The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies (The Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Ambassador Dennis Kux, who had previously authored the study of India-US relations, India and the United States: Estranged Democracies, 1941-1991, has once again produced a masterly account; this time of the US-Pakistan relationship. Thorough in description, tracing events from the initial encounters between US and Pakistan since 1947, to President Clinton's visit to Islamabad in March 2000, Kux's narrative makes for an absorbing and gripping read. Heavily referenced, it has drawn from a variety of sources, including the US national archives, the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson presidential libraries, Nixon's papers and the Public Record Office in London. He also obtained documents by invoking the US Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, he was able to interview over 50 senior Pakistani officials who had played key roles in their country's dealings with Washington. The result is some rare insights into the making of history, much of it so far hidden from view.
Kux has an added advantage since he served in the American embassy in Islamabad in two critical phases, from 1957 to 1959, and again from 1969 to 1971, and was eyewitness to many of the events that led to the blossoming of the relationship.
Few relationships in the international arena have been as turbulent as Pakistan's with the United States. Washington's engagement with Islamabad has swung like a pendulum in the last fifty years or so. Ambassador Kux tried hard, with some success, to remove the misgivings of Pakistanis about the American lack of sincerity in bilateral relations as Washington always dumped the country once its interests were served. This once again is the topic of intense discussion in Pakistan today, even among the educated and the pro-Western class. To understand the dynamics of this ever changing relationship, especially in the emerging scenario, this timely book is a must read.

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"Dennis Kux's book possesses a wealth of new information, based partly on fresh research in published and archival sources, but based even more impressively on the more than 100 personal interviews he conducted with former diplomats and defense officials in both the United States and Pakistan."--Robert J. McMahon, University of Florida"Kux's study is, to my knowledge, the first full-dress, comprehensive, and authoritative study of U.S.-Pakistan relations. Focused primarily on formal diplomacy between these two countries, it systematically chronicles the major events, deftly handles the primary issues, and sympathetically considers the key political and diplomatic figures on both sides."--Robert Wirsing, University of South CarolinaU.S.-Pakistan relations have been extraordinarily volatile, largely a function of the twists and turns of the Cold War. An intimate partnership prevailed in the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan years, and friction during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter presidencies. Since the Cold War ended, the partnership has shriveled. The blunt talking to delivered by President Clinton to Pakistan's military dictator during Clinton's March 25, 2000, stopover in Pakistan highlighted U.S.-Pakistani differences. But the Clinton visit also underscored important U.S. interests in Pakistan.The first comprehensive account of this roller coaster relationship, this book is a companion volume to Kux's Estranged Democracies, recently called "the definitive history of Pakistani-American relations" in the New York Times. (Fall 2004)

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Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge--And Why We Must Review

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(More customer reviews)If you're looking at this book, chances are you've already come to the conclusion that there's something deeply, seriously wrong with modern American culture. Community is disrupted, economic principles favor the wealthy few over the working many, and government is unresponsive to our demands. The environment is in freefall, education is a joke, and you can't talk to your loved ones because they're too damn busy watching the idiot box. Now you want to do something about it.
This book consistently fails to tell you how.
For the greatest part of the book, public-interest advocate Kalle Lasn holds forth on the problems with our society, from the small (mindless TV addiction) to the medium-sized (allowing fashion companies to dictate our ideals of beauty) to the monumental (destructive, unsustainable economic practices). All this is useful, enlightening stuff to know, but let's be frank, we wanted to read this book because we already had an idea of these facts. Now we want some ideas of what to do about it.
The subtitle on the front cover promises to tell you "How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge." Good luck finding that. Lasn is fond of patting himself on the back for his past efforts in that direction, but he doesn't really tell the reader what an individual, with an individual's budget of money and time, can really do. He says something at one point about things that can be done, but he speaks of really big options. Take media conglomerates to the World Court? If I had that kind of budget and know-how, I wouldn't be reading this book, now would I?
In giving us the detailed information on the flaws of society, we are having the gaps in our knowledge filled in, and that's handy. However, by telling us what's wrong and not what to do about it, it's as though we're being given bullets without a gun. This book is excellent if you're looking for a position piece, an explanation of what Lasn thinks and why, and of course that's always helpful. However, if you actually want to weigh in and suggest what somebody could do about it, you're woefully on your own. Here's hoping this is simply Volume One and more information will be coming later. However, it's been three years without a follow-up. It looks like us would-be revolutionaries are on our own from that side.

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America is no longer a country but a multimillion-dollar brand, says Kalle Lasn and his fellow "culture jammers". The founder of Adbusters magazine, Lasn aims to stop the branding of America by changing the way information flows; the way institutions wield power; the way television stations are run; and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music, and culture industries set agendas. With a courageous and compelling voice, Lasn deconstructs the advertising culture and our fixation on icons and brand names. And he shows how to organize resistance against the power trust that manages the brands by "uncooling" consumer items, by "dermarketing" fashions and celebrities, and by breaking the "media trance" of our TV-addicted age.
A powerful manifesto by a leading media activist, Culture Jam lays the foundations for the most significant social movement of the early twenty-first century -- a movement that can change the world and the way we think and live.

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