New Global Studies

The newest issue of New Global Studies (Vol. 3 Issue 2) is now available.  I’ve already downloaded two articles and a book review.  Enjoy!

The Human Evolution Explosion

My best friend and I are attempting to put together a List of books spanning the entirety of human history, knowledge and literature. One of the potential books for the List is The 10 000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Cochran and Harpending.  Although I don’t agree with all of their conclusions (they actually argue more on the side that evolution advanced civilization far more than civilization advanced evolution), they make some excellent points, many of which revolve around tipping points, phase transitions, and of course, fitness landscapes and levels.  Cochran and Harpending make their argument by looking at the past, without extending it into the future, but of course human evolution will continue in starts and stops.  I think we are approaching such a time when evolution may need to make a few leaps forward in order for humans to survive.

‘Franz Freaking Fanon?!’*

Found this draft from last year.  Not sure why I never published it.

Yes, I can now say that I’ve finally actually read him. So far I’ve only read Toward the African Revolution, but intend to read A Dying Colonialism or Black Skin, White Masks eventually, although I’m looking forward to it much less than I was.

It’s not that Fanon is a bad writer; he’s often compelling, in no small part because his writing has the rhythm of poetry. Many of his essays include such sections. One of my favorites is “Letter to a Frenchman,” the entirety of which consists of drumbeat lines such as these:

Remember Setif! Do you want another Setif?
They will, but we won’t.
All this you told me, laughing.
But your wife wasn’t laughing.
And behind your laugh I saw.
I saw your essential ignorance of this country and its ways.
I’ll tell you what I mean.

…….

And you mingling with those:

Who have never shaken hands with an Arab.
Never drunk coffee.
Never exchanged commonplaces about the weather with an Arab.
By your side the Arabs.
Pushed aside the Arabs.
Confined the Arabs.
Native town crushed.
Town of sleeping natives.
Nothing ever happens among the Arabs.
All this leprosy on your body.

No matter your feelings on his politics, at some level his prose grabs hold.

Interesting Links

Something about summer just makes me want to read about travel. Slate provides an excellent guide, although they are unfortunately limited to contemporary works. One of my favorite travel books is How to Make Friends and Oppress People (don’t read unless you take your humor with tongue firmly in cheek), and I would unreservedly recommend anything by Mark Twain. Here is a friend’s response to Following the Equator.

Also, apparently the NY Times likes Pittsburgh.

Miscellaneous reading:

• The Monkey Cage addresses the question ‘Is the American public is realist?‘
• Freakonomics has a three-part series on philanthropy for the young and fantastically rich.
  Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
• For the rest of us, Allison Schrager also looks at the ethics of charity patronage. I recommend reading the rest her columns at More Intelligent Life as well.
• Ethan Zuckerman unpacks the debate about Darfur.
• Teaching Things Fall Apart in the Mississippi Delta.
• Recovering from our collective information overload.

Finally, some new web resources:

• Athgo: building capacity through social entrepreneurship
• Institute for Security Studies
• Great Lakes Center for Strategic Studies
• Digital Congo
• A former co-worker’s new site: Connect U.S Fund.
• Two new Africa blogs: Africa Works by G. Pascal Zachary and African Politics Portal by Codrin Arsene.

New Federalism Journal

I will be the first to admit I have a reading problem, and even display the evidence openly. But I just can’t help myself.

A friend of mine discovered and recommends Federal Governance, a new(ish) journal on federalism. In particular, he suggests

• America’s Objections to the International Criminal Court, Volume 1
• The Jurisdictional Basis of the International Criminal Court, Volume 1
• The Internationalization of Public Policy and the Prospects for a Theory of Multi-Level Governance, Volume 2
• Rawls and Cosmopolitanism: Peoples, Persons, and Human Rights, Volume 3

I’m also intrigued by

• Ethno-territorial Protest Movements and the Politics of Accommodation in Centralized and Decentralized Political Systems, Volume 2
• Will e-Governance and e-Democracy Lead to e-Empowerment? Gendering the Cyber State, Volume 4

Hopefully I will find some time in the next few weeks to read through these.

The Headstrong Historian

If you haven’t read this short story from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, then you are missing out.  Adichie is a eloquent, subtle writer who captures the essence of her characters in just a few sentences.  Even if you have no interest in Africa, her work is always a must-read.

Her website features a bio, interview and bibliography featuring links, including to the New Yorker essay.  She has published a few other pieces in the New Yorker; I find Cell One particularly moving.

Interesting Links

• Mugabe is not the worst dictator in Africa.
• Stop Mugabe by cutting off his supply of…. paper.
• British mercenaries try to take over Guinea.
• The rise and fall of European and Arab cities.
• Advice for fixing the global food crisis.
• The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart – Bill Bishop
• A debate about evolution and the origin of life from a Muslim perspective.
• Possible good news for veterans with PTSD: give them ’shrooms.