The Longest War - The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda. Peter L. Bergen. Free Press, New York, 2011. Writing history is a matter of placing points in time as bookends or markers for significant events that have occurred around the world. Generally this is done by the winners of... » read this article

This week at the UN - if the U.S. push to disable the process does not succeed - a vote will be taken on Palestinian statehood. The U.S. has already stated that it will veto any vote that supports Palestinian statehood. So why take the vote if that is the... » read this article

Refusing to be Enemies - Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta. Ithaca Press (Garnet Publishing, Reading, UK), 2011. Israel has always indicated that there is no partner for peace in its relationships with the Palestinian people. Refusing to be Enemies refutes that idea solidly through... » read this article

Editor's Comment: Thanks to Jim Miles for a superb review of what appears to be an excellent book which as Jim says, "... covers a wide range of topics effectively" and "all major countries, as necessitated by their many global interactions, are essential parts of the story." Jim notes the author's treatment... » read this article

Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay recognize Palestine within 1967 green line armistice boundary. A curious turn of events is taking shape in Latin America, one that demonstrates at least two levels of international change. The leaders of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have stated their recognition of a Palestinian state within the... » read this article

The title from this issue of Foreign Affairs (Remaking the Middle East) struck me as rather odd, in particular the subtitle “New Challenges Call for New Policies. Are the U.S. and Israel Ready to Change Course?” (September/October 2010) The U.S. has been trying to remake the Middle East for quite some... » read this article

Empire for Liberty. Richard H. Immerman. Princeton University Press, 2010. History takes on an interesting life when written as well as Richard Immerman’s new book “Empire for Liberty,” with the lengthy subtitle “A History of American Imperialism From Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz.” Immerman’s work ranges, as indicated, from the... » read this article

There are times when I must admit that to belong to the great group of uninformed people, or perhaps uncaring people, or unthinking people, would be a much easier way to get through life. The developed countries of the world have the wealth to create systems of distraction for the... » read this article

The Invention of the Jewish People. Shlomo Sand. Verso, New York, 2009 Historians living within their own nations develop within the mythology peculiar to their nation, in which “various spheres of memory coalesced into an imagined universe representing the past.” The historian is a combination of his own personal experiences... » read this article

Since the release of the Wikileaks video “Collateral Murder” there has been an amazing amount of discussion on the net concerning the actions viewed in the video. One of the more interesting discussions was on OpEd News from two articles by Josh Stieber, a soldier who was with the same... » read this article

Three Kings - The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II Lloyd C. Gardner. New Press, N.Y., 2009. This concisely written and well documented work covers the “Truman Doctrine…the essential rubric under which the United States projected its power globally after World War II…the... » read this article

For historians who like dates and bookends for their events, the “global war on terror” started with the destruction of the Twin Towers and the attack on the Pentagon (9/11). The idea of perpetual war provided large benefits to a few and pain and terror to much of the world,... » read this article

The task of saving and reviving humanity oft times appears overwhelming when studied from a fully global perspective: occupations, wars, and terror abounds; starvation, disease, poverty, homelessness, accompany the wars and are also an integral part of global economic structures; of which, the current debt crises robs the working class... » read this article

The thrift in me allowed me to wait until Michael Moore’s “Capitalism - A Love Story” came out on second run theatres - it was well worth the wait. The powerful effect that Moore has on his audience derives from the personal stories he relates combined with a sense of... » read this article

In The Jaws of the Dragon. America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance. Eamonn Fingleton. Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin’s Press), New York, 2008. A book about the future published in 2008, with information preceding the publishing date, could well be considered out of date - or at... » read this article

When I first saw the headline, in Rob Kall’s OpEd News, I thought “This is a joke.” However on further checking the joke on the web - through sites as diverse as al-Jazeera, the Globe and Mail, the Christian Science Monitor, Reuters and others - it became obvious that this... » read this article

Editorial Note: Perhaps a tough read for some, but a worthwhile read for everyone. - LMB That Israel exists and has the power to continue existing is very much a fact. With a sophisticated military establishment including more than 200 nuclear weapons (at lowest estimates) there is no way Israel... » read this article

One State, Two States - Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict. Benny Morris. Yale University Press, New Haven, NJ. 2009 This is a rather oily work to deal with, operating under the pretence of academic objectivity that "does not flatter anyone's prejudices." And while Benny Morris obviously knows his historical facts, One... » read this article

The Inheritance – The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.  David E. Sanger.  Harmony Books (Random House), New York.  2009.   David Sanger makes it clear what his book, “The Inheritance”, is all about.   Simply stated in the first line of the preface he says, “This book... » read this article

After America – Narratives for the Next Global Age.  Paul Starobin. Viking (Penguin), New York, 2009.   After a half decade of books on the ‘American empire’ and many more on the politics, military, religion, and economics that are pieces of the whole, a new trend is now appearing on... » read this article