(Part 2) Top products from r/geopolitics
We found 42 product mentions on r/geopolitics. We ranked the 279 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
21. Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 2
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23. African Conflicts and Informal Power: Big Men and Networks (Africa Now)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 2
Show Reddit reviews24. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 2
Great product!
Show Reddit reviews25. Century of White Worship: Anthology of East Asian Women's Sexuality
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
Show Reddit reviews26. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
Penguin Books
Show Reddit reviews27. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet
Sentiment score: -2
Number of reviews: 2
Show Reddit reviews28. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
ONEWorld Publications
Show Reddit reviews29. Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
Sentiment score: -2
Number of reviews: 2
Show Reddit reviews30. The Hidden History of the Korean War, 1950-1951: A Nonconformist History of Our Times
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 2
Show Reddit reviews31. The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 2
Show Reddit reviews32. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II--Updated Through 2003
Sentiment score: -3
Number of reviews: 2
Used Book in Good Condition
Show Reddit reviews33. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (1) (Politics of Place)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
Prisoners of Geography Ten Maps That Explain Everything about the World
Show Reddit reviews34. The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 1
Penguin Books
Show Reddit reviews35. Civilization: The West and the Rest
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Penguin Books
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37. Europe As Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Show Reddit reviews38. A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
politics
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> Of course they are not respected by Israel partisans because of their views
They're not respected by anyone on that issue, not just partisans.
> that's hardly a mark on their credentials, which are substantial
Their credentials on other issues are fine. Not on the use of terms like "Israel Lobby".
> And while it's unfortunate they endorsed that book, again, that hardly proves that the term "Israel Lobby" and its use by them is illegitimate, or that they weren't operating in good faith and by academic standards when they wrote the book about the subject
They absolutely were not operating in good faith or academic standards. And that's not just because they endorsed a Hitler apologist's book, but because the entire book doesn't conform to academic standards. Indeed, they didn't even quote or interview a single member of the government, current or former, for their work.
> To my knowledge, they were unaware of the author's antisemitism at the time.
They were not unaware. The book itself contains anti-Semitism, yet Mearsheimer praised it and read it before doing so. And then, after the book was exposed, Mearsheimer went on Stephen Walt's blog at Foreign Policy and defended his praise.
> Where was the book debunked? Stephen Walt still seems to think that his arguments weren't decisively defeated circa 2013, as per this article.
When will anyone admit defeat? The book was debunked by numerous scholars, including historians on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of much higher repute (like Benny Morris), and an entire book-length debunking was done by the former CEO of the ADL (see here).
> Edit: Do note that I'm not endorsing any particular view on the subject, all I'm saying is that the view that you're opposed to is held in good faith by serious academicians, and doesn't deserve to be outright dismissed.
No, the use of the phrase "Israel Lobby" is not held by serious academicians to be a good faith and credible term. Its very use by Walt and Mearsheimer was roundly criticized in the scholarly community and by anti-hate NGOs.
This is something that I have been looking into for the past month or so. Here are some good books that I've either read or am currently reading, and seem to have gotten positive reception from academics and experts and etc. Not all of these are specifically about all three subjects you mention, but taken as whole they will probably give you a pretty good understanding of what you want to know about.
You might also be interested in this journal paper about "McJihad", which goes over the relationship between political Islam and US hegemony, and was converted into a chapter of Carbon Democracy.
>You mean modern day Chinese like this ?
To be fair, it's not only the Chinese. It's an East Asian(Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese too) thing since it's in the innate Confucian nature to respect order, progress and authority. The colonial hangover from few hundred years past still lingers because of that.
Unfortunately, the most efficient way to become knowledgable about the Middle East is to read. A lot. The Middle East is a far more complex place than most people imagine and understanding the region requires a great deal of knowledge. I have been studying the Middle East for nearly a decade and I still feel like there is so much that I do not know. I would start by reading reputable news sources every day. Places like The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times, are the Los Angeles Times are good English language news sources that you should look at. Additionally, I have written up a suggested reading list for learning about the Middle East, though it is a bit more security-related since that's my area of expertise. I hope it helps. And feel free to ask any questions if you have them.
Books - General History of the Middle East
Books - Middle East Military History
Books - Middle East Terrorism and Substate Violence
Books - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Think Tanks
Below is a list of several different think tanks, which frequently publish everything from extension research and analysis to quick and succinct blog posts about the issues in the Middle East. Some of these think tanks specifically focus on the Middle East, while for others it is only one area of their research.
Journals, Blogs, Podcasts, and other Publications
I would first off recommend checking out the /r/geopolitics Wiki for its page on books. From there, I recommend introductory books that really help explain the geopolitical situation of the world in a cursory fashion. Consider:
For a larger list, I can recommend our 2019 Geopolitical Reading list found here:
There's an interesting book on the EU becoming some kind of mega state. It's a bit farfetched, and as far as I'm concerned both calls for a Federal Europe and fears of same are pretty overblown. Only when we start seeing any sincere indication that European states, and France, the UK, and Germany in particular, are willing to start integrating their fundamental powers of state—their military, intelligence, and policing (but particularly the military)—will anything of the sort be worth worrying about or rooting for, depending on your view.
I think this is the best intro book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-International-Political-Economy-Balaam/dp/0133402398
You're in luck, there's a whole book on this subject that recently came out and I see it getting stellar reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Defend-Australia-Hugh-White-ebook/dp/B07M8956X1
> If OP has time, there are two books that I would recommend:
> The Great War for Civilization (Niall Ferguson)
> Truman (Stephen McCullough)
Did you mean The Great War for Civilization or Civilization: The West and the Rest? I didn't see a book by that name by Ferguson.
> So what you've stated there again sounds different to the "real" neoliberalism I've had explained to me by others who claim to be neoliberals. This probably because a lot of different things could be seen as "the new liberalism".
Indeed, but how did those you talked to differ from what I said? The views I espoused are pretty consistent with other self-identifiers; see the Adam Smith Institute and Charles Peters.
> Where is it written down what a "real neoliberal" is?
There is no "written" definition because it's not an academic term. As your observing, it means different things to different people, and as with an analysis on "Marxists" you're going have to decide who to listen to. But in none of your character portrayals did you study someone who identified as a Neoliberal or advocated for the ideology.
> As I understand it, the founding text is Road to Serfdom - which reads as pretty libertarian to me.
Neoliberalism goes back to the 1930s and predates Hayek, but he's not a bad place to start. Other good historical texts:
Unlike some other ideologies, Neoliberalism changes because we try to stay up to date with both social justice and economics, which means admitting some of our past beliefs were wrong. This is why conflating us with libertarians is unfair: we don't hold the same beliefs in market divinity as they do.
>The label neoliberal itself, in its modern meaning at least, I understand appeared in the 80s as a means to criticise the policies of structural adjustment, but tracing the ideas back to Hayek and similar thinkers. Therefore isn't neoliberalism whatever those scholars were observing (market fundamentalism), as opposed to something else that later decided "hey no, we're neoliberalism!"
The people who employed "neoliberal" had no qualifications to do so. For example, a book that's becoming more common in Critical Theory discourse is David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism, which is similar to your podcast but makes the same mistakes. Harvey is a marxist anthropologist writing a book about economics, political science, and history, none of which he has any formal training in. "Neoliberal" does not appear in economic or polisci literature because it's not an academic term.
A good analogue for this is to consider "capitalism." The term is rarely if ever used in economics because of how bloated, charged, and imprecise it is. An anthropologist may write a book about European colonialism and all of its destructive, racist madness, and then ultimately conclude that "capitalism is bad", when really this had less to do with an economic system and more to with the age-old process of imperial extraction.
> What you describe just sounds like economic liberalism.
It is, but with social liberalism baked in.
> If the term neoliberalism is broadly understood by most to mean market fundamentalism... Well isn't that it's definition then?
> Again I sympathise that the "real neoliberalism" for one set of supposed neoliberals has been warped by another bunch of supposed neoliberals (see also - the various groups who claim to be the "real Marxists"). The debate could go on forever.
> If almost all people understand neoliberalism to be market fundamentalism, and those who claim to be neoliberal all seem to disagree on what it is, well I'm inclined to go with the most popular definition.
Who is this "other group" you speak of? I'd be very interested to know who you talked with that self-identified as neoliberal before embarking on your project.
The reason why this is important is because of a fundamental query in your presentation: who is your target audience? People who lobby 'neoliberal' as a pejorative already agree with you. Academics won't take this seriously. Neoliberals of my stripe would be offended. Is your intent just to criticize bad economic policies and ascribe them to an ideology? Even this is bizarre because you posit economic liberalism as inherently bad too. I almost feel like it would be useful to go over your podcast line by line, but that would tax not only your patience but your trust in me.
You mean modern day Chinese like this ?
https://www.amazon.com/African-Conflicts-Informal-Power-Networks/dp/1848138822
there are dozens of books written about the bush administration. You should try reading some of them before deciding who is and isn't grownup, because none of them contain the slightest bit of evidence for petrodollar conspiracies.
Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-Politics/dp/1501121472
>aggressive territorial expansion
Like what? like this? http://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/0805082409/ and http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II--Updated/dp/1567512526/ and http://www.amazon.com/Benevolent-Assimilation-American-Philippines-1899-1903/dp/0300030819/ and The Hidden History of the Korean War | http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-History-Korean-1950-1951-Nonconformist/dp/0316817708/ and http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/1250045061/ and http://i.imgur.com/pwQXgWn.jpg and http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/5348804 and USA’s warfare against China 1/2 | http://www.voltairenet.org/article177063.html
For a great discussion of this exact topic check out Cyber War Will Not Take Place by Thomas Rid. He takes the idea a bit farthur than i would, but as a scholar of war he has some interesting things to say about it.
Yes, in fact. I am ordering it ATM, but I would like to start with African Conflicts and Informal Power: Big Men and Networks, edited by Mats Utas. It is quite expensive here, but in a bookshop it is a lot cheaper. Although sadly I had to order mine. :/.
https://www.amazon.com/African-Conflicts-Informal-Power-Networks/dp/1848138822
Some really great choices, but I'd also suggest https://www.amazon.com/Art-Intelligence-Lessons-Clandestine-Service/dp/0143123378
Henry was state Dept ambassador in charge of countering terrorism which is a big deal geopolitically
>the "facts" presented by Mearsheimer and Walt suggest a fundamental ignorance of the history with which they deal, and that the "evidence" they deploy is so tendentious as to be evidence only of an acute bias
Morris continued to say:
>Mearsheimer and Walt often cite my own books, sometimes quoting directly from them, in apparent corroboration of their arguments. Yet their work is a travesty of the history that I have studied and written for the past two decades. Their work is riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity
Officials he spoke about pointed out he never once interviewed or spoke with them. His knowledge of Israeli history is virtually nonexistent, and his book is rife with errors. Entire book-length responses have debunked his work on Israel.
>that Israel with its fanatical pursuit in the attempt to destroy the 2SS predicted this potential future and thinks it might be the one to win out in the end?
This is an incredibly unusual claim. Israel's "fanatical pursuit" to destroy the 2SS that he predicted in 2007...despite Israel offering a two-state solution repeatedly in 2007 and 2008? Despite Israel's offer to endorse a framework deal enshrining a two-state solution in 2014? This is an unusual tack.
It is the Palestinians, as explained here, who benefit from waiting:
>Instead, the Palestinians have an attractive (in their view) “Plan B,” which is to get the Israeli concessions in international decisions, without having to make their own concessions—all while denouncing Israel and delegitimizing it in international forums. Since 2008, there are strong indications that the international route was actually the Palestinian “Plan A”—hence their intransigence in entering the talks and in the negotiations themselves.
...
>The continuation of the status quo—which appears so problematic to many Israelis and Americans—represents for the Palestinians a favorable strategic avenue that would lead, eventually, to an Arab-majority, one-state outcome. When Americans, Europeans, and even elements of the Israeli public repeatedly warn that Israel will be “lost” if it allows the status quo to persist, it does not encourage Palestinian moderation or willingness to compromise. Instead, it strengthens the underlying Palestinian assumption that a failure of negotiations is a reasonable option from their perspective. For the Palestinian leadership, all paths lead to the same destination: either Israel accepts their conditions (which, through flooding Israel with refugees, will lead to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state) or the status quo persists and Israel is supposedly lost.
The Palestinian decision to wait and park comfortably has been literally stated outright by Palestinian leaders. For example, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (the recognized Palestinian government) said back in 2009:
>Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession -- such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.
>Instead, he says, he will remain passive. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."
The reality is not what you paint. It's quite different.
Firstly, it's not accurate nor sagely to state that "every book is biased". Secondly, make sure you're using the word bias correctly. A bias, in printed media, would fail to include, ignore, diminish, and/or fail to find merit in the opposed subject matter - much more sever, in my opinion, than presenting the information with a certain perspective in mind.
That said, it's going to be difficult to find books about the Syrian War because it's still ongoing. You're basically asking for books that have either been subjected to scholarly review and the historical method, or data put out by NGOs. None of that really exists yet. But, I'd suggest this book as a start, gives a good history of wahabism and salafism, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the bin Laden family and it's ties to the KSA, and provides a pretty good framework for the various religious tensions and floes in the Middle East and North Africa. There are more scholarly books on the subject but I enjoyed his writing style and the facts are all there.
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Other than that, this is probably the most "scholarly" publication on the Syrian Civil War so far, to my knowledge.
Syrian Conflagration: The Syrian Civil War, 2011-2013
15 years later, Saddam is still dead, and Iraq is the only arab democracy, and those are the two things the war was fought for, somehting which is clear to anyone who has bothered to read about the bush administration. Anyone claiming a lack of clarity simply hasn't bothered to do even the most basic research on the subject. Additional research makes it clear that the war resulted in fewer deaths than Saddam's regime was killing. Anyone repeating the much debunked claim that the administration lied is, at this point, willfully spreading ignorance.
These questions were once debatable, but that time is long passed. they've entered the realm of verifiable history, and this piece seems to be written by someone trapped in 2006.
>civil war comparison.
Yes. That is better. Why are you comparing a country that did not experience war for decades [America] to a country that was going through 100+ years of imperialism/internal war [China]. Apples to oranges. BTW, it's not hard to make progress when American society was sending attack dogs on citizens.
 
>The US has done a lot to improve relations with Vietnam since the war. The number of civilians killed there was still smaller than Germany or Japan in WWII
Another weird comparison. Vietnam was invaded through a war of aggression after kicking out French imperialists. Both Japan and Germany were aggressors during ww2.
 
>just read about the kinds of investments and loans China is involved with in Africa
No. You show me the proof. I have yet to see any proof. If was proof, all these Western think tanks and news articles would cite them instead of writing hit pieces based on cherry picked anecdotes. Here's another debunk.
 
"The level of sophistication and analysis here is vastly superior to China's Africa Safari and other more sensational works looking at China's economic relationship with the African continent.
> Brautigam does an excellent job of demonstrating both the truths and fictions underlying Chinese aid in Africa. She generally argues that while Western countries have raised some legitimate questions about Beijing's policies, they have, for the most part, exaggerated the negative consequences of the PRC's growing presence on the continent. In fact, many of the strategies that China uses to promote trade and investment in Africa were first practiced in China by Japan and the West. Moreover, she finds high levels of hypocrisy in the complaints lodged against China by the World Bank and other institutions that have invested in the same countries that they criticize China for supporting."
> China explicitly declares that its programs are aiming for "mutual benefits" and "win-win" rather than simply dispensing charity.
> The main Chinese focus is on fostering economic development (in infrastructure, agriculture, or industry) as the path to a better future, rather than on relieving today's symptoms.
> China is consciously reusing strategies that seemed to work in developing China itself. For example, in the 1950s Japan provided China with development loans and technology tied to specific projects, and was repaid with the products of the resulting Chinese factory or mine. China perceives this as a key "win-win" strategy for development.
> While China's "no strings" policies might appear to tolerate dictatorships and corruption, Brautigam observes that in practice the West's actions are not so very different: despite all the hopeful talk of "conditionality", much Western aid, investment and military hardware still flows to extremely unpleasant regimes.
> Chinese workers (including technical experts) work relatively cheaply and typically live at close to local living standards. This is perceived as very different from the highly paid and expensively supplied Western experts.
> China's engagements are often weak on environmental issues, and on social and human rights issues. This is improving, but slowly. China tends to assume that its own internal strategy of putting development first is still the right one."
The Dragon's Gift - the real story of China in Africa
http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Gift-Story-China-Africa/dp/0199606293/
 
>Korean War
I already gave you the link that explained why Korea was and remained divided into two. That was America's work that followed a predictable pattern http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II--Updated/dp/1567512526/. Yet you are still pushing an agenda. Stop the dishonesty. You can no longer claim ignorance. Trying to blame America's crimes against humanity in Korea on China is truly reprehensible.