Martin Shaw Leo Panitch, The New Imperial State reply to article in New Left Review 2, 2000 Leo Panitch's 'The New Imperial State' is at once a welcome turn of Marxist theory towards the internationalized state, and disappointing in the limited nature of its advance. Although he rightly criticizes Peter Gowan for 'concentrating almost exclusively… Continue reading Leo Panitch, The New Imperial State, reviewed 2000
Category: reviews
Review of Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 2000
originally published at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/wendt.htm (2000) Martin Shaw Waltzing Alexander: constructing the new American ideology Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) Academic disciplines seem to require totemic figures: writers who act as focal points, whose ideas you love, or hate, but can't ignore, and who will be inflicted on students… Continue reading Review of Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 2000
Michael Mann’s Wiles Lectures: Modernity and Globalization, May 2000
first published at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/mann.htm Martin Shaw Imposing Labels on Ages: Modernity and Globalization Michael Mann's Wiles Lectures, Queen's University, Belfast, 23-26 May 2000 The historical sociologist, Michael Mann, delivering this flagship series of historical lectures for 2000, chose as his theme the way that we delineate and label historical periods. It is a feature of… Continue reading Michael Mann’s Wiles Lectures: Modernity and Globalization, May 2000
The myth of progressive war, Open Democracy, 11 October 2006
Christopher Cramer's focus on the regenerative effects of war misses both history's lessons and a change in the nature of modern war, argues Martin Shaw. Go to Open Democracy for the full text.
Review of Gray, Modern Strategy, in Review of International Studies, 2002
Strategy and slaughter Martin Shaw Colin Gray's 'Clausewitz rules OK' was the one contribution to the Interregnum special issue of this Review that engaged the problem of modern war in general.1 Issues of war and peace were represented only patchily in a volume aiming to reflect on the 'post-Cold War' decade, but put together before… Continue reading Review of Gray, Modern Strategy, in Review of International Studies, 2002
Review of Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy, for Sociology, 2006
When a sociologist as important as Michael Mann publishes three books in just over a year, two of them clearly major works and the third on the big political questions of the day, it is clearly an event for the field. The first two are fruits of a big detour from the third volume of… Continue reading Review of Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy, for Sociology, 2006
Review of King and Mason, Peace at any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo, for International History Review, 2007
Martin Shaw Iain King and Whit Mason, Peace at any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Pp. xx, 303. $27.95. It is a sign of the times that Kosovo can be seen as a partial success of international intervention and rule. Against the backdrop of Iraq, the fact that this… Continue reading Review of King and Mason, Peace at any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo, for International History Review, 2007
Review of Bell, The First Total War, for JGR, 2007
David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-618-34965-4, 0-618-34965-0, 420 pp, $27. This book deserves its modest celebrity, not so much because it expresses the new, post-Iraq scepticism towards war - the connections are explicit but not particularly… Continue reading Review of Bell, The First Total War, for JGR, 2007
Review of Moses and Stone, eds, Colonialism and Genocide, for JGR, 2007
Dirk A. Moses and Dan Stone, editors, Colonialism and Genocide, London: Routledge, 2007, ISBN 0-415-40066-X The relationship between colonialism and genocide is becoming an ever more important topic in genocide studies, and the republication in book form of this seminal issue of Patterns of Prejudice is a very welcome event. Although, as a collection of… Continue reading Review of Moses and Stone, eds, Colonialism and Genocide, for JGR, 2007
Review of Straus, The Order of Genocide, in World Politics, 2007
The Order of Genocide. By Scott Straus. Cornell University Press, 2006. 273p. $27.95 cloth. Studies of the 1994 Rwandan genocide have moved, Scott Straus argues, beyond simplistic interpretations in terms of ‘tribal’ or ‘ancient’ hatreds (interpretations that were, in truth, more those of the media and politicians than of the early academic literature) towards a… Continue reading Review of Straus, The Order of Genocide, in World Politics, 2007
Martin Shaw 