[Peace-discuss] Best geopolitical analysis

[John W.]

At 09:20 PM 1/3/2008, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

>[For my money, Perry Anderson is the best contemporary historian 
>working.  His two volumes from the 1970s, Passages from Antiquity to 
>Feudalism and Lineages of the Absolutist State, are simply the best things 
>I read in years of studying and teaching history. The following is a 
>brilliant summary of the contemporary political situation, at once 
>sweeping and insightful.  ("Conjuncture," btw, is just a term of art 
>meaning a combination of events; "situation" is a weaker synonym.)  So 
>it's all the more appalling that Anderson buys so much of Mearsheimer and 
>Walt -- he doesn't go so far as to repeat their assertion that oil had 
>nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq -- and ignores the USG's 
>geopolitical motives for the invasion, the background of which he has set 
>out so clearly.  I could teach an entire seminar on this article in the 
>new semester ... more to the point, we could build a real anti-war 
>movement on it.  --CGE]


I'm curious what you as a historian, Carl, think of Naomi Klein's "The 
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", which I've mentioned I'm 
reading.  While I've undoubtedly not read nearly as many 
politico-historical tomes as you have, for me it sums up the Big Picture of 
the latter half of the 20th century (though Viet Nam is something of a 
glaring omission), and on into this one, probably better than anything I've 
ever read.  Your thoughts?

John Wason



>    New Left Review 48, November-December 2007
>    PERRY ANDERSON
>    JOTTINGS ON THE CONJUNCTURE
>    Editorial
>
>The contemporary period -- datable at one level from the economic and 
>political shifts in the West at the turn of the eighties; at another from 
>the collapse of the Soviet bloc a decade later -- continues to see deep 
>structural changes in the world economy and in international affairs. Just 
>what these have been, and what their outcomes are likely to be, remains in 
>dispute. Attempts to read them through the prism of current events are 
>inherently fallible. A more conjunctural tack, confining itself to the 
>political scene since 2000, involves fewer hazards; even so, 
>simplifications and short-cuts are scarcely to be avoided. Certainly, the 
>notations below do not escape them. Jottings more than theses, they stand 
>to be altered or crossed out.
>
>I. THE HOUSE OF HARMONY
>
>Since the attentats of 2001, the Middle East has occupied the front of the 
>world-political stage: blitz on Afghanistan -- sweep through the West Bank 
>-- occupation of Iraq -- cordon around Iran -- reinvasion of Lebanon -- 
>intervention in Somalia. The US offensive in the region has dominated the 
>headlines and polarized opinion, domestic and international. A large 
>literature has sprung up around its implications for the flight-path of 
>American power, and of the direction of world history since the end of the 
>Cold War. In the US establishment itself, fears of a debacle in Iraq worse 
>than that in Vietnam are not uncommon. The analogy, however, should be a 
>caution. Humiliating military defeat in Indochina did not lead to a 
>political weakening of the global position of America. On the contrary, it 
>was accompanied by a tectonic shift in its favour, as China became a de 
>facto ally, while the USSR sank into a terminal decline. Little more than 
>a decade after the US ambassador fled from Saigon, the US president landed 
>as victor in Moscow. In Vietnam today, American companies are as welcome 
>as missions from the Pentagon. Historical analogies can never be more than 
>suggestive, and are often misleading. But such reversals are a reminder of 
>the contrast that can exist between depths and surface in the sea of events...
>
>Full article at <http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2695>.