The Book Review delves into the many books on national security and related fields published each year. It offers reviews that range widely across subjects and disciplines, from domestic and international law to history, strategic and military studies, from national security journalism to terrorism and counterterrorism, ethics, and technology. Contributors include scholars, serving or former government officials or military personnel, journalists, experts of many kinds, and students in law school or university.
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Ex-Friends 2020
A Review of “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism” by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday, 2020) -
The Libertarian Case for Immigration (and Against Trump)
A Review of “Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom” by Ilya Somin (Cato Institute Book, Oxford University Press, 2020) -
The Ayabmuk World
A Review of “Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Future” by P.W. Singer & August Cole (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2020). -
‘Jihad’ as a Universalist Project in Comparative Perspective
A review of Darryl Li’s The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity (Stanford University Press, 2019). -
The Bomb Still Ticks
A review of Fred Kaplan, “The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War” (Simon & Schuster, 2020). -
Fleeing to the Oceans
PDF Version. A review of Jeffrey S. Kahn, "Islands of Sovereignty: Haitian Migration and the Borders of Empire" (University of Chicago Press, 2019) *** -
The Irony of 'White House Warriors'
PDF Version. A review of John Gans, "White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War" (Liveright, 2019). *** -
Trying (and Failing) to Put Kaiser Wilhelm II on Trial
PDF version. A review of William A. Schabas, “The Trial of the Kaiser” (Oxford University Press, 2018) *** -
Frankenstein at 200
Review of Mary Shelley, “'Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds,’ ed. David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert.” (MIT Press, 2018) *** -
Partisan Politics and Federal Law Enforcement: The Promise and Corruption of Reconstruction
PDF Version. A review of Charles Lane, ‘Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror" (Hanover Square Press, 2019) *** -
How to Lose the Rule of Law
PDF Version. Review of Rebecca Sanders, “Plausible Legality: Legal Culture and Political Imperative in the Global War on Terror” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) *** -
Wishful Nationalism
PDF Version. A review of Yael Tamir, “Why Nationalism” (Princeton University Press, 2019) ***