July 3, 2010

Summer Reading List

For your summer reading, here's a selection of ten classic essays from our archives (all accessible on our ebsite); they are worth reading and re-reading to gain a richer understanding of world affairs and America's role in it.

1. For a moving recollection of Walter McDougall's experience as a soldier in Vietnam and a meditation on Vietnam's impact on America, read his "No Discharge from That War: The Vietnamization of America," published in the Fall 1995 issue of Orbis.

http://www.fpri.org/orbis/3904/mcdougall.vietnamizationamerica.pdf

2. For an illuminating journey into America's founding and early diplomacy, read Harvey Sicherman's "Benjamin Franklin and the Traditions of American Diplomacy," the text of the 2006 Robert Strausz-Hupe Memorial Lecture.

http://www.fpri.org/pubs/20061128.sicherman.franklindiplomacy.pdf

3. On the occasion of FPRI's 50th anniversary in 2005, James Kurth wrote this exploration of the way in which history and geography have always held pride of place in FPRI's work.

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20050916.history.kurth.historygeographyfpri50.html

4. It would be difficult to find a more magnetic speaker than Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, who delivered the 2002 Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs, addressing "The Dignity of Difference: Avoiding the Clash of Civilizations."

http://www.fpri.org/fpriwire/1003.200207.sacks.dignityofdifference.html

5. In the immediate aftermath of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the late Adda Bozeman examined 2,500 years of Persian statecraft in this essay "Iran: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Tradition of Persian Statecraft," published in the Summer 1979 issue of Orbis. She was professor at Sarah Lawrence College.

http://www.fpri.org/orbis/2303/bozeman.iranusforeignpolicypersianstatecraft.pdf

6. Terrorism experts Stephen Gale and Lawrence Husick explored the strategy of Al Qaeda and the requirements of countering that strategy in their 2003 Enote "From MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) to MUD (Multilateral Unconstrained Disruption)."

http://www.fpri.org/fpriwire/1101.200302.galehusick.madtomud.html

7. Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and a former CIA case officer in Afghanistan (1987-89) analyzed data from profiles of 500 terrorists to advance a new theory of terrorism in his 2004 Enote "Understanding Terror Networks."

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html

8. Abdallah Schleifer, who has worked in the field of journalism for decades, most of it in the Middle East, delivered the 2006 Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs, focusing on "Media and Religion in the Arab/Islamic World."

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20061011.middleeast.schleifer.mediareligionarabislamicworld.html

9. One of the key areas of study in our program of History Institutes for Teachers is military history. At one of those weekend conferences in 2007, British historian Jeremy Black delivered the rationale "Why Teach Military History?"

http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1224.200710.black.whymilitaryhistory.html

10. On this July 4, we draw your attention to a history institute we held in 2007 on "Living without Freedom," on the premise that the best way to help students appreciate the freedom they might otherwise take for granted is to introduce them to life in countries where freedom does not exist. One lecture from that memorable weekend was Kongdan Oh's "North Korea: The Nadir of Freedom." At that weekend, it was the late Michael Radu, an exile from Romania, who gave the best one-sentence definition of totalitarianism: "Everything that is not specifically required is expressly forbidden."

http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1216.200705.oh.northkorea.html

Make sure you complete the reading by the end of August, for we'll have another 10 classics for you in the Fall!

Happy Fourth of July!