As editor of Modern Age in the 1960s, Eugene Davidson introduced each quarterly issue with a thought-provoking contemplation of one or another of the decade's dizzying events. Gathered together here for the first time, the essays in Reflections on a Disruptive Decade present an intellectual conservative's perspective on an era which, because it underscores so many of the political divisions still with us today, continues to hold our fascination.

Davidson deals with the marvelous but confused realm of post-1945 international politics, in which the American people faced a new enemy, one often baffling and terrifying. The Cuban missile crisis was probably the most uncertain moment in foreign policy during this century. Although the crisis was resolved without bloodshed, there was intense danger of irrationality, for the Russians foolhardily had sent nuclear missiles to Cuba.

Other topics Davidson addresses are the Civil Rights movement, the policies and programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and the East-West battles of ideology and arms in Europe, Vietnam, and the Middle East. With remarkable shrewdness, Davidson illuminates many contradictions and excesses of the decade's liberal ascendancy, and presciently detects signs pointing to a resurgence of the nation's conservative forces.

Although more than thirty years have passed, Davidson's essays still contain great clarity, and his appraisals are still keen. Reflections on a Disruptive Decade is a truly remarkable addition to the work of this distinguished scholar.

From the earliest campaign against Augusto Pinochet’s repressive practices to the recent massive demonstrations against the World Trade Organization, transnational collective action involving nongovernmental organizations has been restructuring politics and changing the world. Ranging from Santiago to Seattle and covering more than twenty-five years of transnational advocacy, the essays in Restructuring World Politics offer a clear, richly nuanced picture of this process and its far-reaching implications in an increasingly globalized political economy. The book brings together scholars, activists, and policy makers to show how such advocacy addresses—and reshapes—key issues in the areas of labor, human rights, gender justice, democratization, and sustainable development throughout the world.

A primary goal of transnational advocacy is to create, strengthen, implement, and monitor international norms. How transnational networks go about doing this, why and when they succeed, and what problems and complications they face are the main themes of this book. Looking at a wide range of cases where nongovernmental actors attempt to change norms and the practices of states, international organizations, and firms in the private sector—from debt restructuring to protecting human rights, from anti-dam projects in India to the prodemocracy movement in Indonesia—the authors compellingly depict international nongovernmental organizations and transnational social movements as considerable, emerging powers in international politics, initiating, facilitating, and directing the transformation of global norms and practices.

Contributors: Karen Brown Thompson, U of Minnesota; Charles T. Call, Brown U; Elizabeth A. Donnelly, Harvard U; Darren Hawkins, Brigham Young U; Thalia G. Kidder; Smitu Kothari; Paul J. Nelson, U of Pittsburgh; August Nimtz, U of Minnesota; Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Jackie Smith, SUNY Stony Brook; Daniel C. Thomas, U of Illinois, Chicago.

 

The end of the Cold War should have been an occasion to reassess its origins, history, significance, and consequences. Yet most commentators have restated positions already developed during the Cold War. They have taken the break-up of the Soviet Union, the shift toward capitalism and electoral politics in Eastern Europe and countries formerly in the USSR as evidence of a moral and political victory for the United States that needs no further elaboration.

This collection of essays offers a more complex and nuanced analysis of Cold War history. It challenges the prevailing perspective, which editor Allen Hunter terms "vindicationism." Writing from different disciplinary and conceptual vantage points, the contributors to the collection invite a rethinking of what the Cold War was, how fully it defined the decades after World War II, what forces sustained it, and what forces led to its demise. By exploring a wide range of central themes of the  era, Rethinking the Cold War widens the discussion of the Cold War's place in post-war history and intellectual life.

Revolutions, as much as international war or nationalism, have shaped the development of world politics. In cause, ideology, and consequence they have merited description as a “sixth great power” alongside the dominant nations. In Revolution and World Politics Fred Halliday reassesses the role of revolution from the French Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and the collapse of communism.
Halliday begins by tracing the origins and evolution of the modern concept of “revolution” and placing it in historical context. Arguing that revolution is central to any understanding of international relations, he examines the internationalist ideology of revolutionaries who are committed to promoting change elsewhere by exposing revolution. In contrast with the claims of revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries alike, he sees revolutions both as part of an internationalist social conflict and as a challenge to the system of states. Chapters on the distinct foreign policies of revolutionary states are followed by discussions of war, counterrevolution, and postrevolutionary transformation. The study concludes with a reassessment of the place of revolution within international relations theory and in modern history, drawing out implications for their incidence and character in the twenty-first century.
Students and scholars of international relations, political science, sociology, and history will value this major contribution to understanding worldwide developments in government and society.

In Rising Powers and Foreign Policy Revisionism, Cameron Thies and Mark Nieman examine the identity and behavior of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) over time in light of academic and policymaker concerns that rising powers may become more aggressive and conflict-prone. The authors develop a theoretical framework that encapsulates pressures for revisionism through the mechanism of competition and pressures for accommodation and assimilation through the mechanism of socialization.  The identity and behavior of the BRICS should be a product of the push and pull of these two forces as mediated by their domestic foreign policy processes.

State identity is investigated qualitatively through the use of role theory and the identification of national role conceptions. Both economic and militarized conflict behavior are examined using Bayesian change-point modeling, which identifies structural breaks in time series data, revealing potential wholesale revision of foreign policy. Using this innovative approach to show that the behavior of rising powers is governed not simply by the structural dynamics of power but also by the roles that these rising powers define for themselves, they assert that this process will likely lead to a much more evolutionary approach to foreign policy and will not necessarily generate international conflict.
 

Ronald Searle, a master of modern caricature, has tremendously influenced the work of other artists. His biting, darkly satirical wit and unique graphic style have also earned him admirers from far and wide; Groucho Marx called him a genius, and John Lennon named him as one of two people (along with Lewis Carroll) who most affected his life.
Since 1995, Searle has plied his sardonic trade on the coveted op-ed pages of the French daily newspaper Le Monde. This book presents more than a hundred of the best of these cartoons, ranging across politics, the new Europe, the nature of the contemporary economy, social games, and various "angels," both benign and mischievous. Whether skewering the greed of the rich with images of men in suits padding each other's pockets with cash or conducting business under the table, or making a poignant comment about how much harder peace has to work than war to stay in the same place, Searle displays the same pungent, incisive, yet infinitely humane wit. The deceptive simplicity of his lines and shadings combine with meticulously observed details of dress, background, and facial expression to produce arresting images that convey his messages powerfully and beautifully.

By turns delightful, amusing, and disturbing, but always deeply thought provoking, Searle's work reaches well beyond the specific occasion that inspired a given cartoon to illuminate key aspects of public life in the West at the end of the millennium. This book contains twenty-five illustrations not found in the French edition, together with a new preface for English-speaking readers written by Searle himself.