New Books
- When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa
In the later decades of the twentieth
century, Africa plunged into
political chaos. States failed, governments
became predators, and
citizens took up arms. In When
Things Fell Apart, Robert H. Bates
advances an exploration of state
failure in Africa. In so doing he
plumbs not only the depths of the
continent’s late-century tragedy
but also the logic of political order and the foundations
of the state. This book covers a wide range of territory
by drawing on materials from Rwanda, Sudan, Liberia,
and Congo. A must-read for scholars and policy makers
concerned with political conflict and state failure.
(Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate and Executive Committee member Robert H. Bates is a Harvard Academy Senior Scholar and Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and of African and African American Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University.
- La République de Dieu (in French)
Charles Cogan’s new book La République
de Dieu is a collection
of essays on the idea of God; on
evangelism (La République de
Dieu); and on Islamic fundamentalism
(L’Islam médiéval). The
essays are followed by empirical
chapters analyzing a number of
conflicts—Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq
and Israel/Palestine—between the
Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.
(Editions Jacob-Duvernet, 2008)
Charles G. Cogan is an affiliate of the Weatherhead Center’s John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, a research associate of the Center for European Studies, and an affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.
- Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspective
Regional institutions are an increasingly
prominent feature of
world politics. Their characteristics
and performance vary widely:
some are highly legalistic and bureaucratic,
while others are informal
and flexible. They also differ in
terms of inclusiveness, decisionmaking
rules and commitment
to the noninterference principle.
This is the first book to offer a conceptual framework for
comparing the design and effectiveness of regional international
institutions, including the EU, NATO, ASEAN, OAS,
AU, and the Arab League. The case studies, by a group of
leading scholars of regional institutions, offer a rigorous,
historically informed analysis of the differences and similarities
in institutions across Europe, Latin America, Asia,
Middle East, and Africa. The chapters provide a more theoretically
and empirically diverse analysis of the design and
efficacy of regional institutions than heretofore available.
(Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate and Executive Committee member Alastair Iain Johnstonis the Governor James Noe and Linda Noe Laine Professor of China in World Affairs, Department of Government, Harvard University.
- Postcolonial Disorders
The essays in this volume reflect
on the nature of subjectivity in
the diverse places where anthropologists
work at the beginning
of the twenty-first century.
Contributors explore everyday
modes of social and psychological
experience, the constitution
of the subject, and forms of subjection
that shape the lives of
Basque youth, Indonesian artists, members of nongovernmental
HIV/AIDS programs in China and the Republic
New Books of Congo, psychiatrists and the mentally ill in Morocco
and Ireland, and persons who have suffered trauma or
been displaced by violence in the Middle East and in
South and Southeast Asia.
(University of California Press, 2008)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good is Professor of Social Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Department of Sociology, Harvard University. Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Byron J. Good is Professor of Medical Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.
- Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy
This book demonstrates how the
international mobility of students,
scholars, programs, and
institutions of higher education
evolved over time, and the ways
in which it is occurring in today’s
global knowledge economy.
Students and scholars leaving
their homes in search of education
and knowledge is not a new
phenomenon. Kemal Gürüz explores the contributions
such mobility has made to civilization, scientific and
technological progress, and the ways in which it is occurring
in today’s global knowledge economy. Gürüz relates
the theme of mobility to the historical development
of higher education and other trends over time, bringing
an important cross-cultural perspective to the topic.
(State University of New York Press, 2008)
Kemal Gürüz (Fellow, 2004–2005) is former president, Council of Higher Education of the Republic of Turkey, former professor of chemical engineering, Middle East Technical University. In 2005 he was the first recipient of the Chancellor John W. Ryan Fellowship in International Education at the State University of New York.
- God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape
Religion and immigration inspire passionate disagreements among Americans. But many of these debates are based on outdated assumptions. For one thing, most people think immigrants cut off their ties to their countries of origin as they become American or at least that they should. But more and more, people continue to invest, vote, and raise children in their homelands at the same time that they put down strong roots in the United States. What’s more, they use religion to do so. They belong to religious communities that integrate them into this country, and at the same time, connect them to others of the same faith around the world. Immigrants are changing the face of religious diversity in the United States, helping to make American religion just as global as economic and politics and subtly challenging the very definition of what it means to be an American.
Many Americans fear that the traditions and beliefs
newcomers import will unravel our social fabric,
but the author’s conversations with immigrants suggest
the opposite. Immigrants are the translators and
bridge-builders that America so desperately needs.
They bring to light that the challenges we face are
produced by forces operating inside and outside our
borders, but at the same time, so are the solutions.
(The New Press, 2007)
Peggy Levitt is an associate of the Weatherhead Center. She is also Faculty Co-director, of the Transnational Studies Initiative and an associate professor of Sociology and Chair, Department of Sociology, Wellesley College.