A thorough, illuminating overview of major geopolitical shifts in 2019 involving America, Europe, and Turkey.
An expert looks at the interconnected foreign policies of the United States, Europe, and Turkey in 2019.
With opinion pieces published in the New York Times and articles featured in leading academic journals, in addition to her diplomatic career at the United Nations, Cherneva has established herself as a leading voice of a new generation of foreign relations experts. In this book, she eschews a traditional analysis of bilateral diplomacy and instead looks at the myriad calculations made by U.S. President Donald Trump, European leaders, and Turkish officials in 2019 and early 2020. Trump astonished the world, including fellow Republicans, in 2019 when he allowed Turkey to enter Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria that was previously protected by American troops. This reversal of nearly a half-century of U.S. support for the Kurds presaged a new era of international relations in the Near East. Moreover, Trump’s 2019 impeachment proceedings released private telephone calls and other materials related to the administration’s relationship with Ukraine that signaled to Europe the president’s foreign policy priorities. Now, more than ever, many European leaders understood that they “first need to appeal to the US President’s private business or political interests before they can get on the US foreign policy agenda.” Moreover, given Britain’s internal preoccupation with Brexit and Trump’s “hostility” to the European Union, Cherneva argues that French President Emmanuel Macron used the chaos of 2019 to his personal advantage in his quest to become the most powerful figure in Europe. Though she is an open supporter of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and a critic of Turkey’s political regime, the author’s analysis is that of a skilled diplomat. Her study of the past year is nuanced and fair to all sides even when critical. The book also features an intriguing case study of the interconnection of human rights and global trade in her appraisal of German opposition to a proposed Volkswagen plant in Turkey. More historical context would have been helpful for general readers. But experts will gladly welcome Cherneva’s insights into an unprecedented year in international diplomacy.
A thorough, illuminating overview of major geopolitical shifts in 2019 involving America, Europe, and Turkey.Pub Date: Feb. 29, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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