Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Let us continue through the regional security complexes of the globe with the authors of REGIONS AND POWERS as our guides. The Middle East is an RSC. Buzan and Waever divide it into three parts (subcomplexes) -- from east to west these are: the Persian Gulf, the Levant, and the Maghreb. The Maghreb -- Libya, Tunisia, Morocco etc. -- seems to these authors' rather uninteresting, although it figures of necessity in ideological movements of pan-Arab or pan-Islamic coloration. The Persian Gulf and the Levant are, as one might expect from students of international security, quite fascinating to our authors.  I will offer three quotes on the Middle East from this book. p. 198, "Having itself exposed the weakness of Britain and France in 1956, thus hastening their departure from the region, the United States was drawn into the vacuum. To the extent that Soviet successes had linked communism and Arab radicalism in US thinking, Israel's resounding success in the 1967 established it...

The day before yesterday, I quoted a review in the New York Review of Books, for June 4th. Today I will do likewise. Again with the caveat that I haven't read the book and likely never will. The book in question this time is READING DARWIN IN ARABIC, 1860-1950 by Marwa Elshakry. What a marvelous title! so resonant (whether by intent or not) of READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN. Anyway, the Ekshakry book is reviewed by Christopher de Bellaigue. He tells us, on Elshakry's authority,  that the Arabic term for Darwinism is "Darwiniya," and that in many quarters, especially in Egypt, it was a key part of modernizing/westernizing movements for decades. He ends his review this way: "Darwiniya is not only a scientific system, but also a shorthand for intellectual curiosity and a progressive view of the human condition. The reverses it has suffered over the past few years are less bad than they look, not only because modern values are espoused by a great number of Mulsims,...

Janet Tavakoli has a new book out entitled Unveiled Threat: A Personal Experience of Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism. Yes, I know. There are hordes of people these days wielding pens (or keyboards) these days to give their view of the world's discontents and the violently discontented. One can't keep up with them, nor should that be an aspiration. But I know Tavakoli. We aren't close friends but we are work acquaintances -- I have been happy to quote her as a source or to call her for guidance on ongoing stories. None of these ongoing stories has had a lot to do with terrorism. So this drew me up short. You see, Tavakoli is an expert on  "structured finance." her firm, unsurprisingly called "Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc." offers as her webpage says "independent risk consulting and expert witnesses services ... for derivatives, credit derivatives, synthetic collateralized debt obligations, total return swaps, special purp...

Four brief passages from the Manchester/Reid book. The italicized  materials below are each taken from pp. 506-07. "It was over India and empire that Churchill and Roosevelt had their first serious political argument. Roosevelt presumed he could speak frankly to Churchill on most matters, including -- and mistakenly -- India. Churchill, out of politeness, kept Roosevelt abreast of Cripp's progress, or lack thereof." Stafford Cripps, in the spring of 1942 the most prominent member of the Labour Party in the War Cabinet, had gone to India to attempt to negotiate an understanding with the nationalist leaders, in particular Gandhi, by offering them semi-independent for India after the war if they would assist in the resistence to Japan in the meantime. It wasn't going well. But back to the book: "When the talks broke down, Roosevelt blamed Churchill, in the most frank terms. The two men had very different long-term objectives. Beyond the defeat of Hitler, Ch...