Current-order Books

Huband's investigative book on the travails of post-Cold War Africa is a good demonstration of the evolution, especially within the journalistic environment, that has occurred over the past decade; the discussions on touchy issues such as "ethnic" conflict (especially in Rwanda) and corruption are more refined, and the accusations of "great powers'" meddling more scathing.

The chapters are arranged in a way which cannot fail but to reveal to the reader how Africa, as an idea, is really more a series of loosely connected "sub-regions" - North Africa, the Great Lakes, Southern Africa.

I found that reading Mahmood Mamdani's enlightening, though slightly repetitive When Victims Become Killers (Princeton UP) before tackling Huband's book was quite helpful, as it, too, addresses the concepts of "race," "ethnicity," and lack of democracy (with the attendant corruption within state institutions). Reading both around the same time is sure to provide the reader a nuanced and in my opinion honest perspective on Africa.

What I find utterly annoying in Huband's book, however, are the numerous quotes in French, most of which are plagued with misspelled words, over capitalization, and bad syntax. These quotes are superficial (the translations, which always follow within parentheses, would have sufficed) and give the reader the impression that the author is attempting to impress us with his (amputated) command of the French language. A consequence of this is that the errors they contain are downright distracting to those who, like myself, know French.

There are better, more complete, books in which to learn the histories of the various conflicts that have plagued the African continent since the Cold War. But as an analysis of the political ramifications of the great power chess game upon the African people, Huband's book is worthy of our undivided attention. Moreover, his emphasis on corrupt, undemocratic governments in Africa is a powerful corrective (though he doesn't address this issue directly) to those in favor of debt forgiveness for highly indebted poor countries (HIPC).

Two disclaimers:
1. I love modern Sub-Saharan African history.
2. I hate it when journalists write history books.

The problem is that the only people really willing to write about modern African history are European journalists, who I have discovered have a not-too-veiled goal of bashing the Post-Cold War American government. The Skull Beneath the Skin was a disappointment for me primarily because Huband (a Brit) tirelessly over-criticized American policy in Africa during and after the Cold War, without taking into account that Great Britain colonized and raped more of Africa in the 1800's (Sudan, South Africa) than the US. Another distractor for me was that the chapters in the book weren't very coherent. For example, Huband started with Mobutu's kleptocracy in Zaire, and then moved to other areas like Liberia and Angola; then he returned to Mobutu's Zaire a few chapters later. Also, Huband's English teacher would be quite miffed: On more than one occasion, Huband constructed an entire paragraph out of one sentence. Look, even if it was gramatically correct, it still doesn't mean you should do it - have some consideration for your reader...I also noted that some of his sources that he qoutes have no names (hum...).

One good quality was the account of Rwanda. Not only is it a harrowing account of the blood-drenched countryside, but he also deals the UN a stinging blow right across the face for its inaction during the 1994 genocide.

Overall, the book is a nice, dry bore. Berkely's "The Graves Are Not Yet Full" or Gourevitch's "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" are MUCH better. The Skull Beneath the Skin is a book that you begin to read at night in bed and you can't finish the chapter...Zzzzzz

My expectations on buying this book were that it contained an up-to-date factual synopsis of sub-Saharan Africa in the aftermath of the Cold War. Unfortunately it turned out to be a rather dull collection of obscure political snapshots from the early 1990's and before, presented in mind-numbing detail. It is difficult to work up much of the interest required to follow Huband's desultory meanderings, from 1960's Burundi to 1980's Zaire, which don't seem to have any unifying theme, other than the prosaic anti-Americanism favored by foreign journalists.

The book was published just prior to 9/11, when it was fashionable to criticize the U.S. for being overly obsessed with international terrorists (which Huband actually does). Other mistakes abound, such as claiming that the killing of Pakistani troops proved a non-Islamic motive for Somali opposition to the UN, which would have come as a surprise to the thousands of Muslim soldiers and policemen who lose their lives to such fundamentalists every year in a broad range of countries, including Pakistan.

The U.S., which has never colonized a square inch of Africa, is nevertheless criticized for every ill affecting the continent. As Huband tells it, there is not a single American endeavor that was neither negligent nor malicious. Even obviously well intentioned efforts, such as the Somali relief operation are deemed misguided, though not because of the corruption and religious bigotry that obviously fueled the resistance, but rather due to the fact that Americans are too arrogant to listen to people like Mark Huband, who would evidently provide splendid leadership if they so deigned.

Other than an interesting chapter on French intervention, tacked on as kind of an afterthought, there is nothing that would inspire me to recommend this book. It comes off as neither current events nor history, but rather just another young and egotistical journalist taking easy potshots at those who had the courage to act without his benefit of hindsight.

George H. W. Bush had less knowledge about the "New World Order" than H.G.Wells himself. This is probably true of most of the neo-cons that are pushing this concept for America and Planet World. Look Around People! The New World Order is being established NOW FOR YOU AND YOUR GRANDCHILDREN!

In this book, author and political thinker Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) posits that the world was at that time moving rapidly towards a socialist, one-world government. Examining various trends then occurring, he found that this movement was overwhelmingly supported by the bulk of the world's population, and he went on to suggest how the new world order would function and what it would look like.

This book was first published in 1939, when Mr. Wells was into his 70s. By this time in his life, he was already considered behind the times, and this book clearly shows that. He is surprisingly attached to the Nazism, which he imagines as a step in Germany's movement from democratic capitalism towards international socialism. (It wasn't until the end of the war that he found out that the SS had compiled a list of prominent Britons to be liquidated after Operation Sea Lion, and that near the top was his own name!)

In point of fact, what this book is is Wells' taking his love of international socialism and viewing then-current trends with the idea that everyone else was as enamored of it as he was. The analysis, seen from seventy years on, looks more like wishful thinking than like clear-eyed analysis. He was correct in his view of the dangers of Russia's "Tyranny of the Proletariat," but he failed to understand the nature of the men in charge of the Soviet Union - writing, for example, "Stalin, I believe, is honest and benevolent in intention..."

But, does it now, in the twenty-first century appear that Wells was right, and that the world is moving towards a socialist, one-world government? And, does that not mean that this book is as prescient as any of Wells's other works? I would argue that it doesn't, and that while trends may be moving towards one-world socialism, that Wells did not truly understand what was going on in his world and what the changes then occurring were and what they meant.

Overall, I found the book to be uninformative wishful thinking masquerading as serious analysis. It does not tell you anything about what was happening in 1939, nor does it tell you anything about how we got to today and where the world is going. I think that the book is an interesting look into Mr. Wells' worldview, but one that has nothing for anyone who is not interested in him personally. As such, I do not recommend this book.

Great book for the novice to professional regionalist. Keep your capitalist and socialist theories near, as these two editors battle to describe how tomorrows world order will be best organized at a level higher than the nation-state.

Increasing worldwide economic integration, with its less regulated flows of capital,
goods and services, has resulted in more intense commercial competition between nations,
with often profound effects on domestic and international politics. "Globalisation,"
shorthand for these and related trends, proceeds in a geographically uneven manner.
Reduced restriction on trade among neighboring countries in a given region is often the first
step in what is a politically and economically difficult process. Regionalism and World
Order offers essays on the growth and dynamics of political and economic regionalism in
Europe, the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Japan and East Asia. It is
difficult to imagine a more momentous national and international issue.

Payne and Gamble define regionalism as an undertaking to "reorganise a particular
regional space along defined economic and political lines" (p. 2), which they interpret as
consistent with the process of globalisation (p. 250-51). In an unnecessary attempt to
highlight this sensible view, they contrast it with that of nameless analysts who, the editors
assert, argue that globalisation is "the diametric opposite" of regionalism (p. 2). "Many
observers," we are told, go so far as to view regionalism as "inimical to the existence of
world order": according to this interpretation, trade blocs lead to trade wars and then real
wars (pp. 1; 21). The hegemonic stability thesis argues that hegemonic powers act to keep
a degree of world order. Payne and Gamble assert, again without citation, that some
interpret this thesis as predicting that, in a post-hegemonic world, conflict will result
between regional blocs of states (p. 1-2). Unsurprisingly, the editors are able to report in
the concluding chapter that their investigation shows regionalism has not sought to close
off nations from trade (p. 251), and therefore they do not predict "a war of all against all"
(p. 264). It is a frail, anonymous straw man that Payne and Gamble needlessly set up and
knock down.

The theoretical approach of the volume as a whole is the "new international
political economy" (IPE), whose contribution is, the editors claim, a fresh alternative to
analyses that only serve to support the political and economic status quo. The last 25
years of neo-realist and neo-liberal international relations scholarship, according to Payne
and Gamble, has accepted the world as it was, and indeed has focused on "making the
existing relationships and institutions work more smoothly" (p. 7). This is of course as
inaccurate as it is unfair, and only serves to allow the authors to pose as battlers against
defenders of capitalism. To this end, they utilize the vocabulary and political orientation
of dependency and world systems analysis but carefully only imply the attendant
arguments. Analysis of "cores" and "peripheries" is a major theme of the book (p. 17), in
which one finds depictions of international trade, investment and aid as a "corrupt
pipeline" and as "external penetration" leading to "economic control" (pp. 183; 101; 177).
In this volume, multinational corporations have "spreading tentacles," the West has
"gravely distorted" eastern European development, and states--not markets--generate
wealth (pp. 107; 73; 71). When an author admits that Reagan and Thatcher were highly
popular in eastern Europe, he claims that citizens there "lacked objective information" (p.
63). Upon noting that leaders in the U.S. and Latin America term the relationship between
their countries as one of partnership and cooperation, Payne claims "the notion of
partnership is evidence of the existence of hegemony" (pp. 124-5). This weak echo of
dependency and world systems analysis retains none of the absorbing and striking claims
of its forebears, keeping only the cant.

The second major contribution of the new IPE, as seen by the editors, is the
recognition that "the separation of subject and object and fact and value" is problematic (p.
6), which translates into practice as a focus on "the ideological aspects of region building
and region definition" (p. 17). Fair enough, but the danger in such an approach, exemplified
by several essays in the volume, is that writers will replace "unquestioning positivism" (p.
6) with fustian jargon. One chapter, for example, takes "as its referents the national space
`Japan' along with the non-Western cultural space `Asia' and the oceanic space `Pacific'"
(p. 169). In this essay, the author interprets Japanese wartime imperialism as an invasion
of "the geographic space identified as `Greater East Asia' in order to impose a congruence
between physical and ideological space" (p. 171). Another author notes that high-tech
plants may soon be "spatially distributed" in Mexico, yet does not identify the type of
space at issue (p. 142). In the essay on (what this reviewer will term) East Asia, the focus
is on "imagined regions" with different possible identities (p. 208). "Each of these
identities employs different signifiers to redefine/map/recall some or all of the NICs
[Newly Industrialising Countries] into its strategic orbit" (p. 240). These authors make the
reasonable argument, albeit in an often bombastic manner, that ideology and power
influence political definitions of regions. Their essays demonstrate, however, that it is
easier to make this point than to use it as a tool to advance our understanding of the current
dynamics of regionalism.

The contributors seek to use this new IPE to explain the origins of regionalism. In
so doing, Payne and Gamble assert, first, that the world is in a "post-hegemonic phase,"
the U.S. having declined from its previously hegemonic status. They offer no supporting
argument for this claim, despite acknowledging that the debate over U.S. "decline" has
neither been resolved nor added clarity to our understanding of hegemony (p. 5). Second,
the editors abruptly posit that regionalism is related to periods of post-hegemony, again
without sharing their reasoning (p. 16). A clue in this regard is Payne and Gamble's
comment that regionalism is "intended to help achieve [globalisation] in a world where
there is no longer a [hegemon]" (p. 253). One can interpret this as a functional argument:
because there is no global hegemon, regionalism is necessary to foster globalisation, and
therefore regionalism has spread. Even if the reader furnishes such an explanation in lieu of
one from the authors, however, the empirical content of the six region-specific essays
provides it no support. Among these, only Payne goes as far as to claim that the
Enterprise for the Americas Initiative "can be interpreted as" a response to declining U.S.
hegemony (p. 104). Payne never supplies such an analysis; he only notes that one is
possible (p. 125). While the back cover informs the reader that "regionalism has to be
understood in the context of the weakening of the position of the United States," none of
the contributors offer the reasoning that could support such a contention, much less an
empirical basis for it.

A pronounced characteristic of the volume as a whole is the lack of supporting logic
and often even scholarly citation for the authors' many assertions and asides. This is not
only true of the framing arguments the editors make against those who allegedly predict
regionalism will lead to armed conflict. Assertions, for example, that the U.S. desires a
"new cold war identity" for East Asia (p. 218; 220; 240) seem perfunctory and political.
The issue of footnoting is more serious. One author, highly skeptical that freer trade brings
any economic advantages to developing nations, confidently attacks "proclamations that
`take off' is right around the corner" in Latin America (p. 162). The same contributor tells
us that the "general thrust of research" regarding Latin America and the Caribbean has been
that free-market capitalism "led consistently to authoritarianism" (p. 157). If only to
provide scholars with possibly helpful sources, and certainly not least for the purposes of
demonstrating intellectual honesty, citations following such assertions are obligatory. It is
of course possible that these are merely sloppy oversights.
Overall, this volume is stronger on historical sketches of the growth of regionalism
than in careful comparative analyses regarding its dynamics and development, which indeed
are absent. Regionalism and World Order does not well serve the crucial topics with which
it is concerned.

I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THIS THAT CHINA REALLY HAS INITIATED A STEP FURTHER BUT THE BASICS IS THAT IT MAY HAVE TO RESTRICT HIM SELF IN INTERNATIONAL MARKET IN ORDER TO SUSTAIN.

David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan, eds., Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997) pp.403, price not listed.

"During the Persian Gulf War, George Bush sought to evoke a "new world order". The president was right in seeing a new potential for the international management of interstate and intrastate conflicts, but he was wrong in his horizons. Rather than a single world order, we are witnessing today the emergence of a variety of new regional orders." (Emphasis in original) This is the opening sentence of a book appropriately titled Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World.

Equally appropriately, it is based on a futuristic assumption: "In the foreseeable future, violent conflicts will mostly arise out of regional concerns and will be viewed by political actors through a regional rather than a global lens." We are either still on the way towards evolving regional arrangements and actions to cope with conflicts; or the entire project has been an unattainable ideal from the beginning. The book reflects innovative mode and optimistic mood in the discipline of International Relations in the early nineties. That is its contribution and that is its weakness.

In fact, one of the contributors attempts to draw parallels between the Concert of Europe and the Arab-Israel situation in West Asia and concludes on the note of optimism tempered with caution. (David J. Pervin, "Building Order in Arab-Israeli Relations: From Balance to Concert?" pp. 271-296) Susan Shirk, in her paper on "Asia-Pacific Regional Security: Balance of Power or Concert of Powers? (pp.245-270) argues that since successful management of relations between powers in the Asia-Pacific would be difficult to achieve by power-balancing alone, a regional concert of powers could emerge involving the US, Russia, China and Japan. "...there remain two possible obstacles ...a lack of ideological consensus and uncertain acceptance of the status quo," she concedes. No minor irritants, these!

Edmond J. Keller, on the other hand, is less upbeat. He identifies progress toward democracy and self-sustained development as the priority goals in Africa and will be content to see the development of interlocking collective security management systems linking the Organisation of African Unity with subregional organisations having common collective security interests. ("Rethinking African Regional Security" pp.296-317) Yuen Foong Khong is even less sanguine regarding Southeast Asia in the New World. As ASEAN moves toward expanding its membership and reaches out to nest itself in larger multilateral organisations such as the ARF and APEC, "it is conceivable that the spirit of togetherness engendered by ASEAN's cooperative ventures in the previous decades may come under strain." ("ASEAN and the Southeast Asian Security Complex" pp.318-339).

After the end of the Cold War, political analysts and policy makers alike turned their attention to the regional conflicts. Against the background of improving relations between the US and Russia, the conflicts in the margins of the global system, i.e., South Asia, West Asia, Africa, the new states in Central Asia etc., were seen as the fresh and more dangerous threats - to the states, to the regions and to the world. The political analyses broke new grounds at times. At others, old tools were employed to understand and explain new realities.

David A. Lake divides regions into three neat categories: unipolar, bipolar and multipolar and goes on to apply the Neorealist maxims to explain the regional dynamics. For example, he says, the unipolar regional security systems will be relatively autonomous, according to the theory of hegemonic stability; the multipolar ones will also be autonomous but plagued by problems of conflict management; and the bipolar ones will be less cooperative and less autonomous. (pp.60-61). There are several problems with such formulations. One, the Neorealism does not provide a comprehensive framework for understanding international relations. Two, the regional systems are inherently open. The global system, other regional systems, and even "outside" states can have a major impact on a region. (PP. 9-10). Autonomous regions, in the circumstances, can only be less penetrated vis-à-vis the highly penetrated ones. Three, as Hurrel puts it, "...all regions are socially constructed and hence politically contested." A state can be a member of two regions simultaneously; at times, three. Or a state can choose to look east, west, north or south according to its needs at various points in time. Or a region can choose to deny a state its membership in the region.

To sum up, even if one rejects the contention that `in marked contrast to the Cold War era, we do not see global political considerations leading to the consistent imposition of global issues, institutions or orders on all regional security complexes," (p.347) the book is a welcome input to the burgeoning literature on regions in a comparative perspective.

Gulshan Dietl, Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi - 110067.

I read this book after purchasing it at a local gunshow in Kansas City Missouri back in 2003. Since I was living in the area for 18+ years and serving in the Army I was familiar with some of the information that was in the book.

On one occasion I did see one of these black helicopters flying east from Kansas City MO along I-70 and I followed it to Whiteman AFB in Knob Noster MO.

There are a couple of other entries in the book that talk about detention centers in the area and a storage depot in Atchison KS located along the Missouri River. These two are true.

For those who want to know more about the relevance of cattle mutilations related to "secret government" machinations, you should appreciate that Jim Keith sought to reveal that by opening this book with discussions of journalist ED SANDERS, who has very importantly covered cattle mutilations in the context of secret government ops likely involving development of biologicals, and that many cattle mutilations were diagnosed by veterinarians as having LOCALIZEED CONCENTRATIONS of CLOSTRIDIA.

Keith opens this important work by having the reader seek to know more! You will discover Keith's incredible ability to ferret out the dark side of the Globalists....and how some of Keith's books reveal much more about secret "underground" biologicals developments for the "NEW ORDER". This book has the opening chapter dealing with cattle mutilations, so that should tell you something about what Keith has uncovered! CLOSTRIDIA, per DOD-docs presented by RN Joyce Riley reveal that Keith is on the right track! Jim Keith was quite nervous in revealing on the ART BELL show that CLOSTRIDIA was related to strange cattle mutilations, despite all the rest of the "entertainment" regarding that topic....and this book will provoke you to research more about WACO, et al!

I approach this book as an outsider to this genre. I'm not big conspiracy theory buff. I'm not a survivalist. Nor am I a die-hard political fanatic. Like most Americans, I go about my life vaguely aware of what's happening in our government. Given that, I went into this book with an open mind.

Jim Keith, who I find after some research, was one of the leading writers in government activities. With Black Helicopters Over America he raises some interesting questions. What is our military doing? What exactly does the government have in mind for our future? What part does our government play in the political machinations of the United Nations?

Keith lays out the plans for a New World Order. He describes an international police force under U.N. direction. He shows the groundwork for the disarmament of the people and the rights that we could lose in the new world state. Keith also describes a future of concentration camps for those that would speak out against the New World Order.

Black Helicopters is a straightforward book laden with factual events and policies. However, though the events and policies may be factual, the context and details of those entries can sometimes seem questionable. As with most any issue, facts can be arranged to display the picture the writer wants to be seen.

The material in the book is a bit dated. Even though it was published in 1994, events in the book date back as far as the 1950s. Most of the events presented are from the 1970s. This in itself softens the credibility of the text. While writing this review, I did find out that Keith published a follow up book in 1998 titled Black Helicopters II : The End Game Strategy. I would imagine that the follow up takes the reader current, up to 1998. It may be worth the time for interested parties to read this book to see if Keith presents more recent events that would add credibility to his arguments.

If anything, Keith does present enough information to make the reader think. In fact, Keith urges the reader to step back and take at look at the information that is available. In my opinion, the underlying point of Black Helicopters is: To make educated decisions based on researched facts and to understand your government and what it is doing. It is something to think about.

... how are we supposed to believe your theories that are harder to substantiate?

The litany of errors is hilarious.
Davis-Monthan AFB in Tuscon, AZ is alternately named "David Monthan," "Davis Munson," and "David Munson." Any road map could've provided the correct information.
Ft. Indiantown Gap in PA is similarly renamed about 3 different times.

Among the most amusing contention are the 30,000 "UN troops" stationed in Barstow, CA. First, Barstow doesn't have the water supply to support the 22,000 people that do live there. Second, the "UN troops" were probably soldiers from nearby Ft. Irwin, who wear different uniforms because their job is to portray the bad guys for units who come there to train (and there are fewer than 2500 of them). Third, why Barstow? What are they going to do, take down Las Vegas? And would anyone miss it if they did?

The best of all, though, is the cargo train of New World Order UN vehicles travelling through the western states. Keith claims they are "BMP-40s." They are quitely clearly Canadian Grizzly armored cars and M113 personnel carriers. Had anyone bothered to compare the timing of this train and the training schedule at the National Training Center, they would've known that the Canadians had a regiment of troops training with the Americans and these were the Canadian vehicles going home. When "Soldier of Fortune" debunks your cornerstone theory and dismisses it as the ravings of a right-wing lunatic, you know you're in trouble.

The Russian tanks seen on flatbeds near Gowen Field, ID and El Paso, TX? Probably going to the local weapons ranges to be shot at, since we've been using Russian tanks for target practice for decades, to test the effectiveness of our own weapons.

All in all, this is worth reading for the humor in it. But not worth spending money on. Unfortunately, there's no lower rating you can give than one star, but this one deserves to be in the negative.

It is such a shame amazon.com doesn't allow for a "bomb" or "zero star" rating, because if ever a book merited one, this would be it.

A friend of mine gave it to me as a joke gift, and I immediately found all the timelines about cattle mutilations, black helicopters, and other urban (rural?) legends to be slightly less interesting than reading the phonebook.

Factual errors include descriptions of the AH-64 Apache helicopter as a "troop transport" (it's an attack helicopter and it cannot hold any troops at all), a reference to the military base at "St John, Canada, near Montreal" (the town is called St-Jean-sur-Richeleu and there hasn't been a base there for years, now it's just an army language school), and descriptions of helicopter crews wearing cowboy hats (what, no helmets or intercom headsets?)...

This is the kind of book that gives leftists a bad name. The author essentially assumes what he is trying to argue at every stage. The book is full of cliché. He repeats himself mercilessly in what it clearly a cobbled together collection of articles. I really regret assigning this book to my students.

There is a movement among reviewers on Amazon to give one-star reviews to any book that dares to criticize Israel or veers slightly from the official American position on its policies. Sometimes the reviewer seems to not even have read the book, they just "know" that the book is somehow "pro-Palestinian" and therefore the entire book is invalidated. This is an excellent, fair and insightful book with a wealth of opinions on many issues by a respected figure, and should not be so easily dismissed because of the reviewer's views on Israel.

Falk starts by telling us that "September 11 was a traumatic wakeup call, but a wakeup to what?" He argues that the United States has plunged "the world into a struggle between two extremist visions of how to achieve world peace and global justice." My concern, however, is not that there will be a struggle between honest approaches to peace and justice, but that one or more sides will favor manifestly destructive policies or simply lie about its aims. And I expected this to be Falk's concern as well, whether we agreed about details or not.

Falk discusses what he calls the Westphalian model of order, involving states of varying shapes and sizes that more or less protect the rights and interests of their citizens and other residents. And then he gets to regionalism, in which groups of states can work together for their mutual benefit and protection. Of course, some states do not work well to benefit their citizens. I might add that there are a few cases in which regions may gang up on a member rather than protect it. Should there be strong global organizations that can help remedy this? Or would such organizations, if given the power to do so, just make matters worse?

I think the track record of the United Nations is so bad that we need to concentrate on avoiding the possibility of a global tyranny. Falk, on the other hand, feels that states are losing power as well as becoming greater threats to world order, so a strong global government is not a bad idea. The author admits that the UN failed strikingly to protect human rights in Rwanda and elsewhere, but he tends to blame such failures on the West.

There is plenty more in this book, and I don't have the space to discuss it all, but I will comment on Falk's support for an International Criminal Court. Falk precedes this with some reasonable material about war crimes trials and reparations in the twentieth centuries. And he notes that some of the courts used in these trials may have been ad hoc, and that it would be good to standardize such justice worldwide. Well, I strongly disagree. One concern I have about an International Criminal Court is that I feel it would arbitrarily side with aggressors on many occasions. One specific example I would pick is the attack on Jewish rights in the Middle East. And Falk immediately discusses this issue! However, he does not reassure me; he merely confirms my fears about all this.

The author insists that the frustration of Levantine Arab "rights" to "self-determination" has been seen by many "as the most vivid expression of double standards in international life, thereby undermining respect for international law and the UN." Well, I think there is indeed a huge double standard, but in the opposite direction. Land-poor Israel is deemed greedy for having less than 11,000 square miles for its 6 million people, 5 million of whom are Jews. It is asked to cede land to a vast Arab Empire. And it is asked to allow anti-Israeli Arabs to move to what land it gets to keep (as citizens, no less!). Meanwhile, its Arab neighbors are not chided for pretty much banning Jews, loyal or otherwise, as citizens and homeowners. What we're seeing is not a demand for Arab rights at all, but opposition to Jewish rights specifically and human rights in general. International courts ought to be ruling against the theft of land from the land-poor for the purpose of giving such land to the land-rich. If they instead make it a major goal of theirs to rule in favor of such theft, I think they are counterproductive.

I can't recommend this book.

The Great Siege of Malta in 1565 played a significant role in European history. The book like it says covers the fortification of Malta. The book desires and needs a review, therefore I will offer one. Sadly, this will not be a "five-star" review, but there will be some positive moments.

The positives (1) it was very useful for requiring hard to find information and data on the fortication on the island, especially when researching on the topic of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565 and (2) when I check out the book the libarian seemed impressed (perhaps a World War II buff that was misled), (3) It is a book with information, and (4) pictures.

The negatives (1) it does not have useful information, if you are wanting to know the details of the Knights of Malta or the Great Siege - I suggest reading Attard, Sire, Seward, or Bradford. (2) It was not very interesting to read for me.

I recommend the book for only people wanting to study military history on the island of Malta. If you want to know about military events or orders on the island - try some other books.

Lynn Miller starts off with a wonderful review of the Treaty of Westphalia's impact on diplomacy over the past few centuries. This gives the reader the impression that the rest of the book will be equally impressive, maybe shedding light on some of the major diplomatic challenges that have occurred in the recent past. Unfortunately, this impression is horribly wrong. Miller decides to use her skills in expounding on the "evils" of the modern world and the governments that control it. Her use of the conclusions she drew from the first part of the book is legitimate, but focused on social issues that she portrays as being easily remedied if only governments followed her prescriptions. In addition to the preaching, she falls into the habit of declaring as facts many issues and details that were debatable when she wrote this (1991) and still have not been resolved. This tends to make it hard for the reader to have faith in her any longer and when that happens it's time to choose another book.

This book really doesn't tell anything you haven't read in other Y2K books. There are minimal pages mentioning the New World Order, and those give no real information at all. I expected a lot more regarding the New World Order and Y2K.

I was very disappointed in this book.

This book easily ranks as the worst Y2k book that I have read to date. I am confident that I will not be able to find a poorer example of mindless hype and literary opportunism. This book offers no new insights into the Y2k problem itself or how it affects you. The author exhibits a puerile understanding of the problem. He offers few verifiable examples of the problem, and those few were years old at the time the book was printed.

Far more common are unverifiable stories that appear to have come right out of an e-mail chain letter. For example, on page 93 the author regales us with the story of a company set their microwave to 31 Dec 1999 and now it doesn't work! Which company? what brand of microwave? when did this happen? As a rule, if you cannot set the date on a device, then it probably does not care about the date and therefore cannot have a Y2k problem. Such an unusual example cannot be considered credible without a few details.

The "logic" applied by the author is little different from "logic" used by most Y2k Chicken Littles: if it is a computer (or electronic device) it could have a problem, therefore it does have a problem; if it has a problem, it could be a catastrophic problem, therefore it will be a catastrophic problem; therefore all computers will crash catastrophically, society will collapse, and we could all die, Q.E.D.

Oh, and let's not forget the New World Order Conspiracy. What better way to make this book stand out among hundreds of other panic-stricken tomes than to invoke the specter New World Order. References to the New World Order Conspiracy appear on three consecutive pages (117-119) and no where else in the book. What is the conspiracy? I don't know and, apparently, neither does the author, but it sells books. Beyond the following statement there is no explanation of the book's title: "Y2K will be used by government, the United Nations, terrorist's organizations, or even religious zealots to take advantage of the possible chaos."

If you are looking for useful information to evaluate how Y2k will affect you, look somewhere else.