Book Reviews

  • Aging Asia

    Karen Eggleston and Shripad Tuljapurkar, Editors
    The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2012
    ISBN: 1931368201

    Demographers, economists and policy analysts pore over population statistics to predict the future. Medical advances throughout the 20th century lowered infant mortality, extended average lifespans and contributed to population growth. As women increasingly choose to have fewer children, more governments can anticipate population decline and a greater proportion of elderly citizens. Asian nations respond to these shifting demographics, combining modern elements of health care with traditional perspectives, explains Aging Asia: The Economic and Social Implications of Rapid Demographic Change in China, Japan and South Korea.  With early policy planning, older populations need not pose financial or social crisis.

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  • Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease

    Mark Harrison
    Yale Press, 2012
    ISBN: 0300123574

    Over the centuries, new diseases emerged and followed the trails of commerce, triggering panic and a rash of policymaking. As traders moved goods across longer distances, policymakers and investigators struggled to identify rats and mosquitoes as vectors for bubonic plague and yellow fever, respectively, or contaminated drinking water as a source for cholera. Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease by Mark Harrison, professor of the history of medicine with University of Oxford, focuses on centuries of public response to contagious diseases and development of international boards, standards and regulations. In her review, Susan Froetschel suggests the broad lessons on policymaking could be useful for public managers of other cross-border challenges such as climate change.

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  • Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights in an Interdependent World

    Hakan Altinay, Editor
    Brookings Institution Press, 2011
    ISBN: 978-0-8157-2141-3

    Increasingly confounding nations are problems of global scale. To negotiate resolutions, citizens and leaders must delve into global civics lessons and understand the political processes, argues Hakan Altinay, Brookings Institution fellow and editor of Global Civics Responsibilities and Rights in an Interdependent World.  Citizens ignorant of World Bank, World Trade Organization or United Nations operations can’t debate or rally behind decisions. Altinay’s proposal addresses a pressing need, notes reviewer Susan Froetschel, and global civics could strengthen institutions of global governance. If educators develop global civics programs, then reasonable and coordinated policy may soon follow. 

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  • Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future

    Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan
    Princeton University Press, 2011
    ISBN: 0691145725

    Those following political debates or media accounts in the wealthiest nations might assume that global migration brings more problems than benefits. Authors Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan set out to counter the prevailing negative narratives on migration in their book Exceptional People – How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future. After recounting the long history of migration and globalization over the last millennium and its crucial role in the progress of humanity, the book critiques current migration policies as fractured and shortsighted and provides policy recommendations for reform. In his review, Rasesh Mohan lauds the authors for providing sound evidence that policies discouraging migration represent lost opportunity.

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  • The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789-1914

    Immanuel Wallerstein
    Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011
    ISBN: 0520267613

    Beginning in 1974, sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein set out to produce an ambitious and innovative history of modern world development that he labels world-systems analysis. Volume IV of the series spans 1789 to the First World War and analyzes the period’s evolving politics and industrial systems along with competing responses of conservatism, socialism, radicalism and liberalism. In an introductory essay to a previous book “The Essential Wallerstein,” the sociologist argued that world-systems analysis is a protest “against neglected issues and deceptive epistemologies” and a call for “intellectual change.” He strives to explain so that his readers might better respond to a modern world. Historian J.R. McNeill reviews the fourth volume and analyzes the impact of Wallerstein’s inspiring career that bridges so many disciplines. 

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  • Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics: Changing the World?

    Liza Tsaliki, Christos A. Frangonikolopoulos and Asteris Huliaras, Editors
    Intellect/University of Chicago, 2011
    ISBN: 978-1-84150-349-3

    Many facets of globalization have combined to spur intense celebrity activism at the global level. Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics: Changing the World? scrutinizes the motivations, the public response, and influences over international relations and diplomacy.  The collection of essays, edited by Liza Tsaliki, Christos A. Frangonikolopoulos and Asteris Huliaras, suggests that celebrities and their dutiful fans could be unwitting pawns in global geopolitics, reinforcing power and inequality. In her review, Susan Froetschel points to the dangers of a piecemeal approach that delivers social benefits by lottery and argues that governments, better than a handful of individuals, can ensure policies that deliver justice and long-term relief. 

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  • Health Care in Canada: A Citizen’s Guide to Policy and Politics

    Katherine Fierlbeck
    University of Toronto Press, 2011
    ISBN: 978-1-4426-4003-0

    For developed nations with aging populations or developing nations investing in new programs, cross-country comparisons of health-care systems and their financing mechanisms are useful for containing health-care costs. Political scientist Katherine Fierlbeck offers a model for such comparisons with her book Health Care in Canada: A Citizen’s Guide to Policy and Politics. The costs and benefits of Canada’s largely public system versus those of the largely for-profit US system are compared. The two systems were similar during World War II, but diverged on separate financing paths afterward. Canada’s public system has flaws and limits, yet has achieved the superior results, and Fierlbeck offers cautions on cross-border influences from the US and its corporate model of health care.

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  • World on the Edge

    Lester R. Brown
    W.W. Norton and Company, 2011
    ISBN: 978-0-393-33949-9

    Food-price stability depends on good harvests year after year, and extreme weather events increasingly test agriculture’s ability to meet demands of a growing population. In “World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse,” Earth Policy Institute President Lester R. Brown analyzes the interconnections of water, energy, food security, climate and failing states. Half the book addresses the challenges awaiting governments for the 21st century, and the other half provides a plan, with Brown optimistic that the world can reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent before 2020. The plan’s centerpiece: reducing income taxes and raising taxes on carbon. Reviewer Susan Froetschel recommends the book as an investment guide for the 21st century.

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  • The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future

    Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, Editors
    Melville House Publishing, 2010
    ISBN: 978-1-935554-38-7

    “The People Reloaded” analyzes Iran’s Green Movement, its demand for reforms and the government’s insecure and brutal responses. Edited by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, the collection includes more than 50 essays, interviews and letters from the movement’s first year that highlight determination for specific reforms. In the book’s introduction, Postel concludes that “this book seeks to capture an important moment in Iran’s history.” The book meets that goal, confirms YaleGlobal reviewer Susan Froetschel, and could inspire others who seek democratic freedoms throughout the Greater Middle East. 

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  • The Dirty Energy Dilemma: What's Blocking Clean Power in the United States

    Benjamin K. Sovacool
    Praeger, 2009
    ISBN:978-0-313-35540-0

    Politicians, utility managers and corporations throughout the United States often insist that policies favoring renewable energies or conservation would disrupt job creation and economic growth. But with worldwide economic crisis and volatile price swings in energy costs, the public has become more skeptical. The impediments to new energy forms are social and political, based on greed, argues Benjamin Sovacool, research fellow for energy governance at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, in his book, “The Dirty Energy Dilemma.” In her review, Susan Froetschel lauds Sovacool’s analysis that points to a need for new public interest in energy science, delivery and politics - as essential as personal finance for the 21st century.

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