Customer Reviews

Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict - revised edition (International Security Readers)

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This book is a must for any student of ethnic politics combining some of the best articles in print on the subject. The reader is accessible for students at both an undergraduate and graduate level, but is written in such a fashion that anyone can follow the logic of the authors' respective arguments. Mike Brown's edited volumes are always excellent, this one is his very best.

This combined book that synthesizes several articles on the ideas of nationalism and ethnic conflict is simply horrible. Not only are the articles chosen theoretically inconsistent in many places there are also problems with examples used. The argument that air power is even considered in cases of managing immigration from conflict zones is laughable. The arguments put forth about how ethnic conflicts come about are not theoretically consistent with the norms of international relations from either the realist or the neoliberal intuitionalist perspective. I was shocked that what is regarded as one of the best books on this subject would do such a poor job in representing the complex ideas related to ethnic conflicts. While this book would be useful to spark discussion it is very poor for use in teaching. There are however two useful things that can be learned from this book. One is that historical tensions do not primarily cause ethnic conflicts and more often than not have little to do with them. The second is that partitioning of areas can work for solving ethnic conflicts if the international system is willing to agree that it is impossible to solve the conflict. I am only just starting out in this area so I cannot recommend a better book but I am sure there are ones.