A new book, which argues that the sister of North Korea’s leader is the most dangerous woman in the world, fails to convince.
Twisted Sister?
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Books
Book Review: Dissidents of the International Left
A book of interviews with progressives from all over the world challenges received notions, tackles complex questions, and explains what solidarity really means.
Soldiers Who Fight War
A new book refutes a central myth about the Vietnam War.
The Syrian Labyrinth
Reese Erlich’s new book on Syria combines on-the-ground reporting with an encyclopedic background in the region’s history.
Crusade 2.0: The West’s Resurgent War on Islam
Crusade 2.0 examines the resurgence of anti-Islamic sentiment in the West and its global implications. John Feffer discusses the influence of three “unfinished wars”–the Crusades, the Cold War, and the current “war on terror.” He presents a timely, concise, and provocative look at current events in the context of historical trends and goes beyond a “clash of civilizations” critique to offer concrete ways to defuse the ticking bomb of Islamophobia.
All Over the Map: The Best of World Beat
Foreign policy analyst John Feffer looks at global affairs in the Obama era. This collection of more than 125 Foreign Policy In Focus columns covers war, peace, terrorism, global economics, culture, democracy, and the environment. It critically analyzes what’s happening all over the map, from the financial crisis to the Arab Spring, and offers specific recommendations for Washington policymakers
Mandate for Change: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond
Three decades ago, conservative ideologues at The Heritage Foundation produced a primer on the Reagan Revolution entitled Mandate for Leadership, which offered an overarching philosophy against the role of government and in favor of markets.
Today, IPS has taken on the same task for the Obama administration. Mandate for Change is aimed at strengthening the new administration at a time when the need for progressive policies — and appointing progressive people to lead such efforts—is most urgent.
Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War
IPS research fellow and FPIF peace and security editor Miriam Pemberton has teamed up with New America Foundation scholar William D. Hartung to produce a new book that pulls together the thinking of some great minds on the lessons we should be able to take from the Iraq War disaster.
This war may actually have an upside: it should permanently discredit quite a few policies and practices. Preventive war. Politicized intelligence. Coalitions of the coerced. New frontiers of media manipulation. This book’s editors drew up a list, and asked the experts on each to boil down what they know for the rest of us. The authors include The Three Trillion Dollar War‘s Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, pre-war UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, National Book Award winner Frances Fitzgerald, NYU legal scholar Aziz Huq, and artist-restauranteur-activist Anas Shallal.
Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War (Paradigm Publishers, 2008) is short, accessible and affordable. As Barbara Ehrenreich said, “Read this compelling set of essays and join the movement to prevent the next war.”
The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time
The Bush Agenda is the first book to expose the Bush Administration’s radical economic agenda for global domination, a plan more extreme, unilateral and audacious than any of his predecessors, a plan that has created the greatest level of violent opposition to America and Americans in recent history.
This book addresses the history of U.S. economic relations throughout the world over the past 25 years, the key role of U.S. corporations, and the larger Bush economic agenda and what the potential impact of this agenda will be on the United States and the world. It concludes with specific alternatives to guide the U.S. on a more peaceful and sustainable course in the future. Using Naomi Klein’s No Logo and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation as models, The Bush Agenda is based on hard analytic fact and presented so that it will not only be persuasive, but highly engaging and entertaining to a broad audience.
North Korea/South Korea
War is looming on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has declared that it possesses nuclear weapons. The United States is tightening an economic noose around the country in an attempt to force a regime change. The Bush administration is also keeping a military option on the table, a prospect that terrifies all the countries of East Asia, particularly South Korea. A terrifying spiral of tensions has resulted. The aggressive stance of the U.S. government has hardened North Korea’s position and threatened rapprochement between North and South. North Korea, meanwhile, is desperate to develop a deterrent that will prevent the Bush administration from following the Iraq scenario with a campaign of aerial bombing.