New Books In World Affairs

What are the multiple meanings, ambivalences, possible risks, and potentials for transformation that arise from interrogating empathy on a transnational scale? Carolyn Pedwell (University of Kent) thinks through these complex questions in her new book, Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). The book ambitiously traverses multiple disciplinary and intellectual boundaries, drawing together feminist and anti-racist social theory, media and cultural studies, international development texts and practices, scientific studies of empathy, the political rhetoric of Barack Obama, business books on empathy, and more. In doing so, Pedwell queries empathy as a social and political relation that cannot be separated from power, conflict, oppression, and inequality. This book explores the ways that empathy is a contested term employed transnationally in various ways and on behalf of various political and social interests, traces the ways that empathy might be translated and fel

Nicole Starosielski‘s new book brings an environmental and ecological consciousness to the study of digital media and digital systems, and it is a must-read. The Undersea Network (Duke University Press, 2015) looks carefully and imaginatively at the geography of undersea cable networks, paying special attention to the materiality of network infrastructure and its relationships with the histories of the Pacific. The book revises what we think we know about the infrastructure of global networks: they are not “wireless,” but wired; not rhizomatic and distributed, but semicentralized; not deterritorialized, but “territorially entrenched”; not resilient, but precarious and vulnerable; and not urban, but rural and aquatic. After providing a broad overview of three major eras of cable development – the copper cables of the 1850s-1950s, the coaxial cables of the 1950s-1980s, and the fiber-optic cables of the 1990s on, in each case focusing on the importance of security, insulation, and interconnection – Starosielski

Tom Jackson‘s Chilled: How Refrigeration Changed the World and Might Do So Again (Bloomsbury, 2015) is a completely engrossing look into the history and technology of refrigeration.  This book reads like an expanded chapter of James Burke’s classic book Connections.Refrigeration is not only one of the most important foundation stones of our technological society, it’s also one that we take for granted. It’s hard to say which is more interesting; the realization that people were aware of a cooling method almost two millennia before the birth of Christ, the history of refrigeration from the Middle Ages to the present, or the possibilities for refrigeration technology in the world of the future. Chilledis a fascinating look into one of the most amazing and important technologies that man has ever developed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Paul A. Christensen‘s new book is a thoughtful ethnography of drinking, drunkenness, and male sociability in modern urban Japan. Focusing on two major alcohol sobriety support groups in Japan, Alcoholics Anonymous and Danshukai, Japan, Alcoholism, and Masculinity: Suffering Sobriety in Tokyo (Lexington Books, 2014) explores the ways that admitting to and living with alcoholism in Japan challenges prevailing norms of masculinity and sociability, and looks carefully at its profound consequences for the individual sufferer. After a brief history of alcohol and drunkenness in Japan, Christensen considers the ubiquitous coding of alcohol as fun and leisurely in mass media, and directs our attention to the difficulties that this framing creates for male alcoholics. The book then moves to a discussion of historical shifts in notions of addiction in Japan, as well as contemporary debates over treatment methodologies and the ways that methodologies transplanted into Japan from the US map – or not – onto local cultur

Ellen Hazelkorn, Policy Advisor to the Higher Education Authority (Ireland) and Director of the Higher Education Policy Research Unit (HEPRU), Dublin Institute of Technology, provides an in-depth analysis of higher educational rankings and what they mean globally in the second edition release of Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education: The Battle for World-Class Excellence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). The author explores the measurements, metrics, and processes used by the most influential university rankings, such as Academic Ranking of World Universities, QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education’s the World University Rankings, and others. From the perspective of higher education institutions, to students and policymakers, the book is an essential resource for understanding this pressurized educational discourse, which now impacts almost every country throughout the world. Professor Hazelkorn, who is also President of the European Association of Institutional Research (EAIR) and on the Ma

Video games have become an important cultural and economic force in our media environment. In his new book, The Video Game Business (British Film Institute, 2014), scholar Randy Nichols provides an overview of the increasingly diverse global market for video games. Nichols locates the origins of the video game industry back to the dawn of the computer age in the 1960s. He then explores the emergence of an industry around video games, noting the interdependence of hardware and software across a number of key “epochs”: from consoles to computer gaming to the explosion of mobile gaming. Throughout the book, Nichols explores key moments of transition in video games by providing institutional profiles of key industrial players in the industry. His critical analysis of power in the video game industry also explores the role of labor and audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Professor James Gelvin joins host Jonathan Judaken to discuss the Arab Uprisings, democratization in the Middle-East and Northern Africa, ISIS, al-Qaeda, terrorism, and America’s role imposing neo-liberal economic policies in the Middle East that have strongly shaped the political economy of the region. James Gelvin is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His most recent book is the revised and updated edition of The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2012). If you want to be informed about what’s going on in the Middle East today, this short, easy-to-read book is the best work out there. For more information on James Gelvin, you can click here to visit his UCLA website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary (Columbia University Press, 2014) is a masterful account of the importance of the stereotype in English language South Asian literature. Mrinalini Chakravorty explores such tropes as the crowd in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children; slums in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger; and death in Michael Ondaatje’s book Anil’s Ghost, amongst others. The focus on the stereotype’s enticing explanatory power casts fresh light on some of the most important contemporary works of South Asian literature and the book is a pleasurable yet challenging read. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Korea presents a fascinating chapter in the history of Christianity. For instance, the first continuous Christian community in the peninsula was founded by Koreans themselves without any missionaries coming into the country. In their new book, A History of Korean Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2014),Sebastian C. H. Kim and Kirsteen Kim provide the first English-language study that covers the history of Christianity, including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy, from its beginnings in the peninsula to the present day. This thoroughly-researched work skillfully weaves together such subjects as church-state relations, spirituality, and the global impact of Korean Christianity, into a narrative that is easy for someone unfamiliar with the subject to follow, but deep enough that experts in the field will gain much from a careful reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-aff

How can a practical philosophical perspective concerned with justice and fairness help us address the problem of climate change? Henry Shue (Merton College, Oxford) tackles this essential question in his book Climate Justice: Vulnerability and Protection (Oxford UP, 2014). The book collects twenty-five years of Shue’s innovative work on climate justice into one rich and comprehensive volume. This conversation discusses the relation between climate justice and international inequality, justice between generations, alternative energy, how the science of climate change can inform philosophy, and more. The book is sure to be important for philosophers, scholars of human rights and international ethics, environmental studies and political theory, international institutions and global politics scholars, and other fields. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

The Tour de France is happening right now! The 2015 edition started on July 4th and will continue until July 26th. I’m excited to be able to share this interview with Eric Reed about his new book, Selling the Yellow Jersey: The Tour de France in the Global Era (University of Chicago Press, 2015) as riders make their way through the various stages of this, the most famous bike race in the world. A compelling historical narrative of the Tour, including some of its most significant moments and stars, Selling the Yellow Jersey explores the Tour as a global phenomenon. Reed argues that, over the course of the twentieth century, France was a full participant in a globalization that the Tour exemplified as a business and media enterprise, and a spectacle consumed by millions of fans around the world. Considering the roles of organizers, riders, and spectators within and outside of France, the book examines the meanings of “Frenchness” in contexts regional, national, and global. From the Tour’s emergence in 1903 dur

Sarah S. Bush is the author of The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Dunn is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Temple University. Bush’s book examines the assortment of strategies countries use to promote democracy abroad. She tracks a change in strategy over the last several decades that are increasingly compatible to existing regimes. Rather than the approaches taken in the 1980s, which often threatened regime change, more recent attempts to spread democracy have become much tamer. The turn to non-governmental organizations to deliver these programs has changed the nature of democracy assistance. The book ends with two interesting illustrative case studies drawn from Tunisia and Jordan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

How is “the public sphere” best conceptualized on a transnational scale? Nancy Fraser (The New School for Social Research) explores this pressing question in her book Transnationalizing the Public Sphere (Polity, 2014). Opening with Fraser’s foundational essay, “Transnationalizing the Public Sphere: On the Legitimacy and Efficacy of Public Opinion in a Post-Westphalian World,” the book then contains critiques of the essay from a range of scholars working in different fields and concludes with Fraser’s reply, “Publicity, Subjection, Critique.” The interview covers the history and formation of public sphere theory, the currents and forces in the “postnational constellation” that demands its rethinking, critical theory, what normative legitimacy and political efficacy look like on the transnational scale, and more. The book is of interest to democratic theorists, scholars of globalization, critical and postcolonial theorists, media studies scholars, and other fields. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap

Most world religions textbooks follow a structure and conceptual framework that mirrors the modern discourse of world religions as distinct entities reducible to certain defining characteristics. In his provocative and brilliant new book Meta-Religion: Religion and Power in World History (University of California Press, 2015), James Laine, Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College challenges this dominant paradigm of world religions textbooks by showcasing an approach that instead focuses on the interaction of religion and power across time and space. At once ambitious and lucid, Meta-Religion narrates the story of the complex intersection of religion and politics in multiple moments, places, and traditions. A hallmark of this book is the way it engages the religious and political history of Islam and Muslim societies in conversation with other religious traditions. What emerges from this exercise is a rich and fascinating picture of the complicated and at times conflicting ways in which religiousl

The subject of statebuilding has only become a more visible issue since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, the world has continued to deal with a host of problems related to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and collapse of authority in “failed states” such as Somalia. The recent U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have raised important questions about how best to establish legitimate and well-functioning governments in these countries. If these issues were not enough, the global community still needs to find lasting solutions to the fallout of Syrian civil war and rise of ISIS/ISIL. Countries such as Yemen, Libya, and even Egypt also face a host of statebuilding issues. Drawing on his theological studies and work as an international civil servant, Denis Dragovic addresses the subject of statebuilding in his new book Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding: Roman Catholic and Sunni Islamic Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). This work explains why scholars and polic

[Re-posted with permission from Who Makes Cents?] Today’s guest discusses the history of aviation and how this provides a lens to interpret the history of capitalism and U.S. foreign relations across the twentieth century. Amongst other topics, Jenifer Van Vleck tells us how the airline industry helped solve various political and logistical challenges for the U.S. government during World War II and how the airlines relied on the government and vice-versa. Jenifer Van Vleck is Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. She is author of Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy (Harvard University Press, 2013). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Historically, Venezuela is known as one of the most stable Latin American nations of the twentieth century. The subsequent discovery of oil transformed Venezuela into a petrostate. Yet wealth inequality dramatically increased. Against this economic and social disparity, Hugo Chavez rose to power, becoming one of a number of dynamic Latin American politicians. But what legacy did Chavez leave behind after his death in 2013, and how has his successor, Nicholas Madruo, fared in continuing the Bolivarian Revolution? Rory Carroll is a journalist with The Guardian and spent a number of years in Venezuela. His book, Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela (Penguin Books, 2013), recounts his time in Latin America. Speaking to Venezuelans on both side of the political spectrum, from farmers to ex-politicians and government insiders, Carroll discovers that opinions of Chavez’s presidency are sharply divided. However, many agree that Hugo fundamentally changed the destiny and vision of Venezuela. Learn more about your ad ch

Benjamin Schmidt‘s beautiful new book argues that a new form of exoticism emerged in the Netherlands between the mid-1660s and the early 1730s, thanks to a series of successful products in a broad range of media that used both text and image to engage with the non-European world. Inventing Exoticism: Geography, Globalism, and Europe’s Early Modern World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) takes readers into the Dutch ateliers in which exotic geography was produced by bookmakers, paying special attention to frontispieces and other paratexts through which these editor-printer-booksellers created a new way of looking at the world. Picturing, here, was a kind of performance. Schmidt considers how the exotic, non-European body was produced not just in texts and pictures but also in a range of material arts that depicted the body experiencing pleasure and pain. The book concludes by looking ahead to the middle of the eighteenth century, when there was a backlash against exotic geography, and a call for more “o

For as long as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has been a staple of the American literary canon, one element often goes unnoticed. The ship commanded by the monomanacial Ahab on his quest to slay the great white whale is named the Pequod, just one letter of difference from Pequot, a Native nation living within what is now southern New England. Perhaps Mellville was just participating in the widespread romantic nostalgia of the age, when many corporate enterprises and vessels took the name of the supposedly disappearing and noble Indians. Or, maybe he was simply gesturing at the reality of the industry. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, when Moby Dick takes place, Native men from New England constituted a huge portion of the whaling workforce, some spending decades at sea, encountering diverse peoples across two oceans, and invigorating their economically marginalized reservations with vital income. These forgotten seamen finally have a chronicler in Nancy Shoemaker, professor of history at the U

The functioning of the global economy remains as relevant a topic as ever before. Commentators continue to debate the causes and consequences of the financial crisis that hit the United States from 2007-2008. They also continue to ask questions such as: How long will China keep purchasing the treasury bonds that the U.S. government needs to help finance its ever-increasing debt? Just how long can the dollar remain the global reserve currency before being replaced by another national currency or some sort of international monetary unit? Will the global flows of capital facilitated by “free-floating” exchange rates eventually undermine the healthy functioning of international economy and usher in another global depression? In his new book The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944 (Pegasus Books, 2014), journalist Ed Conway uses the story of the Bretton Woods Summit to help readers better understand the difficulties involved in creating a stable and prosperous global monetary system. In easy-to-follow and engaging prose,