Reviews

Karen Dawisha (ed.), The International Dimension of Post‐Communist Transitions in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997, xvii + 462 pp., $29.95 p/b.

Peter Truscott, Russia First: Breaking with the West. London: I. B. Tauris, 1997, x + 278 pp., £24.50.

Karen Henderson & Neil Robinson, Post‐Communist Politics: An Introduction. London: Prentice Hall, 1997, xxiii + 424 pp., £14.95.

Klaus Segbers & Stephen De Spiegeleire (eds), Post‐Soviet Puzzles: Mapping the Political Economy of the Former Soviet Union, Baden‐Baden: Nomos Verlagsgessellschaft, 4 vols, 1995, 145 Dm. Vol I: Against the Background of the Former Soviet Union, 297 pp., Vol II: Emerging Geopolitical and Territorial Units, 511 pp., Vol. III: Emerging Societal Actors— Economic, Social and Political Interests, 735 pp., Vol. IV: The Emancipation of Society as a Reaction to Systematic Change, 179 pp.

Bertram Silverman & Murray Yanowitch, New Rich, New Poor, New Russia: Winners and Losers on the Russian Road to Capitalism. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997, xv + 159 pp., $21.95.

Stephen Crowley, Hot Coal, Cold Steel: Russian and Ukrainian Workers from the End of the Soviet Union to the Post‐Communist Transformations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997, x + 273 pp., £29.95.

Andreas Pickel & Helmut Wiesenthal, The Grand Experiment: Debating Shock Therapy, Transition Theory, and the East German Experience. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1997, x + 262 pp.

Gregory Gleason, The Central Asian States—Discovering Independence. Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 1997, xix + 220 pp., £51.95 h/b, £15.95 p/b.

Karen Dawisha & Bruce Parrott (eds), Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xviii + 423 pp., £55.00 h/b, £19.95 p/b.

Mark Slobin (ed.), Retuning Culture. Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe. London: Duke University Press, 1996, vi + 310 pp., £16.95.

Karen Dawisha & Bruce Parrott (eds), Politics, Power, and the Struggle for Democracy in South‐East Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xx + 472 pp., £19.95.

Marju Lauristin et al. (eds), Return to the Western World. Cultural and Political Perspectives on the Estonian Post‐Communist Transition. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 1997, xvi + 388 pp.

Andrejs Plakans, Historical Dictionary of Latvia. London: Scarecrow Press, 1997, xxvi + 193 pp., £32.80.

Carl Linden & Jan S. Prybyla, Russia and China on the Eve of a New Millennium. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1997, x + 341 pp., $44.95.

Christopher Pierson, Socialism after Communism. The New Market Socialism. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1995, x + 249 pp.

Nancy Ries, Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997, xii + 220 pp., £31.50 h/b, £13.50 p/b.

Bruce A. Elleman, Diplomacy and Deception: The Secret History of Sino‐Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 1917–1927. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997, xviii + 322 pp., $72.95.

Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda, and Dissent, 1934–1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xix + 236 pp., £15.95.

Michael Parrish. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939–1953. Westport: Praeger, 1996, xxi + 424 pp., £69.50.

Eric Naiman, Sex in Public. The Incarnation of Early Soviet Ideology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, x + 307 pp., £27.50.

Petrus Buwalda, They Did Not Dwell Alone. Jewish Emigration from the Soviet Union, 1967–1990. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, xviii + 297 pp., £31.50.

Marco Carynnyk, Lubomyr Y. Luciuk & Bohdan S. Kordan (eds), The Foreign Office and the Famine: British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932–1933. Kingston, ON: Limestone, 1988, lxiv + 493 pp.     

The Eisenhower Administration and Public Diplomacy in India: An Ambivalent Engagement, 1953–1960

The United States–India relationship was fraught with misapprehension and ideological disagreement during the 1950s. Public diplomacy provides a valuable context for examining these dynamics. This analysis assesses the planning, deployment, and reception of American public diplomacy to India under President Dwight Eisenhower, a period encompassing Washington’s 1954 alliance with Pakistan and economic aid to India in 1957–1958. Public diplomacy reflects the Administration’s difficulty in clarifying its interests in India. The rhetorical and moralising approach of India’s leadership, and their prominence in the global non-aligned movement, contributed greatly to this ambivalence. Public diplomacy planning highlights Washington’s difficulties in confronting India’s identity in world politics; it struggled to craft messages on racial attitudes, consumerism, and Communism, whilst Soviet public diplomacy gave strong competition throughout the period. At the same time, several aspects of American public diplomacy resonated with Indian audiences, indicating that there was the possibility of a closer American relationship with India had Washington taken a different high policy approach to the region.     

Book Notes Résumés de livres

Eugene Bardach, Getting Agencies to Work Together: The Practice and Theory of Managerial Craftsmanship. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998. Pp. xi, 338, bibliographical references, index.     

Review of the Evidence Supporting the Medical and Legal Use of NeuroQuant® in Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury

Decades of research have shown that the brain atrophies after traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, multiple practical issues made it difficult to detect brain atrophy in individual patients with mild to moderate TBI. This situation improved by 2007 with the FDA approval of NeuroQuant®, a commercially available, computer-automated software program for measuring MRI brain volume in human subjects. Several peer-reviewed scientific studies have supported the reliability and validity of NeuroQuant®. This review addresses whether NeuroQuant® meets the Daubert standard for admissibility in court cases involving persons with TBI. The review finds that NeuroQuant® is an objective, reliable, and practical means of measuring brain volume and therefore can be an important tool for measuring the effects of TBI on brain volume in clinical or medicolegal settings.     

Independence of the Court of Justice of the European Union: Unchecked Member States power after the Sharpston Affair

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the apex of the EU legal order, and is the supreme arbiter of EU law. For decades, it has delivered judgments, collectively shaping European integration and ‘integration through law’. It has undoubtedly been an authoritative leader in entrenching a European judicial culture, and has benefited from the cardinal principle of judicial independence enshrined in the EU Treaties, which in turn, it has insisted on being upheld as regards national courts. Questions have rarely arisen, however, about judicial independence of the CJEU. The Sharpston Affair of 2020–2021 opened the door to questioning such judicial independence. Is the CJEU at the mercy of the Member States? If so, what are the consequences for the EU legal order? This article reflects on the judicial independence of the CJEU, and offers reflections on how it can be preserved in the future.     

The state and rural development in Tanzania: The village administration as a political field

The Village Administrations (VAs) created by the Tanzanian state in the 1970s have been regarded as new state apparatuses intended to facilitate control over a recalcitrant peasantry. Field research in Dodoma revealed two kinds of factions competing for their control: Christians, who co‐operated with higher level state apparatuses in establishing working institutional structures, and Traditionalists, who sought to reconstruct the VA as an entity performing predominantly ritual functions and, by tactful non‐compliance, to insulate households from the demands of the state. If the VA is to be regarded as a state apparatus then it must be recognised that it has substantial autonomy, conditioned by its internal constitution as a political field.