Few readers will buy all the prognostications, but most will agree that the author makes a reasonable case, backed with vast...
Futurologist Friedman (America’s Secret War, 2004, etc.) entertainingly explains how America will bestride the world during this century.
Prophecy, whether by astrologers, science-fiction writers or geopoliticians, has a dismal track record, but readers will enjoy this steady stream of clever historical analogies, economic analyses and startling demographic data. He dismisses America’s obsession with the war on terrorism. Al-Qaeda, he explains, aims to recreate a united, Ottoman-like Islamic empire. To thwart this, the United States has merely to sustain the present disunity of Muslim nations. Win or lose, when we withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade, the region will remain satisfyingly chaotic, and America can turn its attention elsewhere. There will be plenty to occupy us. Our leading economic rival, China, will implode, its dazzling growth ending in a crash just as Japan’s did in the 1990s. But while Japan’s stable society has endured during nearly 20 years of economic depression, China’s rigid leadership and fractious regionalism cannot tolerate such stress, and the nation will fragment. A reviving Russia will try to reestablish defensible borders in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, but shrinking population and reliance on natural resources for wealth doom it to failure and collapse. Japan, Turkey and Poland will fill the vacuum. For these predictions, Friedman relies heavily on a trend that will jolt most readers. The population explosion is ending, he writes; after 2050 advanced nations will need massive immigration to fill jobs and support their aging citizenry. This will provide another boost for America, which has always been friendlier to immigrants than Europe or Japan. Also, Mexico will become a great power.
Few readers will buy all the prognostications, but most will agree that the author makes a reasonable case, backed with vast knowledge of geopolitics delivered in accessible prose.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-51705-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
A wide-ranging critique of Clinton’s foreign policy that will please those frustrated over the continuing popularity of a president focused on domestic issues. Criticizing Clinton’s foreign policy is like spearing fish in a barrel—it’s so easy, there is no real sport in it. Moreover, there is a built-in bias toward the negative: if something has gone badly, it is a debacle, but if something goes well, then we have to wait and see how things turn out before passing judgment. Hyland, former editor of Foreign Affairs (Mortal Rivals: Superpower Relations from Nixon to Reagan, 1987), is not deterred. Starting from the premise that Clinton inherited a world in better shape than any other modern president, albeit briefly touching upon and minimizing the problems created by Bush’s foreign policy of “prudence,” Hyland systematically explores foreign policy issues and records the ways in which Clinton has botched them. Interventions in the Balkans, Somalia, and Haiti, negotiating Middle East peace agreements, relations with Russia, China, and Japan, responding to the Asian financial crisis, and more are addressed. Throughout, patterns of hesitancy, unwillingness to designate authority until matters have reached a crisis stage, and placement of emphasis on economic diplomacy and international trade over the traditional concerns of security and geopolitics are identified and excoriated. Clinton’s transformation from idealist to pragmatist is noted, and seemingly some criticism is blunted, but Hyland doesn—t shrink from a strong conclusion: adopting an ad hoc “selective engagement” approach instead of a clear direction for American foreign policy has meant that “a magnificent historical opportunity to shape the international system had been missed.” Clinton’s blunders invite this kind of harsh criticism, but the irony here is that Clinton forfeited the chance to lead the world in a dramatic new direction when he followed the advice of veteran foreign policy hands such as Hyland and turned himself into Bush. Like the recent American foreign policy he chronicles, Hyland eschews any positive theme.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-275-96396-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Praeger
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Three studies of public affairs television, performed for a media watchdog group, challenge allegations that the medium has a liberal bias. In studies conducted from 1989 to 1993 for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), sociologists Croteau and Hoynes statistically analyze the content of Nightline, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and PBS's general evening programming. Their controversial 1992 study of Nightline, which examined the program over a 40-month period, found that guests were overwhelmingly white (92%), male (89%), and conservative (Henry Kissinger and Jerry Falwell each appeared more than 12 times, while Jesse Jackson was the only liberal featured more than twice). The guest list on MacNeil/Lehrer's nightly ``alternative'' to network news was even less varied. Perhaps most important is the examination of PBS's evening programming during six months in 1992. Even on documentaries, which formed the basis for many conservative claims about PBS bias, male sources outnumbered female three to one, with ethnic, working-class, and gay sources rare or nonexistent. Croteau (Virginia Commonwealth Univ.; Politics and the Class Divide, not reviewed) and Hoynes (Vassar Coll.; Public Television for Sale, not reviewed) say that television news lacks appropriate representation of its audience. Public affairs programs overwhelmingly offer the views of industry or government figures, while representatives of consumer, labor, and environmental organizations are marginalized. Analysis tends to emphasize ``the political game,'' Croteau and Hoynes contend, instead of the larger consequences of political decisions. Reasons for this narrow focus, in their view, include cost pressures and an ethos that leads journalists to seek partnership with—rather than professional distance from—their powerful sources. Generating more questions than it can answer, this slender, provocative work may play a central role in renewed debate over funding for public television in a Republican-dominated Congress.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56751-045-0
Page Count: 250
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
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