Top 5 books: May 2023
Mariana Vieira
With the May edition of International Affairs published, the book reviews section has featured over 120 books so far this year. If that sounds like an overwhelming number, fret not; these Top 5 books blogs are here to help! In this round-up, Book Reviews Editor Mariana Vieira highlights five impressive books from our May issue, exploring peace negotiations in South Africa, mapping China’s charm offensive and rethinking sovereignty, as well as the origins of nuclear dependence. Unlike the prospect of springtime in London, this selection will not disappoint!
1) Beijing’s global media offensive
Written by Joshua Kurlantzick. Published in Oxford by Oxford University Press.
In this wide-ranging analysis of China’s influence campaigns, Joshua Kurlantzick explains how Beijing has increasingly prioritized projecting power through a variety of international media outlets. Focusing on the resources that China has poured into its state-backed media, Kurlantzick usefully shows that Beijing’s aims are not new and candidly outlines the varying factors underlying its media strategy. Moreover, the book also examines China’s relative success in its quest for greater soft power, and includes policy recommendations for its western competitors. As Professor Amitav Acharya astutely concludes in his review, ‘part of Beijing’s media and information campaigns exploits the biases and failings of western media’.
Read the full review here.
2) Challenging nuclearism
Written by Marianne Hanson. Published in Manchester by Manchester University Press.
Challenging nuclearism reveals the long shadow of Cold War nuclear weapons theorizing, which has led to the characterization of large arsenals as sources of security. Marianne Hanson explores how ‘nuclearism’ has become deeply entrenched in the nuclear policies of great powers. With a focus on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), Hanson examines the work of anti-nuclear advocates and highlights the role of humanitarian initiatives in accounting for the TPNW’s relative success, despite great power opposition. Hanson presents a well-balanced argument, measuring the TPNW’s challenges against its potential to bring new voices to the table. The book will benefit anyone interested in the history of the global nuclear order and the normalization of nuclear weapons in global security debates.
Read the full review here.
3) Hybrid sovereignty in world politics
Written by Swati Srivastava. Published in Cambridge by Cambridge University Press.
This book will appeal especially to readers with a background in political theory, and those looking for a refreshing analytical framework. Hybrid sovereignty in world politics distinguishes between ‘idealized’ and ‘lived’ forms of sovereignty to question conventional wisdom on the role of transnational private organizations. Swati Srivastava persuasively argues that, instead of eroding state sovereignty, non-state and private actors operating in security and business spheres express sovereign power and play key roles in modern governance. Drawing on three case-studies, the book sheds light on government delegation and the long-standing tension between concepts and practices of sovereignty. Check out our review for a helpful survey of Srivastava’s innovative framework.
Read the full review here.
4) Peacemaking and peacebuilding in South Africa
Written by Liz Carmichael. Published in Woodbridge by Boydell & Brewer.
Three decades ago, when the National Peace Accord (NPA) ushered South Africa into its post-apartheid era, Liz Carmichael was working as a medical doctor for the Anglican Diocese of Johannesburg, while also contributing to the emerging local peace structures of the early 1990s. Carmichael’s unique perspective informs her narrative of the NPA’s creation, viewed from the perspective of the people at its heart. Throughout, the book spotlights the contributions of civil society actors as Carmichael painstakingly clarifies the involvement of working groups and subcommittees, following their trailing of paperwork from resolutions to complaints procedures and even catering arrangements. This valuable resource will be of interest to anyone working on peace mediation and conflict resolution.
Read the full review here.
5) Non-Aligned Movement summits
Written by Jovan Cavoški. Published in London by Bloomsbury.
Non-Aligned Movement summits takes readers on a historiographical journey into the Non-Aligned Movement’s (NAM) key conferences and summits held in the 1960s and 1970s. Jovan Cavoški carefully elucidates the notion of non-alignment, ‘as a postcolonial concept and a foreign policy strategy’ that ‘should not be confused with dogmatic neutrality’. The book offers much-needed nuance on NAM internal tensions, among moderate and radical factions, expertly differentiating the movement from the Afro-Asian internationalism that also emerged at the time and analysing superpower relations with NAM’s different members. As the West struggles to find unanimous support for its condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the importance of Cavoški’s lessons on the NAM’s legacy for collective action in the global South should not be underestimated.
Read the full review here.
Mariana Vieira is the Book Reviews Editor of International Affairs.
Read the review section in our May 2023 issue in full here.
Find more suggestions from the IA Bookshelf series here.
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