightly touts people who inhabited it. He is awed by Cuba’s expanding private sector, the (and awes the reader with) the nearly growth of the middle class, and the unbelievable mixture of traits that country’s increased openness to foreign defined the Romanovs. Cruel, libidinous, investment, but he also notes the persistent and crude almost beyond description, obstacles to sustainable growth in Cuba— they were also molders of empire and among them the behind-the-scenes strug­ skillful power brokers, holding Russia gles between hard-liners and moderate together through war, revolution, and reformers. Feinberg is clear-eyed but, in the chaos of the country’s often brutal the end, fairly optimistic about Cuba’s transformations. Once drawn into the prospects. He believes a “sunny soft drama of court intrigue—the plotting, landing” scenario will probably prevail, the power struggles, the eccentricities, and his illuminating profiles of a dozen the infidelities, the stomach-turning Cuban millennials provide some grounds orgies of retribution, and the bizarre for hope. But the slow pace of change so bacchanalias at which the early tsars far is not a heartening sign. entertained themselves—the reader will have trouble putting down this michael shifter hefty volume. Eastern Europe and Former Lysenko’s Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia Soviet Republics BY LOREN GRAHAM. Harvard Robert Legvold University Press, 2016, 224 pp. The Romanovs: 1613–1918 Trofim Lysenko, a Stalin-era Soviet BY SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE. agronomist, became infamous as a Knopf, 2016, 784 pp. symbol of flawed, politically driven science by embracing the notion that This pulsing, soaring history tells organisms can pass on traits developed the story of the Romanovs, not during their lifetimes to their offspring— of Russia under the Romanovs. and by then ravaging the field of Russian agronomy by helping purge the September/October 2016 179

Recent Books country’s most prominent geneticists, Russian intellectual émigrés in the 1920s who disagreed with him. More recently, all the way to the present, where its however, scientists have discovered warped echo resounds in the nationalist that organisms sometimes do pass on themes lately brandished by allies of “environmentally induced” gene modi­ Russian President Vladimir Putin. fications. In this spare, graceful book, Graham, the most distinguished U.S. Clover builds his analysis around historian of Soviet science, weighs in three linked biographies, each based on what epigenetics (as the new field is on remarkably careful scholarship: first, called) is doing to science, particularly that of Prince Nikolay Trubetskoy, doyen in Russia. Graham incisively recounts of the original Eurasian movement; the long controversy over the heritability then, that of the remarkable historian of acquired characteristics, and the book Lev Gumilev, who developed theories shines by uniting a succinct summary of about the nature of Slavic ethnicity; Lysenko’s ideas with a report on where and finally, that of the eccentric sociolo­ the modern debate stands, including gist Alexander Dugin, today’s most the depressing resurgence of the worst prominent advocate of Eurasianism. In aspects of Lysenko’s thinking in contem­ fascinating detail, Clover tracks the porary Russia. Graham finishes, however, way the jaundiced and largely bogus with portraits of Russian scientists thinking of these three paladins has fighting that trend and who would filtered into various Russian nationalist agree with him that, whatever the groups, Russian institutions (particu­ merits of epigenetics, Lysenko’s poor larly the military), and even Putin’s own science should share no credit. thinking. Clover offers a particularly fine portrait of Gumilev’s tortured early Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of life as a victim of Joseph Stalin’s camps. Russia’s New Nationalism While imprisoned, Gumilev developed BY CHARLES CLOVER. Yale his ethnogenetic theory on the origins University Press, 2016, 384 pp. of Russia as a Eurasian amalgam, work rediscovered by a nationalist under­ The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, current that was recrudescent in the Eurasianism, and the Construction of Soviet Union’s last years. He has been Community in Modern Russia further lionized in a post-Soviet Russia. BY MARK BASSIN. Cornell University Press, 2016, 400 pp. Bassin adds to this portrait of Gumilev a deeper and more elaborate The notion that the peoples spread exploration of the man’s diffuse but across what was once the Russian empire marked influence on different levels of constitute a separate civilization, not Russian society. A book “devoted to only distinct from the West but also nothing more than his ideas themselves superior to it, is back in vogue. Clover would arguably not need to be written,” traces this belief, called “Eurasianism,” Bassin notes, given their speculative, back to its roots among fractious White unscientific, and mystical character. What needs explaining is their peculiar impact on politics and on academic and popular discourse in contemporary 180 f o r e i g n a f fai r s

Russia. Bassin probes how Gumilev’s directory obscurantist theories about the biologi­ cal basis of politics and his vision of a Subscriber Services happy blending of the Russian “ethnos” with the ancient peoples of the steppe subs.foreignaffairs.com reverberate in the fevered consciousness tel: 800.829.5539 of a burgeoning nationalist elite in international tel: 813.910.3608 today’s Russia. Academic Resources The Silk Roads: A New History of the World BY PETER FRANKOPAN. Knopf, 2016, www.foreignaffairs.com/classroom 672 pp. e-mail: [email protected] tel: 800.716.0002 This new entry into the exclusive circle of big, brassy histories of the world Submit an Article focuses on inner Asia, from the Aegean Sea to the Himalayas. Frankopan makes www.foreignaffairs.com/submit the arresting and ultimately compelling argument that the interactions among Bulk and Institutional Subscriptions peoples in this core of civilization were far more central to global affairs than e-mail: [email protected] the developments that Western-oriented histories typically feature in order to Advertise in Foreign Affairs draw a line from ancient Greece and Rome to the Renaissance, the Enlighten­ www.foreignaffairs.com/advertise ment, and the Industrial Revolution. e-mail: [email protected] He has a point. Christianity flourished tel: 212.434.9526 earlier in the East than in the West. Before the ninth century, the north-south Employment and slave trade was dominated by Vikings Internship Opportunities who transited the rivers of contemporary Russia. And before the ascendance of www.foreignaffairs.com/jobs Islam, Persian-based Zoroastrianism prevailed over Buddhism and Christianity international editions in much of the Near East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Put simply, these Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica regions generated an immense range of historic phenomena. Frankopan deems www.fal.itam.mx all that flows from them—whether e-mail: [email protected] religion, commerce, or politics—“silk roads,” because the trade in silk under­ Rossia v Globalnoi Politike pinned it all. One comes away from (Russian) this book convinced that the multi­ www.globalaffairs.ru e-mail: [email protected] Foreign Affairs Report (Japanese) www.foreignaffairsj.co.jp e-mail: [email protected] 181

Recent Books dimensional history of the silk roads Middle East deserves a central place in an understand- ing of the roots of the modern world. John Waterbury The Habsburg Empire: A New History BY PIETER M. JUDSON. Harvard The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and University Press, 2016, 592 pp. Anarchy in the Middle East BY MARC LYNCH. PublicAffairs, 2016, Judson turns on its head the traditional 304 pp. understanding of the Habsburg empire Lynch, a prolific and keen observer as a decrepit anachronism doomed by of the Arab world, has written the long-simmering nationalist urges the leading title in what amounts of disparate ethnic groups. On the contrary, he argues, from the last half of to a second wave of analyses of the Arab the eighteenth century (when Empress revolts of 2010–11, focusing on what Maria Theresa instituted crucial went wrong. In his view, the cautious reforms) until the empire’s demise in policies of the Obama administration World War I, the Habsburg dynasty were not to blame. Rather, the problem successfully enlisted a vast array of was Washington’s traditional allies in territories and subjects in its enlight- the region: Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, ened “efforts to be a unified and and the Gulf states. In particular, Lynch unifying imperial state.” The monar- casts Qatar and the United Arab Emirates chy’s legal reforms, institutional as mice that roared, arming proxies in innovations, and cultural flexibility conflicts that have reduced Libya, Syria, created a symbiotic relationship bet­ween and Yemen to figurative and actual citizens—even the peasantry—and the rubble. Although Lynch posits that regime, not least because whatever domestic politics have tended to deter- their linguistic and religious differ- mine out­comes since the revolts, his ences, subjects were allowed to “appro- analysis in fact places a great deal of priate” or “reinterpret” Vienna’s will in importance on the interventions ways that served local interests. The launched by these two tiny (but rich) empire’s ability to inspire a transcen- countries. His case would be more dent identity and tolerate diversity persuasive if he offered additional should be the dominant lens through details about the flow of financial which its history is viewed, Judson support from these states to their argues. His bracing account could proxies in Libya and Syria. Looking to provide an overarching alternative the future, Lynch sees reasons for both framework to guide the growing optimism and pessimism. There will be number of narrower, more detailed more waves of Arab discontent, but the revisionist histories of the Habsburgs. United States will put itself steadfastly on the wrong side of history by backing its autocratic allies. 182 f o r e i g n a f fai r s

Recent Books The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the 1979 decision to defend the Persian Islamic State Gulf region. Since then, by Bacevich’s BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT. Knopf, reckoning, the United States has been 2016, 384 pp. embroiled in four wars in the Middle East (the Iran-Iraq War, the 1990–91 Gulf In ten essays based mostly on articles War, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, published in The New Yorker, Wright and the current military campaign against takes readers on a disquieting journey the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or isis), through the world of violent jihadism, plus the military excursions in Bosnia, spending time with its perpetrators, Kosovo, and Somalia, which Bacevich its theorists, its mavericks, its victims, (somewhat implausibly) links to the and its enemies. He manages to be Middle East. According to him, all these insightful without telling readers what efforts have been hugely misconceived to think. Even for those familiar with and badly executed. He is right that Saudi Arabia, Wright’s portrait of the Washington’s foreign policy and national spiritual home of contemporary jihadism security establishments have much to be will be as chilling as it is credible. His ashamed of, but he detracts significantly sketches of the hellhole called Gaza and from his analysis by adopting a sneering his profile of filmmakers in autocratic tone—General Tommy Franks, who led Syria are tangential to the main theme the fight against the Afghan Taliban but nonetheless compelling. Throughout, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was “a Wright demonstrates how the U.S. thin-skinned lout”; the use of airpower government has tripped over its own in Bosnia was “an exercise in military shoelaces in trying to counter the jihadist masturbation”—and by appointing threat. Wright’s portraits do not add himself as judge and jury and finding up to a big picture or an overarching nearly everyone guilty. His verdicts argument, but that is just as well: had would be more credible if he specified that been Wright’s aim, it would have any alternatives to the policies and been overreach. In an epilogue, he out­ decisions he condemns. But for the most lines six paths by which violent Islam is part, readers are left to puzzle out for likely to collapse or burn itself out. All themselves how the alleged miscreants of them, alas, stretch far into the future. in Washington might have done better. America’s War for the Greater Middle Building Rule of Law in the Arab World: Tunisia, Egypt, and Beyond East: A Military History BY ANDREW J. BACEVICH. Random EDITED BY EVA BELLIN AND HEIDI E. House, 2016, 480 pp. LANE. Lynne Rienner, 2016, 311 pp. Bacevich, a historian and retired U.S. The contributions to this collection Army officer, brings welcome expertise emerged from a conference held in to what he sees as the militarization of November 2012. They reflect a sense U.S. policy in the Middle East, which of optimism that has since evaporated. he dates to President Jimmy Carter’s During the intervening years, Egypt has September/October 2016 183

Recent Books turned 180 degrees and regressed to was provoked by strategic differences, autocracy, and Tunisia has struggled to not doctrinal ones. Al Qaeda wants to consolidate democracy while maintaining embed itself in local disputes and create stability and security in a dangerous operational safe havens, whereas isis neighborhood. The specialists included wants to hold territory and govern. in this volume all assume that in both Intelligence services in Syria, Turkey, places, enough political will exists to the United States, and elsewhere have establish independent judiciaries, rule- played footsie with various jihadist groups. bound police forces, civilian-controlled The Assad regime in Syria dispatched militaries, and transparent, clean govern­ jihadists to Iraq in 2006 only to watch ments. But even in Tunisia, that is not them return home, to deadly effect, in the case. The contributors examine other 2011. Lister details these developments countries that have clawed their way out but reveals less about crucial issues such of similar straitjackets (Chile, Indonesia, as how various jihadist groups recruit and Mexico) but do not explain what new members, what motivates recruits, would change the incentive structures of how they are paid, and how many casu­ today’s Middle Eastern autocrats such that alties jihadist infighting has produced. they would sponsor reforms that would He also does not address scenarios in destabilize their own rule. Even in Tunisia, which foreign patrons might abandon the deep state and former regime elements their proxies in Syria or the question of maintain the expertise and will needed to whether Iran must be defanged before reinvent the old system. To challenge the the Sunni world will grow out of its forces of atavism, reformers in the Middle jihadist obsessions. East require allies on the inside. That is Tunisia’s hope—but God help Egypt. Asia and Pacific The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic Andrew J. Nathan State, and the Evolution of an Insurgency BY CHARLES R. LISTER. Oxford The Dictator’s Dilemma: The Chinese University Press, 2016, 540 pp. Communist Party’s Strategy for Survival BY BRUCE DICKSON. Oxford Through his work at the Brookings Doha University Press, 2016, 368 pp. Center, Lister has participated in so-called Track II diplomacy—unofficial contacts China’s Future between influential nonstate actors—with BY DAVID SHAMBAUGH. Polity, 2016, leaders and rank-and-file members of 224 pp. jihadist factions in Iraq and Syria. Those experiences inform this book, which is the It would be hard to imagine two most thorough chronicle yet of jihadist more divergent views of the Chinese activity in the region since 2011. Accord­ regime than the ones presented in ing to Lister, the 2013 split between these books—which were written, as it al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate (Jabhat al-Nusra) and the Islamic State (also known as isis) 184 f o r e i g n a f fai r s

happens, by colleagues at George The Fellowship Program Washington University. Based on urban surveys and focus groups, Dickson’s The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) book finds strong levels of trust in and is seeking applicants for the following support for the Chinese government. 2017–2018 fellowship programs: Dickson teases out how these attitudes ƒ International Affairs Fellowship (IAF) are affected by the regime’s nimble use ƒ IAF in Canada of various tools: repression, propaganda, ƒ IAF in Japan, sponsored by Hitachi, Ltd. economic performance, controlled ƒ IAF in International Economics channels for complaints, limited tolera­ ƒ IAF in Nuclear Security, sponsored by tion of civil society groups, and the co­optation of ambitious young people the Stanton Foundation by the Communist Party. To be sure, ƒ Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship the regime may be digging its own grave by promoting economic growth, Program since modernization tends to make The Fellowship Program offers unique citizens less deferential. But the process opportunities for mid-career profession- of attitudinal change is slow and counter­ als focusing on international relations balanced by patriotic sentiments and a and affords fellows the opportunity to cultural commitment to order and har­ broaden their perspectives of foreign mony. Dickson doubts the regime will affairs and to pursue proposed research be forced to democratize anytime soon. in the United States and abroad. Program details, eligibility requirements, Shambaugh argues that China made and application deadlines can be found a wrong turn a few years ago toward online at www.cfr.org/fellowships. hard authoritarianism. Instead of respond­ For more information, contact ing to its many economic, social, and [email protected]. ecological challenges with the rule of law, accountability, and reform, the Council on Foreign Relations party has doubled down on vacuous Fellowship Affairs propaganda and repression. It is beset tel 212.434.9740 by corruption, slack discipline, and a [email protected] loss of self­confidence. He acknowledges that the decline may be slow and could 185 be reversed, and that the outcome will not necessarily be democracy, since the regime has stamped out democratic alternatives. But the party will even­ tually lose its grip on power if it does not undertake fundamental political reform. Both books are convincing. The reader can only conclude that the Chinese regime is like Schrödinger’s cat, alive and dead at the same time. The one truth both

Recent Books authors accept is that China’s quest for a Building China: Informal Work and the workable political system is ongoing. New Precariat BY SARAH SWIDER. ILR Press, 2015, The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden 216 pp. Genocide BY AZEEM IBRAHIM. Oxford China’s vast new cities have been built by University Press, 2016, 224 pp. millions of migrant construction workers from the countryside, who labor without Myanmar (also known as Burma) contracts, fringe benefits, or injury com­ recognizes 135 ethnic minorities and pensation. In this closely observed and treats many of them badly. But the 1.3 empathetic account, Swider describes three million Rohingyas are treated worst of types of labor arrangements. Some all: they are denied official minority migrants sign up for a year at a time with status and the citizenship rights that go trade-specialized teams that work for big with it. In the last few years, violent mobs contractors, moving among construction have forced them into camps where they sites and never making contact with the cannot work, go to school, vote, access urban society around them. Others do health care, or get passports. Many have piecework in smaller, mixed-trade groups fled, becoming stateless refugees; some put together by relatives or people from work in virtual slavery on fishing boats their home provinces. They may bring elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Ibrahim their families to live in migrant ghettos effectively discredits the historical canard in the cities, but under China’s hukou that serves as the pretext for this abuse: (household registration) system, they never that the Rohingyas, as Muslims of South acquire legal status as urban residents. Asian stock, are illegal immigrants from Under a third type of arrangement, Bangladesh who don’t belong in pre­ mi­grants pick up menial day jobs at dominantly Buddhist Myanmar. He “black labor markets,” risking physical shows that their ancestors were already abuse and taking their chances on getting living in what is now Rakhine State long paid. All these jobs are temporary. But in before the British conquest of the region the construction field, the institution of in 1826. The real problem is the effort temporary labor appears to be permanent. of successive governments to generate The workers are too fragmented and support by finding an internal enemy to vulnerable to challenge the system. demonize. During the recent democratic transition, the political party associated India at the Global High Table: The Quest with the military courted a violent brand for Regional Primacy and Strategic of Buddhist fundamentalism, while the Autonomy pro-democracy camp, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, shied away from the issue as BY TERESITA C. SCHAFFER AND a political third rail. This analytic but passionate book makes a strong case HOWARD B. SCHAF FER. Brookings that Myanmar stands “on the brink Institution Press, 2016, 350 pp. of genocide.” The Schaffers draw on their long exper­ ience in the U.S. diplomatic corps to 186 f o r e i g n a f fai r s

Recent Books provide insight into the history of that time. Perhaps the best known is India’s goals and negotiating styles. Kim Chi-ha, whose scatological poem Strategic realities impose certain imper­ “Five Bandits” alludes to the corruption atives on India, including the need to of high figures in government. The Park pursue economic development, confront regime confirmed its bad conscience Pakistani enmity, balance the rising by jailing Kim for most of its time in power of China, and constrain the power. The other three writers were foreign policy options of smaller equally quirky, brave, and talented. Ryu’s neighbors. But the manner in which close readings bring these fascinating India conducts its diplomacy is shaped works alive even for those who don’t by its self-image as home to a superior read Korean. Park’s successor, Chun civilization, its resentment of colonial­ Doo-hwan, would later say that Park ism, its suspicion of U.S. intentions, had “lost his fight against books.” its humiliation over its defeat in the 1962 border war with China, and the China’s Quest: The History of the Foreign elitist culture of its foreign service. Relations of the People’s Republic of China These factors help explain its aversion BY JOHN W. GARVER. Oxford to alliances and multilateral commit­ University Press, 2016, 888 pp. ments and its reluctance to settle issues pragmatically, which have led some China’s Quest lives up to the definitive people to characterize Indian diplo­ comprehensiveness suggested by its macy as “preachy” and “pricklish,” as subtitle. This superb, lengthy volume the Schaffers relate. Despite warming knits together thick descriptions of relations between India and the United events in China from 1949 until today States, the authors doubt that New into a clear, compelling narrative. In Delhi will cooperate as much as Garver’s telling, all of China’s modern Washington would like. leaders—from Mao Zedong, who was guided by his leftist vision, to Deng Writers of the Winter Republic: Literature Xiaoping, who prioritized market- and Resistance in Park Chung Hee’s Korea responsive economic modernization, BY YOUNGJU RYU. University of to Xi Jinping, the current president, Hawaii Press, 2015, 248 pp. who has played great-power politics and built a strongman persona—have “The Winter Republic” was a label given steadfastly pursued what they believed by a dissident poet to the dictatorial to be China’s interests. Each leader saw rule of the South Korean leader Park his country as facing a deep domestic Chung-hee, who led the country from crisis of legitimacy, and their respective 1962 until 1979; the regime imprisoned foreign policies were primarily attempts and tortured the poet for his impudence. to shore up that weakness. But their This beautifully written book analyzes efforts to legitimize the regime all the work of four other authors whose had fatal flaws, which compelled their fiction and poetry exposed political successors—or will compel them, in oppression and social injustice during Xi’s case—to reinvent the stories that September/October 2016 187

Recent Books the party told the people. With each violent environment without adequate reinvention, Beijing’s external policies food or social services. Rawlence focuses changed to fit the new line. But the on the refugees, but his book is also a Communist Party has yet to come up damning portrait of the camp as a woeful with a convincing rationale for one- failure on the part the Kenyan govern­ party rule that can simultaneously make ment and the international community. the Chinese people, China’s neighbors, As one of the book’s protagonists rue­ and the world beyond feel comfortable fully concedes, coming to Dadaab from with China’s rise and also aid domestic Somalia was like trading one version of stability and material progress. The hell for another. struggle goes on. As Garver con­cludes: “There may be further detours.” South Africa: Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy david m. lampton BY THIVEN REDDY. Zed Books, 2015, 192 pp. Africa Nicolas van de Walle South Africa’s Insurgent Citizens: On Dissent and the Possibility of Politics City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s BY JULIAN BROWN. Zed Books, 2015, Largest Refugee Camp 176 pp. BY BEN RAWLENCE. Picador, 2016, 400 pp. In these books, two South African academics examine their country’s W ith well over 300,000 increasingly contentious politics. The inhabitants, the five camps optimism inspired by the release of that make up the un base Nelson Mandela from prison a quarter in Dadaab, in eastern Kenya, constitute of a century ago and the end of apartheid the biggest refugee complex in the world. soon after has been replaced by a deep Opened in 1992, as civil war in Somalia sense of foreboding. Increasing corrup­ drove a mass exodus of refugees, the camp tion, persistently high levels of violent has expanded to take in more people crime, and an unsteady economy have with each new crisis in that country. lent South Africa the distinction of Rawlence’s stunning, disturbing portrait being both the slowest-growing country of Dadaab begins in 2011, when the rise in sub-Saharan Africa that is not engaged of the Islamist militia al Shabab ignited in a civil war and the country with the yet another cycle of violence in and region’s highest level of income inequality. around Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The book follows the daily lives of nine Reddy’s study is the more ambitious individuals in various settlements in of the two. Harnessing sophisticated Dadaab as they struggle to survive and scholarly literature on the subject, he retain their humanity in an uncertain, argues that South Africa’s past as a settler colony ruled for decades by authoritarian white supremacists has made its transition to liberal democracy particularly difficult. 188 f o r e i g n a f fai r s

Recent Books Oppressed for so long by systematic harder to spread the wealth and has violence at the hands of the white-ruled eroded the legitimacy of the ruling state, the black majority is divided into party, the African National Congress. two parts: a nationalist bourgeoisie intent on enriching itself and an alienated Africa’s Long Road Since Independence: lower class that has been ill served by The Many Histories of a Continent the transi­tion to democracy. Reddy goes BY KEITH SOMERVILLE. Hurst, beyond pessimism: he sees the country’s 2016, 500 pp. future as bleak and offers no better way forward. This introductory overview of the region’s history by a veteran bbc journalist Brown’s book features a similar focuses on broad political and economic diagnosis of what ails South Africa. trends and eschews simple takeaways. Nonetheless, his focus on the growing The book unfolds mostly in chronological mass mobilization of citizens through order, from the disappointments of the various civic associations, unions, and immediate postindependence era in the protest movements leads him to a cau­ 1960s, to the breakdown of many ruling tious optimism about the future. He regimes amid the military coups and argues that the country’s current moment civil wars of the 1970s, to the economic “of protest and insurgent citizenship, crises of the 1980s and 1990s, and finally of disruptive politics and intermittent to the tentative recovery of the last two repression,” is hopeful because it offers decades. Somerville’s most trenchant new mechanisms for poor citizens to analysis concerns civil conflicts such as contest the inequities that undermine the Rwandan genocide and the liberation South African democracy and in the struggles in southern Africa. He empha­ process forge more democratic insti­ sizes what he considers to be powerful tutions and a more meaningful form of structural constraints on the region: the political participation. He recognizes historical weight of the slave trade and the risks posed by the country’s grow­ colonialism and Africa’s weak position ing fractiousness but believes that it is in the global economy. Ironically, how­ necessary in order for the country to ever, his book illustrates the enduring consolidate and deepen the democratic influence of the colonial era: its primary transition. subject is Anglophone Africa, and the material on Francophone and Lusophone It is difficult to know the extent to Africa is rather perfunctory, reflecting which South Africa will remain a prisoner the fact that media and governments in of its past, unable to forge ahead. Low- colonial powers continue to see the level political unrest will almost certainly continent through the lens of the places continue for the foreseeable future and their countries used to control. will likely create both opportunities for and constraints on positive change. Both Reddy and Brown probably underesti­ mate the role that economics has played in the rise of discontent and will continue to play in determining the prospects for democracy: a lack of growth has made it September/October 2016 189

Recent Books The Gun in Central Africa: A History of Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa: Technology and Politics Development Without Democracy BY GIACOMO MACOLA. Ohio University Press, 2016, 266 pp. EDITED BY TOBIAS HAGMANN Macola’s history of the mid-nineteenth- AND FILIP REYNTJENS. Zed Books, century introduction of firearms into 2016, 204 pp. Malawi, Zambia, and what is today the southern section of the Democratic In the early 1990s, a wave of democracy Republic of the Congo provides a swept the African continent, leading fascinating perspective on the evolution many observers to proclaim enthusiasti­ of societies, trade, ethnic rivalries, and cally that the region was experiencing war in the decades leading up to the its “second independence.” Many European scramble for the continent. expected that with the end of the Cold Macola documents how hundreds of War, foreign powers would no longer thousands of firearms made their way support authoritarian regimes. Others into the region and further unsettled saw promise in the “democratic condi­ places that had already been destabi­ tionality” policies through which inter­ lized by the slave trade. Some ethnic national organizations and Western groups enthusiastically adopted firearms donors tied their aid to political reform. and quickly integrated them into their These hopes went largely unrealized; as war-fighting and state-building strategies. Hagmann and Reyntjens observe in this Others did not, viewing the new weapons well-organized, fascinating collection, as a threat to prevailing notions of foreign aid to authoritarian countries masculinity and honor and thus putting actually increased from 1990 to 2013. themselves at a military disadvantage. Hagmann and Reyntjens open the book Macola’s broader purpose is to place by introducing the existing debate; the study of precolonial Africa back on Nicolas van de Walle concludes it by the scholarly agenda and show how it observing the emergence of “democ­ remains relevant today. The conclusion racy fatigue” in Africa. Rita Abrahamsen of his fine book suggests a link between argues that the definition of democracy the adoption of firearms in central has changed in development-aid circles, Africa a century and a half ago and the with security and stability now prioritized motivations and actions of the young over liberty. The remaining chapters men in today’s eastern Congo who consist of six case studies of authoritarian join militias and spread insecurity countries that receive high levels of and violence. aid (Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda). Although it does not provide final answers, this volume offers compre­ hensive explanations of donors’ motives in supporting such regimes—and details the consequences of that support.∂ mamoudou gazibo 190 f o r e i g n af fai r s

Return to Table of Contents Letters to the Editor THE NEW NORMAL Franklin Williams Internship To the Editor: Martin Feldstein (“The Fed’s Uncon­ The Council on Foreign Relations is seeking talented individuals for the Franklin Williams ventional Monetary Policy,” May/June Internship. 2016) warns that the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented quantitative easing has The Franklin Williams Internship, named after created substantial risks for the global the late Ambassador Franklin H. Williams, economy. He argues that “once interest was established for undergraduate and graduate rates return to normal,” investors will students who have a serious interest in realize that they have overpaid for assets, international relations. such as commercial real estate, and another crash may be on the horizon. Ambassador Williams had a long career of public service, including serving as the Yet interest rates may remain low American Ambassador to Ghana, as well as the for years. Since 2008, U.S. government Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Lincoln debt has grown from under 40 percent University, one of the country’s historically of gdp to nearly 80 percent, a ratio that black colleges. He was also a Director of the in a closed economy would crowd out Council on Foreign Relations, where he made other borrowing and cause interest rates special efforts to encourage the nomination of to rise. But the United States is by no black Americans to membership. means a closed economy. U.S. trading partners have been more than willing to The Council will select one individual each purchase U.S. government debt at low term (fall, spring, and summer) to work in interest rates. Indeed, interest rates are the Council’s New York City headquarters. lower than they’ve been for a century. The intern will work closely with a Program Director or Fellow in either the Studies or Because foreign investors hold more the Meetings Program and will be involved than one-third of U.S. government debt, with program coordination, substantive it has not crowded out private domestic and business writing, research, and budget investment. As a result, interest rates management. The selected intern will be have not risen. required to make a commitment of at least 12 hours per week, and will be paid $10 an hour. The Federal Reserve may have little discretion to raise rates in the medium To apply for this internship, please send a term, while other countries are offering résumé and cover letter including the se- negative interest rates. Although the mester, days, and times available to work to Fed’s mandates are price stability and the Internship Coordinator in the Human full employment, the Fed is unlikely to Resources Office at the address listed below. ignore the effect of any rise in interest The Council is an equal opportunity employer. Council on Foreign Relations Human Resources Office 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065 tel: 212.434 . 9400 fax: 212.434 . 9893 [email protected] http://www.cfr.org 191

Letters to the Editor rates on the strength of the dollar. Even Union do, according to the Inter­ a small rise in the Fed’s interest rates national Renewable Energy Agency, would strengthen the dollar and worsen and Chinese and Indian regulators are the United States’ export position. more likely to welcome risky technologies than their Western counterparts are. Lastly, the United States has enormous Those countries could serve as the sums of capital—some $24 trillion— testing grounds for the widespread held in pension funds. Although many deployment of the new technologies state and local pension funds are woe­ the world needs. fully underfunded, they nonetheless have trillions of dollars invested in stocks paul bubbosh and bonds. In a world awash in capital, sustained low rates of return may be Former Director, Energy Security the new normal. Division, U.S. Department of Energy david robinson Senior Lecturer, Haas School of Busi- ness, University of California, Berkeley FROM LAB TO MARKET To the Editor: Varun Sivaram and Teryn Norris (“The Clean Energy Revolution,” May/ June 2016) present a sobering reality about clean energy technologies: today’s solar panels and wind turbines are prob­ ably not sufficient if the world wants to meet the emissions-reduction goals set at the Paris climate conference. Their call for massive investment in next-generation green technologies fails to address a crucial problem, however: how such technologies can be rolled out at scale in a way that is commercially viable. The best places for moving innovative technologies from the laboratory to mass use are in the developing world. Together, China and India have as much potential for scaling up renewable technologies as the United States and the European Foreign Affairs (ISSN 00157120), September/October 2016, Volume 95, Number 5. Published six times annually (January, March, May, July, September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. Print subscriptions: U.S., $54.95; Canada, $66.95; other countries via air, $89.95 per year. Canadian Publication Mail–Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. postmaster: Send address changes to Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 60001, Tampa, FL 33662-0001. From time to time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers information about products or services that we believe will be of interest. If you prefer not to receive such information, please contact us at the Tampa, FL, address indicated above. 192 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

SHAPING TOMORROW’S Tai Ming Cheung LEADERS TODAY Associate Professor; Director, UC Institute Solution driven. Pacific focused. Global results. on Global Conflict and Cooperation The School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) at UC San Diego attracts recent college graduates and accomplished professionals with its world-renowned expertise in the Pacific region and innovative science and technology policy research. UC San Diego GPS: Where change happens. Degree Programs Ph.D. in Political Science and International A airs Master of International A airs Master of Public Policy Master of Chinese Economic and Political A airs Master of Advanced Studies in International A airs (Executive Degree)