The Cold War is often interpreted as a moment when international cooperation was paralyzed due to the rivalry between the western and eastern blocs. Against this view, Sandrine Kott shows how the Cold War in fact stimulated multilateralism.
Indonesia is known to be the most-populated Muslim-majority country in the world. With an interdisciplinary perspective, Delphine Allès’ book highlights the roots and continuities of the influence of Islam in political and foreign policy developments of contemporary Indonesia.
Elizabeth C. Hoffman claims that America has never been an empire. From the era of the founders to the end of the Cold War, her book defends the notion of a self-interested but fair umpire in issues of foreign policy. Thomas Bender shows us why the notion of empire yet applies to America’s complex use of power.
Although today’s world is more interdependent than ever, it is still a jigsaw puzzle of sovereign states. One consequence of globalization is that we have to update our own mental maps, and to understand other people’s. In this interview, the diplomat and geographer Michel Foucher explains the world’s new geography.
An ambitious and encyclopedic book sheds new light on post-Cold War history. To Daniel Yergin, the rise of energy, economic and financial nationalisms throughout the world has been a grave threat to the globalized, liberal markets that guarantee the world’s prosperity.
The Algerian war was more than an episode of French-Algerian history: it brought about the emergence of the transnational system in which we now live. Matthew Connelly, a member of a cohort of diplomatic historians who have struggled to change our view of international relations, invites us to see this conflict for what it really was: the end of empire, but certainly not that of decolonization.
The history of the relationship between Israel and the European Union is one of contradictions. Israel would like closer cooperation but is skeptical of Europeans’ pro-Palestinian bias; Europe would like greater intervention in the region but wants to pursue its geopolitical agenda independently of the conflict. What could their rapprochement look like?
Already troubled by the recognition of the independence of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian republics, many regional leaders in the Russian Federation are questioning Moscow’s control, and accuse Moscow of managing the economic crisis in an authoritative way. The “power vertical”, the main axis of Putin’s doctrine to maintain control over the Federation since 2000, could be weakened.
Two months after taking office, is it possible to outline some elements of Obama’s future policy? Dick Howard examines the new political conditions brought about by his election. Obama has rehabilitated the idea of government, but it remains to be seen how he will use his strong political credibility to cope with dramatic domestic and foreign challenges.
What are the origins of American exceptionalism? How much of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and the temptation of imperialism can one ascribe to this belief in an America outside of the world stage? Thomas Bender, American historian, proposes a new narrative of American history in this time of change to give it back its rightful place, as a history among histories.
New strategies have been tested in Iraq since 2007. Mary Kaldor describes the theoretical origins of this new doctrine of lesser force and greater population concern and discusses its outcomes and potential enforcement in Afghanistan.
The Middle East has become the theater of a generalized “politics of error.” Particularly since 9/11, errors of comprehension have intertwined with errors of calculation in ways that destabilize the regional system and make for an even more uncertain future.
