Recent Books
178 foreign affairs
promoting norms of human dignity and
human rights, extending humanitarian
aid, and protecting women and children
in war zones.
Anatomies of Revolution
BY GEORGE LAWSON. Cambridge
University Press, 2019, 296 pp.
In the popular imagination, revolutions
are often defined by iconic images:
Washington crossing the Delaware, the
storming of the Bastille, Mao’s Long
March. Lawson looks beyond the singu-
lar moment to build a more multifaceted
understanding of revolutions in this
important and sweeping new book, which
combines astute theoretical observations
and careful historical analysis. He argues
that revolutions are not just episodes of
political upheaval; they are embedded
in deep social change. The Russian
Revolution pioneered state-led industrial
development. The Vietnamese, Chinese,
and Cuban revolutions marked an era
of decolonization and the rise of the
developing world. The Egyptian revolu-
tion of 1952 introduced the model of
military-led social transformation and
inspired political movements across the
Middle East and North Africa. Revolu-
tionary forms of rhetoric and organiza-
tional techniques can even be found in
movements such as Occupy Wall Street
and other radical elements within con-
temporary Western states. Lawson sets
the stage for a new generation of studies
of radical social change and the reshap-
ing of the modern global order.
Global Development: A Cold War History
BY SARA LORENZINI. Princeton
University Press, 2019, 296 pp.The idea of encouraging development—
that is, the notion that non-Western
countries need to be helped along the
path of economic and social
advancement—emerged in the West
during the Industrial Revolution and
came of age during the Cold War. In
this impressive history, Lorenzini traces
the journey of development thinking
from its nineteenth-century origins
through its entanglements in the great
geopolitical struggles of the twentieth
century. Development became a front
in the ideological battle of the Cold
War, as the Soviet Union and the
United States competed for hearts and
minds in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America. Although U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”
formulation paved the way for a
distinctly American approach, the
Truman administration played a pivotal
role in turning development assistance
into a tool of national security and
geopolitical competition. Lorenzini
argues that although the Soviet Union
and the United States articulated their
development policies in universal terms,
their policies actually served parochial
national purposes. The instrumental
logic of development thinking remains
alive and well today, as China, Russia,
and the United States cultivate
emerging economies around the world.