War & Society,Centeno, Miguel A. and Elaine Enriquez. (Cambridge,UK: Polity Press, 2016).

A bumper sticker on many cars in college and university parking lots proclaims: “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.” Most American students and faculty spend their entire time at university without thinking about war, except that they want to avoid it at all cost. Miguel Centeno, the Musgrave Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Elaine Enriquez, a research fellow also at Princeton, argue that war has been a normal part of human existence since time immemorial and that it deserves to be studied as a sociopolitical phenomenon in its own right. The authors employ a longue durée comparative approach to demonstrate how war has been responsible for some of humankind’s fundamental institutions and practices, and thus must not be condemned as immoral, irrational, stupid, or evil. War has a history of its own that deserves serious study.     

The lessons of privatization

Privatization policies have swept the world and helped restructure economic activity. Although there are clear benefits to privatization initiatives, many attempts have been rejected. Unfortunately, most policy research has ignored this fact. Research on privatization has mostly focused on programs that have been accepted, and not those that have been rejected. This study, however, breaks new ground by examining the microeconomic, macroeconomic, and political factors that shaped both types of privatization outcomes. This work, based on the book, The Logic of Privatization: The Case of Telecommunications in the Southern Cone of Latin America, suggests that the implementation of privatization policies hinges on the ability and capacity of the political leadership to control the bargaining process during the divestiture of state-owned companies. Failure to control the process may expand the conflict beyond the scope of the original participants and result in its rejection. This study statistically examines the economic and political data of sixteen attempts to privatize telephone companies around the world between 1981 and 1993. The findings suggested that microeconomic factors were not very significant in determining the privatization outcomes: however, macroeconomic factors were found to be slightly more important. The political factors, nonetheless, proved to be the most important variables in explaining the different outcomes. These findings were supported by the statistical results.     

Modern Turkey

Turkistan Tumult. By Aitchen K. Wu. With illustrations and 2 maps. 8½” × 5½”. Pp. xiii+279. Methuen and Co. 12s. 6d.

Soviets in the Arctic. An historical, economic and political study of the Soviet advance into the Arctic. By T. A. Taracouzio. 9½” × 6¼”. Pp. xvi+563. 7 maps. Macmillan. 1939. 32s. 6d.

Revealing India's Past. A Co‐operative Record of Archaeological Conservation and Exploration in India and Beyond. By Twenty‐two Authorities—British, Indian, and Continental. With a foreword by A. Foucher. Edited by Sir John Cumming, K.C.S.I., C.I.E., M.A. 8½” × 6¾”. Pp. xx+374. Thirty‐three plates and map. The India Society. 1939. 25s.

Islam. By Henri Masse. Translated from the French by Halide Edib. Pp. 270. Putnam. $2.50.

Petra, the Rock City of Edom. By Dr. A. M. Murray. Pp. x+210. Thirty‐two plates; two sketch maps. Blackic. 1939.