Review of Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (New York: PublicAffairs, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – At the end of 2019, there was no shortage of articles looking retrospectively at the events that had shaped the decade of the 2010s. One of them was aptly titled “A […]
Ukraine as a Global Economic War, and the Role of the Middle East
Review of Maximilian Hess, “Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West” (London: Hurst & Co., 2023). Barcelona (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The war in Ukraine is being fought at two different levels. The first one is the military confrontation, where developments are measured in numbers of casualties, kill […]
The Empire of Whiteness: Race in the European Perspective
Review of Hans Kundnani, Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project. London: Hurst & Co., 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – What does it mean to be European? This is a complex but legitimate question. Still, one is unlikely to find an answer to the conundrum in the numerous billboards paid […]
How Israel Sabotaged U.S. Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran
Critical Review of Ilan Evyatar, Yonah Jeremy Bob and Jonathan Davis, Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The book starts with a heist […]
Britain: Its Empire and Corporations, and Their Current Traces
Review of Philip J. Stern, Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – After the death of British monarch Elizabeth II in September 2022, then president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta ordered 4 days of national mourning. The president’s decision was not well-received among […]
A Divided European Union can’t Even Agree on need for Ceasefire in Israeli Campaign against Gaza
Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – The European Union’s initial response to the current Israel-Hamas war has been chaotic. Shortly after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel – which left at least 1,400 Israelis dead – Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, announced the suspension of “all payments” by the European Commission […]
Memoirs of an Arab-Jew
Review of Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew (London: Oneworld, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Avi Shlaim is an Israeli-British scholar who has authored six books on the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the role played in it by the Kingdom of Jordan. His work has earned him a […]
“Friends of Israel:” Trying to outlaw Solidarity with Palestine
Review of Hil Aked, Friends of Israel: The Backlash against Palestine Solidarity (London: Verso, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Amid Israel’s assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank in early July, the House of the Commons passed a bill with significant implications for the United Kingdom’s relations with Israel/Palestine. […]
How Lebanon was shaped by its Great Famine in WW I
Brand, Tylor. Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. Review of Tylor Brand, Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – Suez, Gallipoli, Kut al-Amara, and Jerusalem saw […]