Ozan Ozavci, "Dangerous Gifts: Imperialism, Security, and Civil Wars in the Levant, 1798-1864" (Oxford UP, 2021)
From Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798 to the foreign interventions in the ongoing civil wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya today, global empires or the so-called Great Powers have long assu...
12 Okt 202159min
Teun Voeten, "Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism and the Logic of Cruelty" (2020)
With an estimated 250,000 people killed in 15 years, the Mexican drug war is the most violent conflict in the Western world. It shows no sign of abating. In Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Pred...
8 Okt 202142min
Mark Atwood Lawrence, "The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Histories of the Vietnam War are not in short supply. In U.S. history, it ranks alongside the Civil War and World War Two in terms of author coverage. The aftermath of the war has received a similar a...
6 Okt 202158min
Olesya Khromeychuk, "A Loss: The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister" (Ibidem, 2021)
This book is the story of one death among many in the war in eastern Ukraine. Its author is a historian of war whose brother was killed at the frontline in 2017 while serving in the Ukrainian Armed Fo...
6 Okt 202159min
David Brenner, "Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands" (Cornell UP, 2019)
How can we best understand ethnic armed organizations on the borderlands of Myanmar? Why did the Karen embrace the military-initiated peace process in 2012, shortly after the Kachin had rejected cease...
4 Okt 202138min
Ying Jia Tan, "Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882-1955" (Cornell UP, 2021)
In Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882–1955 (Cornell University Press, 2021), Ying Jia Tan explores the fascinating politics of Chinese power consumption as electrical industries developed du...
1 Okt 20211h 17min
Daniel Larsen, "Plotting for Peace: American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers, and Britain at War, 1914–1917" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
With Britain by late 1916 facing the prospect of an economic crisis and increasingly dependent on the US, rival factions in Asquith's government battled over whether or not to seek a negotiated end to...
30 Sep 202147min
Why did the US Fail in Afghanistan?
With its ultimate debacle in August 2021, a discussion of the twenty-year military involvement of America and the West in Afghanistan is most timely. Accordingly, there is no one more pertinent to spe...
30 Sep 202129min
