Day: August 18, 2014

Author: Elisabeth Roudinesco. Translated by Rachel Bowlby Publisher: Columbia University Press – 181 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram Today people in America and other Western nations rely increasingly on medications to alleviate psychic distress, rather than to find the root causes of their mental and nervous conditions with the help of psychoanalysts, Elisabeth Roudinesco writes in this eye-opening book. She points out that there exists in our “depressive society” an epidemic of distress that is being made worse by the increasing use of more and more drugs such as Prozac, Viagra, Zoloft, and others. The mindless use of...

Author: Oystein Tunsjo Publisher: Columbia University Press – 288 pages, plus Bibliography and Index Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram Perhaps no other book out there takes as close and detailed a look as this one does, at how China has secured, and continues to secure oil (Oystein Tunsjo uses the world ‘petroleum’) supplies, as well as kept open its access to those supplies. In this book he shows us how China has taken wise and smart actions, among others, and: Developed sophisticated hedging strategies to insure against risks in the international oil market Managed a growing net oil import...

Author: Naunihal Singh Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press – 252 pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar This is a treasure trove of data and analysis of hundreds of coups, including close observations of ten of them. From the activities we spell out below, Nauninal Singh draws conclusions on the causes and outcomes of coups and coup attempts, and has developed a unified theory on coup dynamics. The body of information he gathered for this book came from these empirical sources: 471 coup attempts worldwide in half a century 1950 to 2000. 300 hours of interviews with coup participants 10...