Author: admin
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In Defense of Globalization
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adminWhy is something known as a global public good, the opportunity to trade and gain more from it, something that has to be defended? Globalization is indeed such an irony. But it is an irony that is also a reality: Globalization can supplant and disrupt the carefully created political economy…
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A History Of Islamic Societies
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adminThe Islamic world, or, what Muslims refer to as the “Ummah,” is a mess. Notwithstanding the Arab Spring, every single step forward has been met with many reversals. Libya is now ruled by thugs and tribal warlords; not entirely different from Afghanistan. Only 20 percent of Syria is under the…
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Rise To Globalism
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adminStephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley are two of the most prolific authors in the United States. Together, or, separately, they have produced more than thirty books on World War II, the US presidency, American foreign policy and US creation of the United Nations. In this book, which has…
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Rise Of The Robots
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adminGlobalization is often regarded as the main process by which jobs are destroyed, outsourced and supplanted across a wide spectrum of industries. In the industrial West, there is a sizable portion of people who continue to believe that globalization is a source of many social and political ills. Societies are…
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One Man’s View Of The World
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adminLee Kuan Yew once averred, in his flawless English, that while “experiences formed the lessons of life, bad ones are the best tutors as yet.” In “One Man’s View of the World,” Lee Kuan Yew literally gave a tour de force equal to his role as a top thinker and…
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The China Challenge
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adminThomas J. Christensen is a talented political scientist who once taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “In Shaping The Choices of a Rising China: The China Challenge,” Thomas J. Christen tries to explain the perils and problems posed by China to the United States, including its allies in…
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Provincializing Europe
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adminTalented historians or post-colonial thinkers are hard to come by; especially those who think and operate within the context of global history. In the new discipline of global history, all forms of local, national, and regional history, are connected to the larger whole. For example, when did Korea acquire its…
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Orientalism
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adminOrientalism, according to Edward W. Said, is a discourse. One in which words, concepts, ideas and termsare constantly allowed to intermarry with one another, with the ardent purpose of producing one narrative. The singularity of this narrative, in turn, becomes a monopoly of knowledge. A monopoly, that is further supported…
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The Blank State
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adminWhat is more interesting than the human mind, Steven Pinker once asked. But this is also a question that has been asked in many different ways, with a variety of theories to describe it. There are those who believe that the mind is literally a “tabula rasa,” a blank state;…
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The Wilsonian Moment
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adminWords carry power more than they are ascribed. This is especially true with words that emanate from major diplomatic events. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, while key decisions were debated by the victorious Allied powers, a multitude of smaller nations and colonies held their breath, waiting to see…