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Carolyn Eisenberg Hofstra University
At last an Assistant Professor, who is willing to think in bold, broad terms about core issues of international politics and the internal affairs of nation-states. One casualty of the still mounting pressure on young scholars to rush into print is that it discourageswide-canvass books and original speculation.
Jeremy Suri has broken this mold and written an original, challenging work of synthesis that brings together topics that are often treated in isolation. Power and Protest is a genuine work of international history. The accessibility of foreign archives, particularly those from the former Soviet bloc, has generated repeated calls for a new international history. In practice, however, few historians have been able to avoid an American-centered or Soviet-centered history. Suri has managed an overview that enables the reader to view international politics from multiple perspectives and to provide a broader context for understanding national decisions.
The author also links the study of high politics within nation-states to their social and intellectual history. Diplomatic historians have long recognized the importance of this sort of inquiry, but have had difficulty implementing it. With the same facility that he displays, moving back and forth between the capitals of the great powers, Suri examines the social movements inside these states and their impact onforeign policy.
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