Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Grose. Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947–1956 by Gregory Mitrovich.     

Hong Kong as the ‘Neoliberal Exception’ of China: Transformation of Hong Kong Citizenship Before and After the Transfer of Sovereignty

The formation of Hong Kong citizenship was under tensions and struggles after the change of sovereignty in 1997. In spite of the limited political and social rights, many incidents showed that the promised civil rights were declining. More importantly, subject to the intensified transborder population mobility of Chinese citizens, there were public discourses addressing that the social rights of Hong Kong citizens were threatened. Protests in response to the intensified transborder population mobility were found, with the rightist public discourses advocating to conserve the essences of Hong Kong citizenship. Being the neoliberal exception of China, Hong Kong is positioned to contribute for China by its market economy, as well as the relatively well-established socio-economic institution. However, as this article argues, in spite of the logic of exception, i.e. the zoning technology that the state deploys, the intensified transborder population mobility and economic activities between the neoliberal exception and the sovereign state can lead to the struggles and contentions concerning the citizenship of the former.     

Sampling CIA's New Document Retrieval System: McCone Telephone Conversations during the Six Crises Tempest

Documents recently made available at the National Archives by the CIA are accessed through non-traditional archival means: researchers use keywords at computers to obtain them. Most of the documents will be uninteresting or worthless to scholars. Some add important or colorful details to our knowledge of the Agency. An example is a small set of documents detailing 1962 telephone conversations of DCI John McCone with President Kennedy, former DCI Dulles, and former Vice President Nixon about the latter's best-selling book Six Crises, which charged Kennedy with having acted unscrupulously as a presidential candidate in 1960 by advocating covert action against Cuba.     

Is it a Pearl or a Kidney Stone? Intelligence Reform and Embassy Reporting,from Moscow to Baghdad

A July 1990 cable from the US Embassy in Moscow that anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union is a case study for an analysis in this article that seeks to make three points: 1) major failures in intelligence analysis are more likely to result when all elements of the intelligence community speak with one voice than when they disagree; 2) embassy reporting can play an essential role independent of that of the intelligence community in shaping Washington thinking about international events, but a variety of developments have made this increasingly difficult; 3) probability analysis plays too great a role in intelligence products and risk management too little.     

Environmental approaches and prevention: The dangers of imprecision

Abstract

This paper urges environmental psychologists to adopt an “empiricist stance” as they focus their field's expertise on issues related to prevention in mental health. Criteria for such a stance are presented which presume that preventive interventions evolve sequentially from a program of research which clarifies the nature, epidemiology, etiological mechanisms and natural history of the mental illness or psychological dysfunction to be prevented. The rationale for this stance is based on empirical, political and ethical grounds. The applicability of this stance to the current status of the emerging field of environmental approaches to prevention in mental health is reviewed specifically in relation to the contributions to the special issue of Prevention in Human Services.