This book seems to have been overlooked in the rush to understand Islam in the aftermath of 9-11.I recommend it because it provides two reasoned case studies on how two different states, Malaysia and Pakistan, used the intensity of Islam to legitimize their governments and states.
In the end, both had to control their fanatics.
Well documented, with good notes and bibliography, this book is the first in a new series from Oxford on Religion and Global Politics. It is a very fine first start, and in the aftermath of 9-11, I would suggest to the editors of the series that they dramatically accelerate their other endeavors–at least three more books are needed on Islam in relation to state politics, in relation to political economy, and in relation to neighborhood or ethnic politics; and several others on the relationship of Judaism and Catholicism and Mormonism to state structures. A special emphasis on religious education and how this affects political perceptions would be helpful.
This is a thoughtful book and one that should be part of the broader reading on Islam and global politics.
I recently secured from those who study conflict in Europe several recommendations for core readings, and this book was in their top three, along with Monty Marshall's “Third World War” and the edited work, “Human Security and The New Diplomacy.” All three are excellent.This book is most helpful in that it actually studies conflicts in the Third World, and ends up with documented conclusions or in some cases speculations about:
1) why subjective factors including culture sometimes allow the defeat of forces whose numbers, lethality, and wealth would normally be expected to be invincible;
2) how “absorbtion” through training and leadership are at least as important if not more important than the actual provision of arms;
3) how seapower and airpower play out differently in the Third World than in conventional battlegrounds;
4) what lessons might be drawn from the Third World regarding the design and acquisition of weapons technology, both in the offense and in the defense;
5) the critical importance of economic, social, and cultural factors in determining the outcomes of otherwise high-tech wars;
6) the relative absence of decisive victories, making military power relatively meaningless unless it is accompanied by “peace in force” and the follow-on civil affairs, law enforcement, agricultural and other infrastructure, investments; and
7) “pain thresholds” as a critical factor.
While well foot-noted, the book lacks a bibliography and the index is average to below average–not only lacking substance but being hard to read with 8 point font size. These are shortcomings that should be corrected in the next edition. The book is recommended, and should be standard reading in all conflict courses.
Fantastic High-Quality Book on Policies and Capabilities,
March 10, 2002
John Baker
This may well be the best book RAND has ever produced–certainly the best I have ever seen or reviewed. An edited work, it brings together thirty-one authorities and integrates very high-quality editing, photography, and references. It even has an index.As one who regards the collection of imagery as a supporting event, in support of the creation of geospatially-based all-source databases and integrated analysis, I would observe that this book must be regarded as skewed toward policies and capabilities related to commercial imagery collection. It does not address the many vital topics having to do with geospatial databases, the integration of diverse sources of geospatial imagery including Russian military maps and classified digital terrain elevation data, or the integrating of imagery into the all-source analysis process.
Commercial imagery is running roughly twelve years behind the early projections on both its adoption and its gross revenue potential. This is in large part because of a consistent prejudice against commercial sourcing by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Defense Mapping Agency (now the National Imagery and Mapping Agency). There are implications to this on-going negativity for the business marketplace–the cost of commercial imagery is still much higher than it need be, simply because the government is as yet unwilling to recognize that it should spend billions on acquiring commercial source imagery, not on building even more useless secret imagery satellites.
I recommend this book strongly, both for commanders who would like to exercise some control over national imagery collection policies and investments; and for business leaders who might wish to contemplate how the taxpayer dollar could be better spent in support of generic commercial imagery capabilities whose fruits can be easily shared with the private sector and especially non-governmental organization.
The editors and the authors of this book have excelled. I can find nothing to criticize–indeed, I expect the editors to get to work immediately on a follow-on book that brings together different authorities and focuses on the database and analysis side of the matter.
Practical Manifesto for Preservation of *Value* in Nature,
February 27, 2002
Edward O. Wilson
Whereas the author's last really big book, “Consilience”, addressed the integral relationship between the knowledge offered by the humanities and that of the sciences (too often isolated and out of context), this book brings together political economy and nature.It is more easily readable than his more heavily foot-noted and astonishingly deep earlier work, but all the more valuable for its smooth overview of why life on the rest of the planet matters to the American heartland; why we must deal with the limits of food production and control population (both in terms of numbers and in terms of consumption per capita).
The heart of the book, for me, can be found in three profound numbers–numbers that we must all appreciate:
Value of the Ecosystem/Cost to Replace: $33 trillion per year in increased Gross National Product (GNP)–and presumably everything would be artificially recreated.
One-Time Cost of Fund for Preserving Nature: $24-72 billion one-time funding. His numbers vary from $24 billion (one -time) to preserve 800,000 square kilometers already under protection, to $28 billion to preserve a (different?) representative sample. The bottom line: for a one-time $100 billion investment, 25% of what the US spends on its military *every* year, we could, at our own expense, save the world.
Subsidies for Unsound Acts Against Nature: $2 trillion per year and rising ($2000 per American alone–this refers to energy, water, deforestation, and agricultural subsidies that encourage and perpetuate unsound acts against nature as well as unneeded exploitation–one example: $20 billion a year in subsidies for fishing–this is the difference between the actual value of $100 billion and the lower subsidized revenues of $80 billion a year).
Wilson's book, in combination with those by Brian Czech and L. O. Stromberg, is in my view a capstone endeavor that moves the environment to the forefront of any intelligent person's agenda. As he concludes, we have entered the century of the environment–we must save it or lose it.
Public Warning of looting and Destruction of the E-Commons,
February 27, 2002
Lawrence Lessig
I struggled with this book, in part because I really dislike the manner in which the law has been complicated to the point of unreason–beyond the ken of normal people. Having concluded the book, however, I have to say this is really worth the effort. The author is laying bare the raw threats to the future of the electronic commons. He discusses in detail how very specific government policies to sell and control bandwidth, and very specific corporate legal claims being backed by “the people's” lawyers within government, are essentially “fencing” the Internet commons and severely constraining both the rights of the people and the prospects for the future of ideas and innovation.I am not a lawyer and I cannot speak to the points of law, but I am a voter and I can speak to that; what is happening to the Internet through legal machinations that are largely invisible to the people is a travesty, a crime against humanity even if permissible by law, and perhaps grounds for a public uprising demanding the recall of any official that permits and perpetuates the theft of the commons by corporations and their lawyers.
In the aftermath of 9-11, when our secret national intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities failed us, there is a need for a restoration of the people's intelligence in the aggregate as our first line of defense against enemies both foreign and domestic. I regard this book as a very serious, thoughtful, and well-intentioned “public intelligence estimate” and warning, of the harm to our security and prosperity that will ensue from a legal system that is now “out of control” and not being audited by the common sense of the people.
This book makes it clear that if the people are inert and inattentive, they will be enslaved, “virtually speaking.” If you thought Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky was scarcy, or Norman Cousins' The Pathology of Power, then this book is for you.
Along with Internet standards acceptable to the people, we now appear to need a public advocacy group, funded by the people, to fight these corporate lawyers at every turn, whilst helping our less than stellar government lawyers cope….
Freedom without Restraint–Please Don't Eat the Daisies,
February 27, 2002
Virginia Postrel
This is a quick read, in part because it is a series of essays that are loosely connected. It is a reasoned attack on both government regulation and imposed technical standards. To the extent that it seems to deny the value of any standards, any oversight, any structure, it is unreasonable.Indeed, while I whole-heartedly agreed that government regulation has gotten completely out of control, I am much more concerned about corporate corruption (Enron simply being the latest case), and so I would say this book is valuable and worth reading but it is missing the bridge chapter to “what next?”
However, I like the book and I recommend it. Its value was driven home to me by an unrelated anecdote, the tales from South Korea of my data recovery expert. Bottom line: they are so far ahead of the United States, with 92% wireless penetration in urban areas, and free-flowing video and television on every hand-held communications-computing device, in part because they have not screwed up the bandwidth allocations and reservations as badly as we have. I was especially inspired by the thought that we should no longer reserve entire swaths of bandwidth for the exclusive use of the military or other government functions–let them learn how to operate in the real world rather than their artificial construct of reserved preference.
The book is well footnoted but the index is marginal–largely an index of names rather than ideas.
Very Thoughtful Personal Opinion, Very High Value,
February 27, 2002
George Soros
I think George Soros and Robert Kaplan, as well as others that are starting to realize that the opposite of virtue is not vice but rather virtue carried to an extreme (Jim Fox said it first, at least in this era), are on to something.Although economists of great traditional standing (Robert Samuelson comes to mind) have been very quick to denigrate, even trash, the ideas of George Soros, my personal reaction, and my own reading of 225 or so books that I have reviewed for Amazon, suggests that he is right on target. Unfettered capitalism and corporate consumerism is killing us, and is part of the problem between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism–we don't have a model for sustainable faith-based prosperity they can buy into (I am mindful of Bernard Lewis's What Went Wrong thesis).
Most recently, in The Washington Post of 24 February 2002, George Soros is quoted as saying, “We can't be successful in fighting terrorism unless we fight that other axis of evil–poverty, disease and ignorance.” Right on. Both The Future of Life and The Future of Ideas (see my reviews of those titles), and many other books now coming together in a critical mass, support basic propositions about the failure of politics, the erosion of moral contexts, and the dangers of capitalism upon public health, the environment, and the social fabric.
I would normally have rated this book with 4 stars for its lack of reference to others, but in light of the importance of the argument that George Soros makes, and the value of his own unique experiences bridging the worlds of poverty and wealth, American and Eastern European challenges and biases, I have to give this a 5–and wait to see our academic economists do better.
