Description: Editor Raju G. C. Thomas and contributors examine underlying issues regarding the sources of religious nationalism and ethnic conflict, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states, and the principle of self-determination and the right of secession from an existing state.
Brief description:
Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he is also the chairman of the Department of American Foreign Policy. Before joining Johns Hopkins in 1990, Professor Mandelbaum taught at Harvard University, Columbia University and at the United States Naval Academy. He also has taught business executives at the Wharton Advanced Management Program in the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mandelbaum is the author of 10 books and the editor of 12 more. Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2010. His first book, The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, was published in 1979. The Economist called it "an excellent history of American nuclear policy...a clear, readable book." Mandelbaum spent a year in the State Department in Washington from 1982-1983 on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in the office of Under Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, working on security issues. After publishing three books on nuclear weapons issues, The Nuclear Question (1979), The Nuclear Revolution (1981) and The Nuclear Future (1983), Mandelbaum shifted his focus to the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States, co-writing two books on the subject, Reagan and Gorbachev (1987) and The Global Rivals (1988), which was made into a Public Broadcasting series with Bernard Kalb as the host. In 1986 he became a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where he also was the director of the Council's Project on East-West Relations. In this role, which continued for 17 years until 2003, Mandelbaum became a frequent guest on television and radio, discussing such major issues as the arms race, the fall of the Soviet Union, the war in Iraq and the implications of globalization. He has appeared on The CBS Evening News, The News Hour, Face the Nation, Larry King Live and The Charlie Rose Show, among many other programs. From 1985-2005 Mandelbaum wrote a regular foreign affairs analysis column for Newsday. His Op-Ed pieces on foreign affairs have also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and have been republished in newspapers around the world. In addition to his newspaper columns, Mandelbaum has written many longer articles for TIME Magazine, as well as the journal, Foreign Affairs, including his provocative 1996 essay entitled "Foreign Policy as Social Work" (about the foreign policy of the Clinton administration), followed two years later by "A Perfect Failure" about the war in Kosovo. In 1988 Mandelbaum published one of his major books, The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the 19th and 20th Centuries, which the American Historical Review called "a tour de force." It is a survey of how a select number of countries have dealt with their security concerns in the modern era. Publishers Weekly called it "brilliant and enjoyable.... [Mandelbaum's] knowledge of philosophy, politics, history and economics results in a stunning delineation of centuries of military actions, political maneuverings and cultural uprisings." The World Affairs Councils of America named him one of the most influential people in American foreign policy. Mandelbaum's 1996 book, The Dawn of Peace in Europe, received a rave review in The New York Times Book Review, which called it "a brilliant book...the most lucid exposition yet of the post-Cold War order in Europe." It was in this book that he introduced readers to the idea that Europe has become a "zone of warlessness" -- a region in which armies are kept small and defense budgets modest because the people and their governments have been able to resolve their differences peacefully through such organizations as the European Union rather than, as in the past, on the field of battle. In 2002 Mandelbaum published The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century, which became an instant classic on the major international themes of the new millennium and has been translated into seven languages, including Chinese and Arabic. In 2004 he took time out from his usual focus on international relations to write The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football and Basketball and What They See When They Do, which analyzes the appeal of team sports in the United States and compares the workings of sports teams to the cooperation necessary in business enterprise. Pete Hamill in The New York Times described the book as "a subtle extension of Mandelbaum's own expertise in foreign policy. It can help explain the United States to the rest of the often-baffled world." In 2006 Mandelbaum returned to the international arena with The Case For Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century. It is a provocative, eye-opening look at America's global role, the responsibilities it has undertaken, and the challenges it faces. The New York Review of Books described it as "an eloquent statement of the vital role of America in twenty-first-century global security." Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government, published in 2007, was hailed by The Weekly Standard as "an excellent and broadly accessible book.... Mandelbaum stresses the role of free markets, which provide not only economic growth but also a school in the qualities that liberal democracy depends on." His book The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era was released in August of 2010. Mandelbaum was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1999-2000 and a Carnegie Scholar (in 2004-2005) of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. These fellowships supported the writing of his two most recent foreign policy books. From 1984-2005 he was the associate director of the Aspen Institute's Congressional Program on Relations With the Former Communist World, which organized seminars for members of Congress to educate them on the issues facing the United States in its relations with the countries of central and eastern Europe, particularly Russia. In this role he has traveled throughout Russia and Eastern Europe and has met regularly with the members of Congress who take the lead on foreign policy issues, as well as with their counterparts in both western and eastern European legislatures. This has deepened his understanding of the perspectives of American House and Senate members as well as the responsibilities and constraints on many foreign legislators. He also has testified before the Congressional committees and subcommittees with responsibilities for foreign relations and the armed services. As a member of the Board of Advisors of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mandelbaum contributes his understanding of the Middle East to this Washington, D.C.-based policy group and has made numerous trips to the region with its leadership. A popular speaker for the United States Information Agency for more than two decades, Mandelbaum has explained American foreign policy to diverse groups throughout Europe, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Middle East. His ability to cut through clichés and misunderstandings have made him a popular lecturer. He lectures widelReview Quotes:
"For anyone who wants to understand how Yugoslavia a country that once punched above its weight unravelled with such disastrous results, this book provides a clear and detailed analysis." --The South Slav Journal
"Yet another addition to the bookcases of volumes on the latest Balkan wars, you ask? But this collection of essays assembled by Raju G.C. Thomas, and complemented by his own, is something different. Drawing on his personal background, Thomas ventures, credibly, that what is described in Yugoslavia Unraveled could have happened to his native India, too, if it had been a small country and lacked nuclear weapons. He and the other authors go on to explore the tragedies of self-determination gone amok, of 'morality as a product of power' on the part of big interventionist countries, of the destructive role that 'advocacy scholarship' and the new 'government-media-academia-complex' played in tearing Yugoslavia apart during the 1990s. In short, a valuable work." --David Binder, New York Times "Yugoslavia Unraveled should be required reading for the enthusiasts of humanitarian U.S. interventionism and for the policy-makers who have prematurely declared the Balkan tragedy a 'success story.' The contributors to this compendium offer solid evidence that highlights the inherent dangers of using ethnic stereotyping as a substitute for the rule of law." --Nikolaos A. Stavrou, Editor of Mediterranean Quarterly "This volume is a necessary corrective to the way the history of the breakup of Yugoslavia has been constructed for the public. Never has it been so important to counter the big lie of 'humanitarian intervention' that was undertaken by noble Western nations to 'save' the Balkans. This book collects incisive works by top scholars in a range of disciplines, delivering a clear and compelling analysis uncommon for edited collections." --Robert Jensen, Director of the Senior Fellows Honors Program of the College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin "This book makes two contributions one theoretical and one historical. The human tragedies of the last decade's civil wars precipitated an emerging view among many statesmen, international lawyers, human rights activists, and analysts that the sovereigntyprinciple should be eroded. States that are hard on their people should lose their customary international legal right to be free from foreign intervention. Instead, outside powers can and should intervene to put things right when governments fighting fortheir survival fail to conform to others? principles and norms. This book traces how the attack on sovereignty emerged during Yugoslavia's dissolution, and how it contributed to that dissolution. It directs attention to the negative consequences that didarise, and will arise, once the sovereignty principle is compromised. Yugoslavia's dissolution produced a body of historical, autobiographical, and analytic publications much of it impressive, but much of which also succumbed to the temptation of attributing evil outcomes to evil men mostly evil Serbian men, and good outcomes to good men and women, mostly U.S. and western European. This book marks the beginning of a new approach to the understanding of these important and tragic events, a more historica" --Barry Posen, M.I.T. "Yugoslavia Unraveled presents a comprehensive account of a subject many wish to forget, with all its failures and successes, heroes and villains. It deserves a wide readership. No student or scholar in political science should be without it" --Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, The National Interest "Most of the diverse essays in this collection hold a common theme: that Western policy regarding the demise of Yugoslavia has been clumsy at best, and at worst has caused unnecessary damage and loss of life in the region. The consistent presentation of different aspects of this thesis provides a nice thread bewteen the pieces that is quite rare in edited collections." --Nationalities Papers "Yugoslavia Unraveled is a welcome and important work. . . This book is important both for what it teaches us about the conduct of foreign policy during the 1990's and for what it tells us about policy in the twenty-first century. . . Thomas's instincts were correct, and he is to be commended for assembling a fine collection that is sure to stand the test of time. . ." --Christopher Preble, Director, Foreign Policy Studies, The Cato Institute, Washington D.C. ". . . .The volume must be judged as a much-needed contribution to scholarship by providing antitheses to the theses of the dominant paradigm of Balkan politics. As such, Yugoslavia Unraveled will be appreciated not only by advanced students of Balkanology but also by those working in the broader fields of political philosophy and international relations." --Andrew C. Janos, University of California, Berkeley, Perspectives on Political Science "Yugoslavia Unraveled is a welcome and important work that reviews the international community's policies toward Yugoslavia in the 1990s." --Mediterranean Quarterly "Many books have been written about the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. But it is doubtful if there will be a more comprehensive overview of the Balkans imbroglio than Yugoslavia Unravelled. . ..For anyone who wants to understand how Yugoslavia - a country that once punched above its weight - unravelled with such disastrous results, this book provides a clear and detailed analysis." --Slavic Review "This is a solid and comprehensive volume that assembles new and previously published insightful works by a range of scholars and politicians, and delivers a compelling analysis of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia." --Joe Mocnik, Bowling Green State University "This book achieves the aims of its editor very well, and even those who disagree with all or parts of it will find their convictions tested by reading the measured, incisive and scholarly arguments presented here." --Leslie Benson, Northampton University "Anyone seeking to understand the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia will find ample reward in this collection. It is a worthy contribution to scholarship and to the unearthing of truth in a highly contested political field. Raju G. C. Thomas is to be thanked for bringing these contributions together." --Global Dialogue "Yugoslavia Unraveled makes a solid contribution to our understanding of the Balkan tragedies of the 1990s. The book shows clearly how the Western powers undermined Yugoslavia' s sovereignty and thereby helped cause the ensuing bloodshed and chaos. The policies pursued by those powers have implications far beyond the Balkans and are likely to haunt the international community for decades to come. Thomas has written a powerful account that should be must reading for policymakers and interested laymen alike." --Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute "This book makes two contributions one theoretical and one historical. The human tragedies of the last decade's civil wars precipitated an emerging view among many statesmen, international lawyers, human rights activists, and analysts that the sovereignty principle should be eroded. States that are hard on their people should lose their customary international legal right to be free from foreign intervention. Instead, outside powers can and should intervene to put things right when governments fighting for their survival fail to conform to others' principles and norms. This book traces how the attack on sovereignty emerged during Yugoslavia's dissolution, and how it contributed to that dissolution. It directs attention to the negative consequences that did arise, and will arise, once the sovereignty principle is compromised. Yugoslavia's dissolution produced a body of historical, autobiographical, and analytic publications much of it impressive, but much of which also succumbed to the temptation of attributing evil outcomes to evil men mostly evil Serbian men, and good outcomes to good men and women, mostly U.S. and western European. This book marks the beginning of a new approach to the understanding of these important and tragic events, a morehistorically familiar tale distributing responsibility among multiple parties, inside and outside- parties with mixed motives, poor information, bad theories, limited political skill, and malleable principles." --Barry Posen, M.I.T.