Here is another of our occasional book round ups consisting of short notices of works we have not been able to fully review. These are essentially meta-reviews (reviews of book reviews). If any of our readers are inspired to read one of these books and wish to write a full review, please contact pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.

Recently published crime drama, detective fiction, and political thrillers from around the world are reviewed.

Here is another of our occasional book round ups consisting of short notices of works we have not been able to fully review. These are essentially meta-reviews (reviews of book reviews). If any of our readers are inspired to read one of these books and wish to write a full review for us, please contact pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.

PA Book Reviewer Thomas Riggins, also reviews the book reviews. His 'Round Up' series offers insight on recently published books and critical comments. He reminds us.
"If any of you are inspired to read one of these books and write a full review, please contact: pabooks@politicalaffairs.net

Contextualizing the history of US involvement with Iraq and its determined efforts to establish military control in the region, Mahajan describes a roughly 25-year history of US support for the dictatorship, then its turn against the Hussein regime, the subsequent period of the sanctions and ultimately Bush's war.

This month we introduce a new feature of our on-line edition;The Book Round Up...In addition to our regular reviews we will now have this occasional feature which consists of short notices from many sources of reviews of books that we have not been able to review.

This month we introduce a new feature of our on-line edition; the book round up...In addition to our regular reviews we will now have this occasional feature which consists of short notices from many sources of reviews of books that we have not been able to review.

A transvestite dressed in red silk is discovered strangled in a Havana park. The death of this son of a high-placed Cuban government official has Lieutenant Mario Conde off of official suspension and on the case in this first novel of Padura’s four-part series.

After years of success across Europe, the detective novels of Cuban author Leonardo Padura Fuentes have finally started to appear in English.

Are liberals in control? Do they really hurt the people they try to help? How you answer depends on your definition of the "L" word.

Steven Ozment is concerned that German history is overshadowed by Hitler and the Holocaust and that this tends to distort one's perspective.

Anthropologist Jared Diamond offeres some thoughts on why societies don't survive in his latest book. Their ruling classes do not concern themselves with the consequences of their own excesses.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker Organization and as such prepared a report for its Peace Education Division back in 1969. Although the book was written and published over 30 years ago it does a remarkable job in explaining why Communism is still mistrusted in the United States today.

» Find more of the online edition.

The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey was written by Ernesto Guevara (he had not yet become "Che") from notes he made when he was 23 years old and traveling from Cordoba in Argentina to Caracas in Venezuela in late 1951 through the summer of 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado on the latter’s motorcycle.

» Find more of the online edition.

Race War! breaks through pervasive amnesia by telling how for a time the Japanese empire was able to use its claim to be the "champion of the colored races" as a "powerful mobilizing tool in a world comprised overwhelmingly of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans." What’s more, through this history Horne contributes to a fuller global and historic understanding of racism.

I made more trips by plane this year than normal. Here are reviews of a couple of books that I picked up in airport bookstores

This short book [Bertrand Russell in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern, Chicago, Ivan R. Dee, 2001] of 92 pages is one of many (24 at the time it was published) Strathern’s 90 Minutes series. If you know absolutely nothing about Russell, perhaps the greatest English speaking philosopher (bourgeois) of the 20th century, you could begin with this book – but you will need more than it provides to really understand Russell.

» Find more of the online edition.

James Bovard might be called a libertarian conservative. In Terrorism and Tyranny, he has written a valuable answer to those in the Bush administration who advocate something like the worst of pre World War II imperialism as a policy to fight "international terrorism" in the world, regardless of its effects on the rights of Americans or the lives of the world’s people.

» Find more of the online edition.

One of the most remarkable aspects of contemporary international affairs has been the sharp deterioration of relations between the United States and the European Union, particularly the leaders of this grouping: Germany and France. A motor driving the EU over the years has been France, which over the years has not accepted wholly why its brand of imperialism should be subordinate to that of the U.S.

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We should be careful not become guilty of blowing out of proportion and then tagging hastily the causalities of the 9/11 attacks. Now, this is not to minimize the tragicness of the events or to create room for a loose framework for deterrence. Rather, it is to ensure that in the process of dealing with those groups lazily called American enemies we don’t end up becoming just like the people we hate to be like.

» Find more of the online edition.