BOOKS

Trump Is So Scary He Makes Even Bolton Look Good

June 29, 2020

I never thought I would ever feel sorry for Nikki Haley. But John Bolton, in his infamous new book, “The Room Where It Happened,” is so unrelenting in his snide comments about Haley, President Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations, that you have to draw back and think, Wait a minute, why is …

BOOKS, US Foreign Relations

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BOOKS

A Most Influential Actor: The US Ambassador to the UN

February 1, 2020

by Helmut Volger

Everyone familiar with the United Nations knows that its relationship with its key member, the United States, has been and still is subject to far-reaching changes. The periods when the US administration and the Congress make use of the competencies of the United Nations in shaping their foreign policies depend on the administration and …

BOOKS, US-UN Relations

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BOOKS

The All-Female Korean Hockey Team That Won the World’s Heart

December 28, 2019

by Sonah Lee

“A Team of Their Own: How an International Sisterhood Made Olympic History,” unfolds like the cinematic story of Disney’s 1992 hit “The Mighty Ducks,” except in Seth Berkman’s debut book this team of hockey players —South Korean, North Korean, American and Canadian, all female and of Korean descent — don’t win a single game. …

Asia, BOOKS

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BOOKS

Nikki Haley Makes Her Choice: She’s a Forever Trumper

November 19, 2019

by Irwin Arieff

“With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace,” is framed as a look back at Nikki Haley’s two years as United States ambassador to the United Nations. It’s also not unreasonable to assume she’s just ticking off one more box before an eventual run for high office: Quit your government job, start …

BOOKS, US-UN Relations

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BOOKS

Why This American Still Cherishes the UN

November 2, 2019

by Stephen Schlesinger

Americans should know more about the life of William vanden Heuvel, a former United States envoy to the United Nations office in Geneva in the late 1970s. His career of social and political activism has touched on the people of his country on issues ranging from prison reform to school desegregation — but especially …

BOOKS, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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BOOKS

Northern Ireland’s Ghosts, Living in Plain Sight

August 24, 2019

by Aaron Stanley

When driving through the tight, winding rural roads of Northern Ireland (or is it the north of Ireland?), you pass through quaint, sleepy little towns. Most barely have a High Street. But if you didn’t know any better, you’d think there was an important sporting event most days. It isn’t unusual to see a …

BOOKS

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BOOKS

In the Far-Flung African Diaspora, Writing by Women Flourishes

June 16, 2019

by Barbara Crossette

Margaret Busby is a pioneer in the literary world. In 1967, she became the first black woman to start a publishing company in Britain. The small company, Allison & Busby, was co-founded with Clive Allison, when both were recent university graduates. At first, it focused on poetry. Over the years, however, Busby, who was …

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BOOKS

Mexico City, 1975: When the Year of the Woman Was Born

October 13, 2018

by Ellen Chesler

From 1975 to 1995, the United Nations sponsored four international conferences on women that produced wildly optimistic blueprints for concrete gains. Some people dismiss these forums and the programs for action that they generated as lacking strategies to carry them out. Others insist that the conferences raised awareness, shaped aspirations, fostered activism and, in …

BOOKS, Development, Gender-Based Violence

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BOOKS

An Eloquent Homage to Syria’s Past, in Case It Has No Future

June 16, 2018

by Irwin Arieff

As one of the world’s oldest areas of human settlement, Syria has seen it all: glory and irrelevance, conflict and calm, dynamism and stagnation, tyranny and tolerance. While it has gone through long periods of international obscurity — pretty much ignored by the Roman and Ottoman Empires, for example — it has at times …

BOOKS, Syria

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BOOKS

The UN Is Complicated, So Here is a Dictionary to Help Figure It Out

June 2, 2018

by Helmut Volger

To provide readers who want information about the United Nations that is intelligent and concise yet comprehensive is a challenging task for every author: he or she must outline a puzzling system of principal organs, specialized agencies, programs, funds, commissions and committees that produces large piles of resolutions, declarations and conventions on topics such …

BOOKS, UN Agencies

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BOOKS

In Europe and the US, Will Young People Prolong Populism’s Appeal?

May 12, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

In one of several recent books looking for the meaning of populism’s surge in the 21st century, not only in the United States and Europe but also well beyond Western borders, the author Yascha Mounk, a German-born scholar at Harvard, offers the startling assumption that populism as a solution to political and economic problems is …

BOOKS

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BOOKS

In a World of Evolving UN Sanctions, an Emphasis on the Humanitarian Effects

January 13, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

Debates over how to deal with issues like North Korea’s nuclear weapons or the reliability of Iran to adhere to its role in a multiparty nuclear deal have brought questions about the value, design and human effects of sanctions to the fore at the United Nations and in national capitals. Are sanctions a tool …

BOOKS, Nuclear Disarmament, Security Council

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BOOKS

Have You Read the Koran? An Invitation to Non-Muslims

October 21, 2017

by Joanne Myers

Early in October, as director of Public Affairs Programs for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, I interviewed Gary Wills, the prize-winning historian and religious scholar, to discuss his latest book, titled “What the Qur’an Meant: And Why It Matters.” The book is an invitation to all non-Muslims to engage in a …

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BOOKS

A Hint on Confronting Islamist Power. Or Maybe Not.

October 7, 2017

by Irwin Arieff

Will it never end? When will time run out on the array of shape-shifting militant Islamist movements intent on moving into shaky trouble spots around the world to impose their extreme ideology, harness the population and hijack the local economy? How long will it take for the international community — the ubiquitous West — …

BOOKS, Libya, Middle East, Syria, Terrorism, US Foreign Relations

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BOOKS

America’s Pledge to the Paris Agreement Doesn’t Hinge on Washington

June 26, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

When Donald Trump, defying science and public opinion, reversed American policy and announced in June that the United States would leave the universally endorsed 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, his decision may have given more impetus to a growing trend away from reliance on shortsighted national politicians. In country after country, the focus …

BOOKS, Cities, Climate and Environment

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BOOKS

Trump Is So Scary He Makes Even Bolton Look Good

A Most Influential Actor: The US Ambassador to the UN

The All-Female Korean Hockey Team That Won the World’s Heart

Nikki Haley Makes Her Choice: She’s a Forever Trumper

Why This American Still Cherishes the UN

Northern Ireland’s Ghosts, Living in Plain Sight

In the Far-Flung African Diaspora, Writing by Women Flourishes

Mexico City, 1975: When the Year of the Woman Was Born

An Eloquent Homage to Syria’s Past, in Case It Has No Future

The UN Is Complicated, So Here is a Dictionary to Help Figure It Out

In Europe and the US, Will Young People Prolong Populism’s Appeal?

In a World of Evolving UN Sanctions, an Emphasis on the Humanitarian Effects

Have You Read the Koran? An Invitation to Non-Muslims

A Hint on Confronting Islamist Power. Or Maybe Not.

America’s Pledge to the Paris Agreement Doesn’t Hinge on Washington

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