Volume 124 · Number 2 · Summer 2009

JUAN COLE analyzes political and economic developments in contemporary Pakistan and Afghanistan. He argues that Western preoccupation with “crisis” and “radicalism” in Pakistan has caused observers to miss the success of an expanding white-collar middle class in demanding a rule of law and a return to civilian rule after nearly a decade of military dictatorship. He questions the idea that there is a purely military, and especially Western military, solution to the problem of Talibanism in northwest Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, analyzing the insurgency as several distinct groups driven in part by religious nationalism and anti-imperialism.

DAVID M. KENNEDY revisits the New Deal’s relevance to our own time. He concludes that the stubborn persistence of the Great Depression through the decade of the 1930s opened the political space for the New Deal’s greatest accomplishments, all of which were aimed at reducing risk in key sectors of the economy and imparting a measure of security to American life for generations thereafter.

CHRISTOPHER J. FETTWEIS argues that too many post-September 11 analyses of terrorism seem to regard the phenomenon as brand new. Terrorism has existed throughout history, and its groups come in two forms: nationalist and ideological. This simple binary typology illuminates a number of important characteristics of terrorism, from group strategy and tactics to overall life expectancy. Perhaps most important, counter-terrorism measures that prove effective against groups in one category will often fail against those in the other.

JOHN MUELLER suggests that we may be reaching a point at which war, as conventionally defined, ceases or nearly ceases to exist in both its international and civil varieties. He assesses the phenomenon and speculates about what this development, should it definitively materialize, might suggest about the various explanations and theories scholars and analysts have preferred to explain the problem of war.

EMILY JANE CHARNOCK, JAMES A. McCANN, and KATHRYN DUNN TENPAS examine patterns of presidential travel since the Eisenhower years, focusing on the factors that prompt visits to particular states during the first term. The authors argue that electoral considerations are becoming increasingly relevant as presidents decide where and when to travel.

Book reviews

Reviewed by Richard Holtzman

Reviewed by Alexander B. Downes

Reviewed by Barry C. Burden

Reviewed by Robert Ross

Reviewed by Andrew Rudalevige

Reviewed by Darrell M. West

Reviewed by Greg M. Shaw

Reviewed by Richard Gowan

Reviewed by Alex Weisiger

Reviewed by Whitley Kaufman

Reviewed by Mia Bloom

Reviewed by Christopher J. Fettweis

Reviewed by Margaret Gray

Reviewed by Robert S. Erikson

Reviewed by Daniel Klinghard

Reviewed by Kristen Hill Maher

Reviewed by Elisabeth S. Clemens

Reviewed by David T. Canon

Reviewed by Joyce Gelb

Reviewed by Allison R. Hayward

Reviewed by Robin Kolodny

Reviewed by John J. Pitney, Jr.

Reviewed by John A. Hird

Reviewed by Timothy M. Cole

Reviewed by Tim Büthe

Reviewed by Verónica Michel

Reviewed by Roderic Ai Camp

Reviewed by Stephen Orvis

Reviewed by Idean Salehyan

Reviewed by Peter Andreas

Reviewed by Branislav L. Slantchev

Reviewed by Mark A. Stoler