Book Review Blog Carnival #55: Halloween Edition 2010

Welcome to the 55th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival.  We're calling it a "Halloween Edition" in deference to the holiday being celebrated today, although there are not any entries that are particularly ghoulish, ghostly, or even impish.

We could as easily have called it the "Reformation Sunday Edition," but there don't seem to be any entries about religion -- nor do the number of posts submitted by book review bloggers add up to the equivalent of 95 theses.

Still, today's date is noteworthy for literary reasons:  it's the birthday of poet John Keats, novelists Dick Francis and Kinky Friedman, Russian writer Irina Denezhkina, and TV journalist Dan Rather.

So, with all that in mind, let's move forward and check out what book reviewers around the blogosphere have been writing about for the past couple of weeks.

HISTORY

Clark Bjorke presents American Insurgents American Patriots posted at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!, saying, "No, it's not about the Tea Party movement."  T.H. Breen's book, subtitled "The Revolution of the People," turns out, instead, Bjorke writes, "to be the story of ordinary Americans in the years 1774-1775, when what came to be called the coercive acts were imposed on the colony of Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party. An obvious connection could be drawn to today's Tea Party, one which Breen never mentions. The question sits behind his narrative, If then why not now?"

Zohar presents Book Review: John Quincy Adams by Paul C. Nagel posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life "is a biography of the sixth president of these United States. JQA, as he referred to himself to be distinguished from his prominent father, was a melancholy politician who would have rather been a man of letters, than the lawyer / diplomat / politician he turned out to be. The book is based mostly on JQA’s diary which spanned an amazing seven decades – arguably the 'most valuable historical and personal journal kept by any prominent American.'"

Michael Newton presents The Path to Tyranny, by Michael E. Newton posted at Conservative Monitor, saying, "I kept thinking that this book is irrefutable. I can't imagine academic or politician arguing intelligently with Newton's assertions or his conclusions."

Calling The Path to Tyranny a "seminal work," reviewer W.J. Rayment writes that "we are treated to historical examples of what happens when a society allows rampant, uncontrolled democracy to subvert constitutional balance within a government. Newton begins with ancient Western Civilization where in both Greek and Roman society broke down because the mass of people figured out they could violate property rights through the government. When this happened, productivity was discouraged by ever rising taxation. The declining availability of goods and services caused the frustration of the under-classes (because that an exploited economy could not support their demands). Thus, they would resort to a demagogic dictator who would ring society dry for the support of the masses in the aggrandizement of his own wealth and power."


NON-FICTION

Heather presents Review: Scent of the Missing posted at Proud Book Nerd.  This review of Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search and Rescue Dog by Susannah Charleson notes that "this story was heart-warming and amazing. The capabilities of these dogs is just fascinating, and makes me want to learn more about these animals and handlers and what all they can do. I would love to be able to witness one of these searches – well, maybe not one of the actual searches (given the circumstances usually requiring such searches), but perhaps a training search. It would be so neat to see these dogs in action first-hand."

Zohar presents Book Review: Directing Animation by David Levy posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that "'Directing Animation' by David Levy is a non-fiction book in which the author talks about …directing animated movies. As a teacher and veteran director of episodes on Adult Swim, Assy McGee, Blue’s Clues and more Mr. Levy shares many stories of his personal experience from working as an animator to running the whole show."

Zohar also gives us Book Review: The Soprano State by Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that "'The Soprano State: New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption' by ace political reporters Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure is a non-fiction book which examines New Jersey‘s love / hate relationship with the corrupt political class. You don’t have to live in New Jersey to read this book, I’m sure these shenanigans go on in other states, just not as flagrant or as often."

June Tree presents Generation Earn: A Guide To Spending, Investing and Giving Back (Book Review) posted at The Digerati Life, explaining that Generation Earn "is divided into three main areas: the first focuses on the SELF, which shares stories and advice on goal setting, budgeting, spending and investing; the second focuses on the HOME, and discusses the issues surrounding feathering our nest, the finances that fuel our personal relationships and raising a family; the third section talks about the big picture, and how we can make a positive impact on our WORLD."

June Tree also reviews a new book by Jeremy J. Siegel in Own Stocks For The Long Run posted at The Digerati Life, explaining that "In 'Stocks for the Long Run', Dr. Siegel studied the United States market going back to 1802, using data from several sources. Over that period, he found that the stock market outperformed every other asset class. In stretches of as long as 20 years — including the last 10 and 20 years — long-term government bonds have sometimes outperformed stocks. But as holding periods lengthened, he found that the stock market has almost always pulled ahead. Other studies have found similar results here and in other countries."

Evelyn Hunter presents Book Review: Incredibly Easy Chicken « The Writing Sprite posted at Writesprite's Blog, saying, "Since I love this cookbook so much and have enjoyed its content, the only thing I could think of to return the favor was to review it!" This exuberant review of Incredibly Easy Chicken adds: "If you’re tired of thinking of something to do with that bag of chicken pieces you bought and stuffed in the freezer, or if you think that chicken has just gotten too boring, this book will definitely help you out and change your mind about the wonderful uses of chicken. It will also introduce you to new ingredients that your grocery store has had all along but you either never heard of them, or just never knew they were there."

David Gross presents An Existentialist Ethics posted at The Picket Line.  He reviews Hazel Barnes’s 1967 book An Existentialist Ethics, saying that "Barnes wrestles with the question of whether an ethics can be derived from humanistic, atheistic existentialism or whether instead such an existentialism is ethically agnostic or nihilistic, as its critics have often claimed. She argues that there is an existentialist ethics that can be derived from the commandment not to be 'in bad faith' combined with some of the philosophical assumptions or conclusions of the existentialist worldview."

Khaleef @ KNS Financial presents The Secret to a Successful Budget: Book Review posted at Faithful With A Few, saying, "Recently Craig Ford of Money Help For Christians released a book about creating a budget called, "The Secret to a Successful Budget". This is one of the most helpful, comprehensive, and understandable guides to creating a budget around!" The review goes on to say that "whether you are looking for a resource to approach a budget for the first time, have failed at budgeting many times before, or are an experienced budgeter looking for a fresh perspective, this book is certain to provide you with a wealth of information. Craig provides organized and varied approaches to budgeting to compliment any lifestyle."

Danette M. Schott presents Aspergirls: Some Kind of Girl Hero? posted at Help! S-O-S for Parents.  "Aspergirls" is a term for women with Asperger's Syndrome.  Schott writes that Aspergirls: Empowering Females With Asperger Syndrome, by Rudy Simone, "looks at everything from school, puberty, friendships, sex, marriage, and more, and also includes the thoughts of 35 women with AS or high-functioning autism (HFA), as well as thoughts from their significant others and parents. Rudy ends each chapter with some advice to parents and some advice to Aspergirls.

Kara Williams offers Halfway to Each Other: How a Year in Italy Brought One Family Home posted at The Vacation Gals - Family travel, girlfriend getaways, romantic getaways, destinations, things to do, travel tips, writing: "I heartily recommend [Halfway to Each Other, by Susan Pohlman] to anyone contemplating a long-term move to Italy, with or without children. I think it’s also enlightening for anyone who might be able to relate to a marriage gone stale, who might be in a union that needs some shaking up in order to ultimately last in the long run. With mouthwatering descriptions of vine-ripened tomatoes, savory focaccia and creamy gelato, Halfway to Each Other will, if anything, tantalize your taste buds and inspire you to book a flight to the source of some amazing food — and museums and villages and a slow-paced way of life — in Italy."

Ben Harack addresses the dangers of news media speed posted at Vision Of Earth, saying, "Book: "No Time to Think" Journalism is making mistakes, shortening our attention spans, presenting opinion as news, and trivializing our political debates. The only reliable cure is media literacy, and we all need to learn it. Fast."  Harack writes that Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman's book, No Time to Think, is an "eloquent, intense, and humorous commentary on the dangers of media speed in our modern world. It is a highly recommended read for people interested in the flow of information in today’s society. Rosenberg and Feldman demonstrated how many areas of life are affected markedly by this increase in media speed."


MYSTERIES AND CRIME

Zohar presents Book Review: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was first "published as a newspaper serial in 1859. In 1860 a collected edition of the chapters was published in book form. The fictional story is considered to be one of the first mystery novels, as well as one of the finest."

Missy Frye presents Book Review: The God Hater by Bill Myers posted at Incurable Disease of Writing, saying, "Just a few thoughts on the Christian suspense novel The God Hater by Bill Myers." Frye explains that The God Hater is "the story of Nicholas Mackenzie, professor of philosophy and raging atheist. He adamantly believes philosophy is 'the study of real truth.' His brother and a team have created a computer generated world filled with artificially intelligent beings who possess human consciousness. He enlists Nicholas’ help to create a philosophy for the inhabitants that leaves their free-will intact and enables them to survive."

KerrieS offers Review: THE NIGHT OF THE MI'RAJ, Zoe Ferraris posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "It is not often that crime fiction readers get the chance to get right inside the skin of another society, but this is what I feel Zoe Ferraris does for us in THE NIGHT OF THE MI'RAJ."  Rating the book "4.8," Kerrie continues, "The characters of Nayir and Katya are so well drawn. Nayir is a Palestinian often mistaken for a Bedouin. He has been employed by the family in the past as a desert guide, and this time to find out the truth about Nouf's disappearance. So he is not a policeman, not even a detective. Katya on the other hand is well qualified in forensic medicine but is a woman, trying to be "modern" in an Islamic world. The picture of each of them trying to bide by convention, Nayir because he wants to, Katya because she must, is carefully drawn."

KerrieS also presents Review: THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST BRITISH CRIME 2010, edited by Maxim Jakubowski posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "38 short stories: This looks like a who's who of British crime fiction - a real treat. I have read full books by most of these authors, and for the most part enjoyed re-acquaintance through these tasters."  With a rating of 4.3, the reviewer writes: "Overall, there was the usual problem you have with a collection of short stories: some are excellent, while others just didn't seem worthy of the space. It is quite a long book," as one might expect from something called The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime.

In addition, KerrieS gives us Review: NECESSARY AS BLOOD, Deborah Crombie posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "A good solid crime fiction series in the British tradition, albeit from an American author." Of this volume, KerrieS explains, "The action in NECESSARY AS BLOOD plays out against a very rich background that includes not just the disappearance of a young mother, and then the death of her husband three months later, but also the ongoing stories in the lives of Scotland Yard detectives Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, their families and friends, as well as those they work with."


CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT

Read Aloud ... Dad presents Today's read aloud: Little pea posted at Read Aloud ... Dad, saying, "Children's book reviews and read aloud impressions from a Dad and his twins. We are reviewing what we read aloud and recommending whether you should Buy, Loan or Pass on the books." The review notes that "some would call [Little Pea, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal] a smashing attempt at reverse psychology, I think it is plain hillarious. And most importantly my kids loved it ever since Little Pea entered our house almost a year ago.

Jim Murdoch presents Dreaming in Black and White by Reinhardt Jung posted at The Truth About Lies, saying, "A most unusual YA novel, written by German author Reinhardt Jung in which a young disabled boy dreams he was living when the Nazis were in power. We all know about Hitler’s persecution of the Jews but not so much is known about how the physically and mentally disabled were treated by the Third Reich. What is especially shocking is what the schools taught children."

Murdoch writes and reminisces: "Dreaming in Black and White is a children’s book. There’s nothing to suggest this from the cover but a recommendation from Michael Morpurgo on the back is enough to tell you this is not intended for grownups. The content, however, is quite grownup. Frankly I can’t imagine being handed a book like this when I was a kid. I don’t honestly think World War II was mentioned at school until I was fourteen. I remember we covered the Greeks, the Romans and British (as opposed to Scottish) histories but that’s all I can remember; history has never excited me. Maybe the teachers simply thought that a war that had only ended twenty-odd years earlier was too recent to count as history."

Jeanne reviews Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk posted at Necromancy Never Pays, about David Sedaris' new book of humorous essays, subtitled "A Modest Bestiary," of which she says, "The volume itself looks like the kind of book you would give to a child as a present--small, printed on thick stock, and attractively illustrated by Ian Falconer. I do hope that the kind of parents and grandparents who don't usually read what they give to children purchase this book and give it away this holiday season, because that would really spread some joy, along with a little eye-widening."


FICTION

Zohar presents Book Review: Panopticon by David Bajo posted at Man of la Book. The review explains: "'Panopticon' by David Bajo is a fictional book which tells the story of three journalists who are sent to cover one final story before their newspaper closes. The setting is on the California / Mexico border and takes place the near future where every move you make is being recorded by public cameras."

B_G gives us grapes and wrath posted at the B_G talkies, saying, "my experience of the saga by steinbeck," adding in the review that the ending of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck's novel about Okies traveling from the Dust Bowl to California "was a bit jarring, and a very provocative image, but it was a not tying-up-all-threads kind of an ending. people call it 'postmodern'. i looked up the net to read about what others made of the ending, and there was a lot of talk of about how it depicts giving, and sorrow, and humanity's struggle, and other such vague things."

Rebecca Glenn presents The Book Frog: JAMES LEE BURKE posted at The Book Frog, saying, "An appreciation of James Lee Burke, and a review of his novel Pegasus Descending."  Glenn writes of how she found Burke's Pegasus Descending irresistible: "By the end of the paragraph I was hooked. 'Low-rider gangbangers, the broken mufflers of their gas-guzzlers throbbing against the asphalt, smashed liquor bottles on the sidewalks and no one said a word.' A beastly hot, polluted, crime-ridden community of bad luck and no hope drawn in seven amazing sentences."


LISTS

April Davis presents The Top 51 Twilight Blogs posted at Accredited Degree Online, saying, "Twilight. Only a few years ago this word was only known as the time between dusk and night. Now it’s a worldwide phenomenon that is growing by the minute."  Of course, as anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows, the Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer has spawned an equally -- or perhaps more -- successful series of movies, as well.

Lindsay Samuels presents The 50 Most Hated Characters in Literary History posted at Library Science Degree, saying, "Characters of both the purely hated and “love to hate” variety make appearances here to encourage improvised games of comparison and contrast. Pretty much every literary character will have his or her defenders – particularly popular romantic leads – though a hefty proportion of them seem to inspire as much disgust as delight."  The list includes characters ranging from Iago in Shakespeare's Othello to Tom Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

Erin Lenderts presents Top 50 Fashion Books of All Time posted at Learn-gasm.  Among the books cited (and briefly described) are Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style, The Little Black Book of Style, A Cultural History of Fashion in the Twentieth Century: From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk, Christian Dior: The Biography, Edith Wharton and the Making of Fashion, and The Devil Wears Prada.

chris presents Steven Erikson’s Notes on a Crisis Part IX: Back to the Craft of Writing posted at Life As A Human, saying, "Not a review but a review of the writing process from a world famous author and a huge selling series"


AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Your host for this blog carnival recently interviewed several authors about their new books. The interviews have been published on Examiner.com.

Colin Dueck is associate professor of public and international policy at George Mason University. He spoke to me about his new book, Hard Line:  The Republican Party and Foreign Policy Since World War II, on October 28 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

In a two-part interview published on October 7 and 8, South African author Greg Mills discussed his forthcoming book, Why Africa Is Poor and What Africans Can Do About It. In the first part he answers the question, why is Africa poor? In the second part, he explains what Africans can do about poverty.  The interview was conducted after a book launch at the Cato Institute in Washington.

A bit earlier, the young editor of Human Events, Jason Mattera, spoke to me about his recently published book, Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, at a bloggers conference held in Arlington, Virginia.

During that same conference, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) gave me an interview about his new book (co-authored with Matt Kibbe), Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. That interview is published in two parts.

That concludes this edition. I hope you enjoyed it.  Comments are always welcome.

For those who are interested, the 54th edition is still available to read at Proud Book Nerd.  Submit reviews from your blogs to the 56th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form.  Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

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Watch This Space for the Book Review Blog Carnival

The 53rd Book Review Blog Carnival was published today at Man of La Book.

The latest carnival includes two reviews of The Path to Tyranny by Michael E. Newton as well as a review of the classic, This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in addition to reviews of 15 other individual books and two review essays, one called 10 Books About Real World Crime and the other called 10 Books with Homeland Security Threats.

The next carnival will be hosted by Proud Book Nerd on October 17th. Bloggers can submit their book review posts at the Book Review Blog Carnival page.

At the end of the month -- on Halloween, as it happens -- the blog you are reading (Book Reviews by Rick Sincere, according to the top of the page) will be hosting the 55th Book Review Blog Carnival, followed by number 56 on November 14 at Homespun Honolulu.

Just for the record, previously published book reviews of mine have been featured in Book Review Blog Carnival #51, Book Review Blog Carnival #37, Book Review Blog Carnival - 35th Edition, The 23rd Book Review Blog Carnival, and 19th Edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival.

'Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech' by Paulina Borsook

This book review originally appeared in the January 2001 issue of Liberty magazine (Volume 15, Number 1, pp. 52-54).  It has not previously been published on line.


Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech, by Paulina Borsook. Public Affairs, 2000, 256 pages.

Cyberfoolish
Richard Sincere

Have you ever read a book that you simply could not set aside, so compelled were you to turn page after page after page? Perhaps it was Atlas Shrugged or Catch-22 or, in a lighter moment, a treatise on Swedish land-use planning.

Cyberselfish is not one of those books. In fact, I had to force myself to read it all the way through, much the same way one forces oneself to swallow bitter medicine, because I did not want to be accused, as a reviewer, of not fully engaging myself with the material. Of course, that would likely not be a problem for author Paulina Borsook, who goes to great lengths to avoid engaging the arguments she pretends to refute in this book.

Borsook is shocked, quite shocked, by the libertarian philosophy that infests Silicon Valley. (She limits her critique almost entirely to the high-tech world of Northern California.) Yet it is clear that her research did not include a single book by a libertarian thinker or about libertarianism. She mentions some books — such as Virginia Postrel’s The Future and Its Enemies — in a feeble attempt to prove her credentials, but her lack of engagement with the arguments and her frequent errors of fact show her self- described credentials to be fraudulent.

Two examples of error leap out at the reader. In the introduction, she says the Libertarian Party “is the party that routinely nominates Harry Browne as its presidential candidate.” That’s like saying the Democratic Party “routinely nominates Bill Clinton as its presidential candidate.” It hardly takes into account the fact that in every election since 1976, the GOP ticket has included someone named Bush or Dole. And, for a book that was published on June 6, 2000 — one month before Harry Browne became the first person in the history of the Libertarian Party to be nominated twice as a presidential candidate — it demonstrates a high degree of ignorance of the Party’s performance, not to mention its core beliefs (more on this later).

Toward the end of the first chapter (titularly about “bionomics” but really about so much more), Borsook says the Cato Institute has been “hugely funded since the late 1960s and early 1970s” Borsook says the Cato Institute has been “hugely funded since the late 1960s and early 1970s” — a neat trick for an organization established in 1977! (66) — a neat trick for an organization established in 1977! Although Borsook acknowledges Cato’s pride of place in the libertarian pantheon — such as it is — she obviously knows nothing about the Institute itself, much less the philosophy that animates it. (On page 17, she says of Cato: “To them, government is fine for dealing with the anachronism of nation-states [foreign policy, defense, import-export hassles] but is irrelevant to all else and should just get out of our way.” Someone should alert Ted Galen Carpenter before he decries non-interventionism again.)

Not only does Borsook fail to engage her opponents, she often fails to sustain her own arguments long enough to bring them to a suitable conclusion. When I say she fails to engage her opponents, I do not mean she does not argue with them. She does, but more often, she merely mocks them. She does not even take the trouble to set up straw men to knock down. Instead, she avoids ideas and focuses on tone and attitude. (Borsook’s personal tone is a breathless, neo-Joycean style of stream-of-consciousness that is exasperating at best, frustrating at worst.)

In a series of anecdotes about conferences sponsored by The Bionomics Institute (TBI), later taken over by Cato, Borsook talks about the types of people there, how they dress, where they come from, their preferences of suburban locales over downtown conference sites. She never once mentions an idea the participants or the speakers address. For instance, in describing one conference speaker, Peter Huber, she cites a paper he wrote on telecommunications deregulation, asserting that it posited that “in the realm of communications, everything would interconnect and self-heal and route most efficiently if left on its own without the Great Satan of regulation and the devil would take the hindmost and, as I think it was said by a terror of the Counter Reformation, ‘God will sort them out'” (68), going on to explain this reference to the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre — but never once telling us readers what Huber himself said, in the sense of quoting his spoken words at the conference or the text of the paper Borsook so colorfully critiques.

Nowhere in the book is there a mention of the non-coercion principle. Her only substantive mention of Ayn Rand is to attack — no surprise here — not Rand’s ideas, but her attitude (“her fiction demonstrates all the humorlessness, lack of irony, 2-D heroes, and political exhortation of the collectivist world she despised” [144]). The word “objectivism” cannot be found in the book. To Borsook, libertarianism can be summed up as the belief system of people “violently lacking in compassion, ravingly anti-government, and tremendously opposed to regulation,” while libertarians themselves are the embodiment of “nastiness, narcissism, and lack of human warmth” (5). She writes of “the most virulent form of technolibertarianism [as] a kind of scary, psychologically brittle, prepolitical autism” (15). No wonder she describes her “fascination” with libertarianism as one of “mongoose-to-cobra style” (4). She doesn’t have to understand the snake in order to kill it.

At the same time Borsook makes it clear which thinkers she admires, to wit: “The ‘Communist Manifesto’ has it right... Marx and his pal Engels had other relevant things to say about the spread of global capitalism (much more accurate for the description of what is happening at the end of our own century than at the end of his)” Borsook talks about the types of people there, how they dress, where they come from, their preferences of suburban locales over downtown conference sites. She never once mentions an idea the participants or the speakers address.(44).  And: “I am a Luddite — in the true sense of the word. The followers of Ned Ludd were rightfully concerned that rapid industrialization was ruining their traditional artisanal workways and villages. . . . like the Luddites, I am not so sure most change benefits most people” (47-48). (I guess that’s why stagnant, traditional societies in the Third World have the longest life spans, the lowest rates of illness, the lowest infant-mortality rates, universal literacy, such high standards of living, and such low levels of pollution. Oh, but they don’t, you say? My bad!)

Borsook’s eschewal of intellectual engagement goes a long way toward explaining why this book lacks a bibliography or references of any kind. One cannot list the works one has used for research if one has not read any articles or books on the topic one writes about. (At least no one will ever accuse Paulina Borsook of plagiarism.)

Some other writer may come up with a convincing critique of the rampant technolibertarianism” that Borsook has discovered in Silicon Valley. In order to do so, however, that writer must first understand what libertarianism is, who its major proponents are, and what those proponents say about it and about public policy issues as well as philosophy. Borsook has failed in all three tasks, and as a result has given us a dense, unreadable book about what could be an interesting and engaging topic.

'Psychoses of Power: African Personal Dictatorships'

This book review first appeared in The New York City Tribune on March 6, 1989.


Tales of Three African Dictators That Spin a Cautionary Lesson
Richard Sincere

Psychoses of Power: African Personal Dictatorships, by Samuel Decalo, Westview Press, 197 pp., $29.95.

“Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” were the words Thomas Hobbes used to describe life in the “state of nature,” which he also called a “war of all against all.” Hobbes, writing in the 17th century, was probably remembering the not-so-distant history of Europe in the Middle Ages. In the absence of strong central government, anarchy ruled the land. Feudal barons, ready to feed their own venal appetites, warred against each other, against the king, against the Church. Each generation experienced at least one war that, through battle or disease, cut down large fractions of the population.

That is all in the past. Or is it? Psychoses of Power, three frightening case studies by Samuel Decalo, currently visiting professor of comparative African government at the University of Natal, reveals that the 20th century does not lack Hobbesian anarchy. Neither are the subjects of his study – Francisco Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Idi Amin of Uganda, and Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic – necessarily anomalies. The germ of economic decay and political disarray that grew into their monstrous personal dictatorships exists in other African countries, ready to sprout under the right conditions.

These personal dictatorships differ substantially from merely authoritarian or autocratic regimes elsewhere in Africa (and elsewhere in the Third World, as well). Authoritarian dictators see fit to delegate power when necessary. Although they may be corrupt and dispense patronage for their own financial benefit, they do allow others to make policy decisions and exercise the authority granted them by the dictator. Personal dictators like Nguema, Amin, and Bokassa insist on excercising total authority, making all decisions, and dispensing all patronage. Chaos results.

In the case of Nguema and Amin, and partially in the case of Bokassa, men fundamentally unprepared to hold responsible public office became leaders of strife-ridden former colonies. Amin was totally illiterate and found policy discussions among Cabinet ministers boring and irrelevant. Nguema was a sycophant and drug addict who hated knowledge and success. Bokassa, although by all accounts a courageous and competent soldier, was greedy and lacked judiciousness.

Although the rise to power of these three men was largely accidental, the parallels are startling.

Amin started as a cook’s assistant in the Ugandan colonial army; the British, anxious to Africanize the services, on several occasions overlooked bad reviews of Amin’s suitability and promoted him. He eventually became chief of staff, the post that allowed him to lead the coup that ousted Milton Obote when Obote’s economic policies failed and he began to lose political legitimacy.

Nguema began as a petty local bureaucrat. The Spanish colonial rulers and Spanish expatriate businessmen liked him, because unlike his fellow Fang tribesmen, he supported Spanish interests. With the support of his relatives, he became the most bloodthirsty dictator in recent African history.

Bokassa, as noted, was a brave soldier. He fought in the French army in Vietnam and was decorated for valor. The French authorities respected Bokassa and named him to head the Central African Republic’s army upon independence. Economic and social confusion under the president of the CAR made it apparent that a new regime might sack Bokassa. To forestall that, he led a coup on New Year’s Eve in 1965, and installed himself as dictator.

Although the least known of the three, Nguema was probably the bloodiest. He exterminated all of his subjects who had better than a third-grade education. Refugees from Equatorial Guinea flooded neighboring countries. Nguema personally ruined the country’s economy, keeping all foreign (and much domestic) currency in suitcases in his bedroom. He retreated into sorcery, threatening any opposition that upon his death he would return as a vicious tiger to destroy them.

Amin’s story is better known, perhaps because he became an international joke. His buffoonery, however, resulted in genocide. Because he lacked interest in public policy, no genuine policies were made during his reign. One significant decision, however, did have substantial impact on Uganda’s future. In 1973, he expelled all Asians from the country. In one fell swoop, Uganda’s entrepreneurial class left. Shops, factories, and services ended, as did exports and imports. Although politically popular for racist reasons, this decision destroyed the Ugandan economy, and recovery is unlikely in our lifetimes.

Bokassa made world headlines in 1977 when he proclaimed himself emperor of the Central African Empire. Modeling his coronation after Napoleon’s, he crowned himself when the Pope declined to do the job. At first the French supported him, but even they could no longer be relied upon after Bokassa himself clubbed to death schoolchildren who in 1979 protested the mandatory wearing of school uniforms with Bokassa’s image on them. French paratroopers moved in, deposing Bokassa. Several thousand French troops remain today, making the Central African Republic a virtual French colony, despite the rhetoric of independence.

Life has not improved for the residents of these African countries since their dictators were deposed. In Equatorial Guinea and Uganda, new dictators came to power. In Equatorial Guinea, Nguema’s own henchmen ousted him when he became too unpredictable. They remain in power and continue the terror. In Uganda, Milton Obote returned and after presiding over the genocide of as many as 400,000 Ugandans, he was again overthrown. Tyranny has been tempered by the French presence in the CAR, but there is little hope for the future.

The lessons of these three case studies are not clear. Certainly the three dictators were idiosyncratic, maladjusted, and just plain mad. But other dictators remain in Africa, even if slightly more benign: Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Kamuzu Banda in Malawi. Yet it is frightening to note that while heads of state, Nguema, Amin, and Bokassa each retained a measure of respectability within the international community.

Their crimes were ignored for raison d’etat. An eerily similar respectability was granted Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin in their time, and the international community pays little attention to what goes on in places like Zambia, Zaire, and Malawi today.

Psychoses of Power deserves whatever attention it gets from policymakers, human rights activists, and international bureaucrats. I fear that too many readers will look at it as an interesting case study of political freaks with little to say about the present or future. They should look more carefully at current conditions in the Third World and ask themselves: Are these personal dictatorships really so strange?

Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

'Cities and the Wealth of Nations'

This review-essay about Jane Jacobs' Cities and the Wealth of Nations was published in The New York City Tribune on April 7, 1987 -- my birthday, as it happens -- and was datelined London, where I was attending graduate school at the London School of Economics and Political Science.  On that day, specifically, I was enjoying spring break in Paris.

The Hidden Causes of Third World Poverty

Richard Sincere

LONDON – The Vatican has issued, through the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, an 8,000-word statement on the international debt crisis. “Political officials and economists, social and religious leaders, as well as public opinion throughout the world,” it begins, “recognize the fact that the debt levels of the developing countries constitute a serious, urgent, and complex problem due to their social, economic, and political repercussions.” That is VaticanSpeak for: Third World debt levels are precipitating a crisis of unprecedented proportions.

Average citizens in the industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America might be inclined to shrug off Third World debt as a problem, but no concern of theirs. Leaders in developing countries, they might say, made bad political and economic decisions and are now paying the consequences; it doesn’t affect us.

In fact, though, it does. As the Third World debt whirlpool swallows up capital from all over the developed world, the effects are felt in shrinking national budgets, declining industries, rising interest rates, and increasing trade deficits. For the ordinary person, it means more difficulty in purchasing a home or a car – particularly if he or she is a first-time buyer.

A unique perspective on Third World debt – indeed, on a whole range of issues regarding the world political economy – may be found in a 1984 book, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, by Jane Jacobs. The book was widely reviewed and critically acclaimed when it was first published by Random House in the United States and Canada and by Penguin in the United Kingdom.

Jacobs is respected worldwide for her research and writing on cities. Her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is required reading for most students of urban planning. The secondhand department at the Economists’ Bookshop in London informs me that they get more requests for Jacobs’ The Economy of Cities (1969) than for any other out-of-print book. These observations reinforce her credibility and scholarship almost as much as the fact that she is a careful and thoughtful writer – averaging one book every seven to 10 years – as well as vibrant, witty, and commonsensical.

Cities and the Wealth of Nations begins by questioning the very structure of the world economy – its division into “nations” as distinct economic entities. They are political and military entities, but this does not mean they are also “the basic, salient entities of economic life or … the reasons for the rise and decline of wealth.” Jacobs argues that the failure of national governments and “blocs of nations” to control economic life effectively “suggests some sort of essential irrelevance.”

Political sovereignty is the only thing various nation-states really have in common, and Jacobs thinks it “affronts common sense, if nothing else, to think of units as disparate as, say, Singapore and the United States, or Ecuador and the Soviet Union, or the Netherlands and Canada, as economic common denominators.”

The basic unit of economic development, Jacobs asserts, is the city, and regions surrounding individual cities, and enlarging that unit inevitably leads to bad economic feedback and bad decision making. This problem cannot be overcome without a radical restructuring of the world economy – but the new structure must reflect free markets, attention to private enterprise, promotion of new industries, and (most important) trade among equals. That means underdeveloped Third World states should concentrate their commerce on other underdeveloped Third World states, learning “import replacement” and avoiding direct competition with the industrialized world unless and until their levels of development are more nearly equal.

Jacobs identifies what she calls “transactions of decline,” which include heavy lending to impoverished or underdeveloped areas. Such lending takes useful capital away from productive cities and sinks it into unproductive rural areas and uncreative towns and cities where it can do no good – and, indeed, often does harm. Transactions of decline like this may initially stimulate commerce and industry, but within a short while both economies – the lender’s and the borrower’s – begin to stagnate and then to decline. The downward spiral continues because policymakers, oblivious to the root causes of the decline, take more money from the pockets of productive workers and entrepreneurs and attempt to induce “development” in depressed areas at home or abroad. In the end the whole process is futile and frustrating. “Subsidies milked from cities,” notes Jacobs, are “profoundly antidevelopment transactions.”

To achieve genuine and lasting development, cities, regions, and whole countries must generate their own capital. Development must come about the old-fashioned way – you earn it.

There is no specific solution available from Jacobs’ analysis. But her arguments are worth pondering. The radical change suggested by Cities and the Wealth of Nations is precisely the opposite of the one demanded by Third World states called the New International Economic Order. Instead of authoritarianism, this change invokes free enterprise; instead of central planning, it calls for pluralism; instead of stagnation, it offers creativity and growth. If we are to solve the international debt crisis – an apparently insoluble problem – this is a good place to start

Richard Sincere is a Washington-based policy analyst who writes frequently on African affairs.

'1959: The Year Everything Changed'

This book review appeared in the August 21, 2009, edition of The Metro Herald of Alexandria, Virginia. (Cross-posted from Rick Sincere News and Thoughts of July 23, 2009.)

BOOK REVIEW: WAS 1959 THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED?

Rick Sincere

The Metro Herald

Entertainment Editor

One could forgive a certain solipsism among readers born in 1959 who may think that Fred Kaplan's 1959: The Year Everything Changed is about them personally.

That it turns out not to be so does not diminish the book’s entertaining and informative readability. Yet what it lacks in particular egocentrism (the author himself was born five years earlier) it makes up in idiosyncrasy.

What is most unfortunate about Kaplan’s collection of loosely related essays is that it simply does not live up to its subtitle. Then again, it hardly could, since every year has been (and will be) pivotal in one way or another. Pick a year out of a hat and one could list dozens of discoveries, innovations, inventions, or events that “changed everything.” (1776? The Declaration of Independence and the Battle of Trenton. 1941? Pearl Harbor and Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak. 1969? The moon landing and Woodstock. Try it yourself.)

What’s more, Kaplan stretches his pivotal year to include events that could properly be placed earlier or later.

Take for example, two scientific advances that truly did have titanic cultural repercussions. These two, in fact, were more influential with regard to how we live now than most any of the cultural, artistic, and political events discussed elsewhere in Kaplan’s book.

Kaplan devotes one chapter, “Toppling the Tyranny of Numbers,” to Texas Instruments’ introduction of the solid integrated circuit (or microchip) at an electronics trade show in March 1959 – even though the invention had been made by John St. Clair Kilby already in August 1958, when he demonstrated it to other TI scientists and executives.

Another chapter, “Andromeda Freed from Her Chains,” is about the birth control pill. Kaplan places this invention in 1959 rather arbitrarily, because the FDA hearing to decide whether to approve the Pill’s use for birth control purposes took place in late December of that year. But the Pill had already been approved for other uses and had been prescribed by physicians for two years by then; its final approval for specific labeling as a birth control drug came on May 11, 1960.

It is hard to imagine a 21st century without microchips – which make possible nearly all the devices that populate our daily lives, including the laptop computer used to write this book review – or the birth control pill, which really did unchain women and free them to pursue happiness and productivity outside of a narrowly defined role as housewife and mother, as well as continuing in that role as a matter of their own choice.

Kaplan may allude to the reasons for his book’s idiosyncratic choices late in its pages when, under the heading of “Acknowledgements,” he writes: “… several years ago, it occurred to me that some of the most important – or at least some of my favorite – books, movies, and record albums were made in 1959. Was this just coincidence, or was there something significant about that year? The more I looked into it, the more it struck me that this truly was a pivotal year – not only in culture, but also in politics, society, race, science, sex: everything” (p. 245).

For all his enthusiasm about “everything,” Kaplan has a crabbed view of society and culture.

For one thing, his book is highly – and almost annoyingly – New York-centric. On page after page, we are introduced to artists, musicians, philanthropists, publishers, and others who live in Manhattan and who meet each other at cocktail parties, jazz clubs, and museum openings.

It is fascinating, of course, to learn that Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Allen Ginsberg, and Norman Mailer all traveled in the same circles, and that they and their friends and associates shared ideas, built upon them, and diversified them in their different genres. But Greenwich Village is not the center of the universe; it really isn’t.

Even when talking about arts and culture in New York, Kaplan has a narrow definition of what is important. He devotes two chapters (out of 25) to innovations in jazz by Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman and their associates, but he says virtually nothing about the theatre (on- or off-Broadway). This was the year of Gypsy, for instance, often called the best musical play ever written, and of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, a pathsetting drama that broke the color barrier on Broadway. Neither are mentioned; nor are the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! and The Miracle Worker, which made stars of Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft.

Similarly, when he talks about movies, he mentions popular Hollywood films only to denigrate them in passing. He focuses on John Cassavetes’ semi-improvisational film Shadows – shot entirely in New York City -- and suggests (though not in so many words) that it was the first independent (or “indie”) film, which it surely was not. It might have been innovative, but it wasn’t fundamentally so.

Except for a passing reference to the growth of television set ownership over the decade of the 1950s, Kaplan ignores television – as an art form or as a means of communication about news and public affairs – completely.

There are also irritating little slips in the text, some that could have been caught and corrected by copy editors or fact checkers.

In a list of the seven Mercury astronauts, for instance, Kaplan renders Deke Slayton as “Duke Slayton” (p. 73) and, several pages later, he refers to Fidel Castro’s visit to the “Lincoln Monument and Jefferson Memorial” (p. 95). Out of all the structures dedicated to presidents in and around the Nation’s Capital, only one is called a “monument.” Lincoln, Jefferson, and Franklin Roosevelt have memorials. Taft, Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt have bridges. Reagan has an airport; LBJ has a grove. Washington is the sole president with a monument.

There is also a strange bit of delicacy in his discussion of artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, of whom he says: “Soon they fell into an intense relationship, personally and professionally” (p. 174).

Well. In order to find out the whole truth – that they were gay and that they were romantic partners (the latter fact merely implied) – the reader must look up an endnote on page 289. Given that the endnotes are not marked in the conventional way within the text (that is, with a superscripted number to guide the reader to the note), it is unlikely that many will seek out this information on their own. Just whom is Kaplan trying to protect from this common knowledge?

We can grant that Kaplan can, and perhaps should, write about those subjects that most interest him (modern jazz, avant garde art, and Norman Mailer). If he chooses to ignore the wider culture in favor of a more elitist vision of arts, music, and literature, or to treat the rest of America as Saul Steinberg satirized Manhattanites in his famous “New Yorker’s View of the World” cartoon, so be it. That is his privilege as a journalist (and, perhaps, as a Brooklynite).

No matter how you look at it, however, Kaplan falls quite short in making the case for his hyperbolic claim that 1959 was the year that everything changed – or even the year that changed everything.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

1959: The Year Everything Changed, by Fred Kaplan. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. 322 pp. (including notes, photographs, and subject index). $27.95.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Rick Sincere was born on April 7, 1959, when everything changed for his parents and himself.

It is interesting to note, via a search of Amazon.com that there are other books with similar themes and titles, such as Bernard Diederich's 2007 book, 1959: The Year that Changed Our World, and Rob Kirkpatrick's book, released earlier this year, 1969: The Year Everything Changed, and -- even older -- 1998's What A Year It Was! 1959, by Beverly Cohn.

(Crossposted to Virginia Free Press.)


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VaBook10: Short Takes 4

While I anticipated attending four events at the Virginia Festival of the Book today, in the end I went to just two.

That might sound disappointing, but the two sessions were quite good. In fact, the second -- A Conversation from Left and Right: With Hendrik Hertzberg and Richard Brookhiser -- may have been the highlight of the festival.

That one, sponsored by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at UVA and moderated by its executive director, Bob Gibson, offered a wide-ranging exploration of American governance and constitutional issues that could serve as a model for civil discussion between (as the event's title indicated) "left" and "right."

Here's what Bob Gibson had to say shortly after the program, held in the Culbreth Theatre on the grounds of the University of Virginia, ended:

I was also able to ask the two conversationalists, Hendrik Hertzberg and Richard Brookhiser (both, as Gibson noted, called "Rick"), to give their basic elevator speech about their most recent books.

National Review editor Brookhiser talked about his new memoir, Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement:

Hertzberg, a senior editor at The New Yorker, spoke with great affection about his new book about Barack Obama, called Obamanos!: The Birth of a New Political Era:

Earlier in the day, at the UVA Bookstore, the producers of the public radio program Backstory: With the American History Guys sponsored a panel featuring three historians. (Like the Virginia Festival of the Book, this radio show is underwritten by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.)

Tony Field, the show's producer, acted as moderator and said a few words about Backstory for the camera:

One of the panelists was Backstory's "20th Century Guy" Brian Balogh, who teaches at the University of Virginia and is the author of the new book about 19th-century America, A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America:

A second speaker also wrote a book about the 19th century, though a more discrete segment of it. Attorney David O. Stewart once worked on an impeachment case before the U.S. Senate and has now produced Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy:

The third speaker was Guian A. McKee, an historian at UVA's Miller Center for Public Affairs and author of The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia:

Tomorrow is the last day of the book festival, with twelve programs remaining.

VaBook10: Short Takes 3

On the Third Day of the Virginia Festival of the Book, I found authors in unexpected places.

Attending a session in City Council Chambers called "The Business of Book Reviewing: Changes and Challenges," I caught up with Kristin Swenson, a religious studies professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who is currently a visiting fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville. I had missed Swenson's presentation on Wednesday about her new book, Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time, and thought I had also missed any opportunity to interview her. Fortunately, in asking a question of the panel from the audience, she identified herself by name and I was able to approach her after the program ended to ask her to say a few words about her book.

In addition to a favorable review of Bible Babel by Michael Dirda in The Washington Post, Swenson was profiled in this week's edition of The Hook.

Here is what she said on Friday afternoon:

One of the panelists discussing the business of book reviewing was novelist Katharine Weber, who also has a new book, called True Confections.  She describes it better than I can, as about "race and chocolate and a family business":

Another discussant -- actually the moderator -- on the book reviewing panel was Bethanne Patrick, who is also one of the four guest bloggers for the Virginia Festival of the Book. Bethanne is herself a book reviewer and author of An Uncommon History of Common Things, of Native American Languages, and of a biography of Ulysses S. Grant (focusing on his childhood), as well as a similar book about Abraham Lincoln.

I asked Bethanne to give her assessment of the Festival so far; her enthusiasm shines through her response:

Following the book reviewing panel discussion, I hurried down Market Street through Preston Avenue to Barracks Road (and never making a turn; Charlottesville streets are like that) to attend a presentation by Jag Bhalla at Barnes & Noble about his book, I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World. The Russian expression, "I'm not hanging noodles on your ears," is the equivalent of the English idiom, "I'm not pulling your leg." Bhalla has collected about 1,000 such idioms from ten languages.

Saturday promises to be a busy day at the Festival, with programs beginning in the morning and lasting until early evening.

VaBook10: Short Takes 2

On the second day of the 2010 Virginia Festival of the Book, I was not able to get to as many programs as I planned -- a situation I hope to balance out on Day Three.  With some 300 authors divided up among several venues, it's nearly impossible to get more than a taste of the Festival's many offerings.

Fortunately, I was able to grab two authors and the Festival's program director for short interviews.

Program director Nancy Damon attended a session in Charlottesville City Council Chambers called "Gangs, Schools and the Great American Dream," which was marred by the absence of one of the scheduled authors, Samuel Logan, whose book, This is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America's Most Violent Gang, accounted for the first word in the program's title. I asked her to comment on the 2010 Festival so far:

At that same program, emeritus professor of education at the University of Virginia James M. Kauffmantalked about his most recent book, The Tragicomedy of Public Education, which is so new, he said, that it does not yet appear on the publisher's web site -- nor, it seems, is it yet available on Amazon.com. (Look for it there soon; as you can see from the video, the book is in print and ready to read.)

Earlier in the evening, Escafe restaurant (on the other end of Charlottesville's downtown mall) hosted a reading and remarks by Robert Leleux, author of The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, which is about his growing up gay in East Texas and -- he says -- is a comical look at his parents' divorce.

Look for more "short takes" tomorrow, and perhaps some longer-form video reports, as well.

VaBook10: Short Takes 1

Wednesday was the first day of the Virginia Festival of the Book.

I caught two panel discussions at the UVA Bookstore.  After each panel, I asked the participants to speak to the camera and tell me why someone should buy and read their books.

The first was titled "Giants of the Twentieth Century: Ayn Rand and Louis Brandeis," and it featured University of Virginia history professor Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, and Melvin Urofsky, emeritus professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Louis D. Brandeis: A Life.

First, Jennifer Burns:

Second, Melvin Urofsky:

The second panel was called "The Crash of '08 and Its Aftermath," with presentations by UVA political scientist Herman Schwartz, author of Subprime Nation: American Power, Global Capital, and the Housing Bubble, and Hunter Lewis, cofounder of Cambridge Associates and author of Where Keynes Went Wrong: And Why World Governments Keep Creating Inflation, Bubbles, and Busts.

Here is Herman Schwartz:

Finally, Hunter Lewis:

I was able to record the whole of the first panel and all but the last five minutes or so of the second. I will be posting those videos here or on my other blog, Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, within the next few days.

On the Eve of VaBook10

Tomorrow is the day logophiles have been waiting for.

No, not St. Patrick's Day, though the Irish are known for their ability to string words together in a mellifluous manner.

Wednesday is the first of five days of the Virginia Festival of the Book, which draws some 20,000 book lovers to Charlottesville in what might be the biggest book festival in the country.

Last week's cover story in The Hook highlighted the "sweet sixteen" programs that that newspaper's editors thought were most interesting.  (At first I thought the cover referred to the NCAA basketball tournament, but luckily I overcame being misled and read it anyway.)  Surprisingly -- or perhaps not -- none of The Hook's top picks are among mine.  That just goes to show the wide variety of authors and books that will be on display at the Festival -- a little something for everyone.

In the run-up to the book festival, WINA-AM's Coy Barefoot and his substitute host on Charlottesville Right Now, Jay James, have been interviewing authors who will be appearing here over the weekend.

On Monday, Coy interviewed Hendrik Hertzberg, who will be appearing on a panel with Richard Brookhiser at the Culbreth Theatre on Saturday, moderated by Bob Gibson of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.  Hertzberg is the author, most recently of ¡OBÁMANOS!: The Rise of a New Political Era.  The prolific Brookhiser, who began writing for National Review as a teenager, is the author of Founding Father:  Rediscovering George Washington, and his memoir, Right Time, Right Place:  Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement.  Saturday's panel, entitled "A Conversation from Left and Right: With Hendrik Hertzberg and Richard Brookhiser," promises to be an intellectual feast.

On Tuesday's show, Coy interviewed local political activist David Swanson, who talked about a demonstration against an appearance of law professor John Yoo at the University of Virginia on Friday.  Swanson will also be speaking at a book festival event on Saturday, on the topic Where Does America Go from Here?  Swanson is the author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.

Also on Tuesday, Jay James interviewed VCU professor Kristin Swenson, who will be speaking on a panel at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday called Bible Babel and Holy Curiosity: Questions and Answers about the Bible. Swenson, who teaches religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, is the author of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time.

Last week, Coy interviewed Paul Gaston, professor emeritus of history at the University of Virginia, whose memoir of the civil-rights era, Coming of Age in Utopia, will be featured in a panel on Thursday called "Social Justice: The Power of Individuals."

As for me, I'm looking forward to Wednesday's noon panel at the UVA bookstore, featuring Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, and Melvin Urofsky, author of Louis D. Brandeis: A Life. Urofsky also teaches at VCU, while Burns teaches history at UVA. Urofsky's book is reviewed in the April 2010 issue of Reason magazine by Damon W. Root. (That issue is not yet on line, but Root had a "Hit & Run" blog post on Urofsky's book last September.)  I have already read Burns' book, which was a real page-turner.  It was so interesting, I read every page -- including the footnotes, bibliography, and acknowledgments.

For a full schedule of events at the Virginia Festival of the Book, look here.  Most of the events are free and open to the public.Those with a gaming spirit might want to buy a raffle ticket in hopes of winning one of four exciting prizes; proceeds support the Festival and its programs.

'Ordering the Oceans: The Making of the Law of the Sea'

This book review appeared in the New York City Tribune on Wednesday, November 11, 1987. A somewhat shorter version was published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 16, No, 3 (Winter 1987).

RICHARD SINCERE
An Optimist Looks at the Still-Unratified Law of the Sea


Ordering the Oceans: The Making of the Law of the Sea, by Clyde Sanger, Zed Books, London, $11.50, paperback, 225 pp.

Ocean politics have been at issue at least since the day in 1492 when Columbus set forth from Barcelona in three small ships destined to prove that one could cross the vast Atlantic and return safely.

By the 17th century, ocean politics occupied the minds of sailors, scholars, and statesmen, who all had their own views of what the “law of the sea” should be.

In England, John Selden held that the oceans could be claimed and divided by governments just as land territory was. English monarchs appreciated the idea of extending their sovereignty in this way. Across the North Sea, the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius expressed the view that the oceans, beyond a narrow strip along the coasts of countries, belonged to no one and should be free for navigation by all vessels, whatever their ownership. The debate of “mare clausum” vs. “mare librum” was eventually enforced by the British navy, as that state came to see the value of such freedom for a maritime power.

As technology developed and more sovereign states came into being, however, it became clear that the law of the sea as it stood was inadequate to cover the issues of the later 20th century. Exploitation of the continental shelf, conservation of fisheries, and the discovery of mineral resources of the seabed made jurists, diplomats, and businessmen acutely aware of the inadequacy.

In 1958 and 1960 the United Nations sponsored two conferences on the law of the sea, each adding conventions that in part codifies existing customs and in part dealt with the new problems. Yet the effort was incomplete. In 1967, after a famous speech by Malta’s U.N. Ambassador Arvid Pardo that proclaimed the oceans “the common heritage of mankind,” there was set in motion the Third U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS-3.

Sanger’s book concentrates on UNCLOS-3 and discusses in detail the negotiations from 1973 to 1982 that led to the signing of a new, comprehensive Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is a workmanlike book that presents a fairly complete picture, but it is flawed.

The first flaw is this: Sanger, as a Canadian journalist, had special access to Canadian diplomats and politicians who participated in the conference. The irritating result is a painting of the Canadian delegation as the most concerned and most effective of all the participants. Moreover, the Canadians seem to be the saviors of the convention. Whenever an impasse occurs, a clever Canadian comes up with a compromise: the Canadians build bridges and coalitions.

A worse flaw may be Sanger’s bias toward not only supporting the convention as it stands -- a convention that was rejected by the United States, Great Britain, and West Germany -- but a bias against certain changes made during the negotiation process to liberalize the oceans regime, changes instigated by these Western powers.

The reason that these three countries refused to sign the convention was a fundamental disagreement over Part XI, the articles establishing international control of deep-seabed mining in the area outside national jurisdiction. Sanger presents the decisions of these three states as a shortsighted, ideological decision motivated by the lobbying of mining companies that prefer not to be regulated by an international regime.

To Sanger, the problem faced by the industrialized countries had its locus in the provisions for mandatory transfer of technology from mining companies to the International Seabed Authority and thence to the developing nations. What he fails to acknowledge is the damage caused to free enterprise and free trade by the precedent set in this treaty. For the first time an international body is given power to engage in a major commercial enterprise involving valuable natural resources. It is also at the same time both regulator of and competitor with private enterprises (and some state-owned concerns as well). Seafarers may blink at this barnyard metaphor, but a clearer case could not be found: The Law of the Sea Convention puts the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

This is a dangerous precedent and despite all arguments to the contrary, the United States and its allies were right to stand firmly against it.

It was a mistake to negotiate a comprehensive treaty, designed from the outset as a package deal. The one exception -— the international law on the emplacement of weapons on the seabed -— was negotiated separately at the Geneva Disarmament Committee. At UNCLOS-3, the intrusion of Third World ideological considerations could have done considerable damage to the eventual treaty on seabed weapons, what is after all an essentially U.S.-Soviet Union issue and agreement.

Much in the Law of the Sea Convention is in the interests of the United States, and our diplomats should work hard to see that those provisions can be transplanted into another treaty (or treaties). Only the noxious Part XI deserves full-scale rejection.

The Convention has, after four years of being open for signature, still not been ratified by enough countries to enter into force. Perhaps it never will be. I suggest that ten years from now Clyde Sanger publish a second edition of Ordering the Oceans to assess his optimistic predictions. He may be sadly surprised by the course of ocean politics.

Richard Sincere is a Washington-based foreign policy consultant who writes frequently on international affairs.