University of California Press Blog

Review: China's Communist Party

On Sunday, June 29, 2008, The Washington Post posted an article by William J. Dobson called Lessons Learned. The subject of the article talks about how the leaders of China's Communist Party can learn from the mistakes of the former Soviet Union. Dobson based his opinion on David Shambaugh's ideas from his book entitled, China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (UC Press, April 2008). Below is an excerpt from the article.

"Many people look hungrily for any clues that the regime may be teetering. Shambaugh's analysis will disappoint them. Although he is not blind to the serious -- and growing -- challenges to Beijing's rule, neither, in his telling, is Beijing. Such open-minded vigilance may be the Chinese leaders' best insurance against following in the footsteps of the communists who went before them."

(Reviewed by William J. Dobson, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine.)

The Unmaking of the Middle East

Jeremy Salt teaches in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey and is the author of Imperialism, Evangelism, and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878-1896. In his latest book, The Unmaking of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (UC Press, June 2008), Salt examines the history and human cost of Western intervention in Arab lands. In his blog below, Salt talks about Presidential Nominee, Barack Obama's recent remarks before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

By Jeremy Salt

Barack Obama’s speech to the annual conference of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, was predictable but still shocking, for a man who appeared on the political stage with a message of change.  Arab-Americans, Arabs, Muslims everywhere, and indeed anyone looking for signs of fresh thinking, will be dismayed and disillusioned.  Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Nancy Pelosi all engaged in the bidding war for the Jewish vote at the annual AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) conference in Washington but because Obama has raised expectations so high it was his speech that was the most dispiriting and disturbing.  Scant regard was shown for international law by this former president of the Harvard Law Review.  Not even the US government regards Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  The western half of the city was seized in 1948.  In the eastern half of the city Israel has no rights but only the responsibilities of an occupying power, which it has serially violated through the permanent changes it has introduced over the past four decades.  For Israel’s erstwhile negotiating partners in Ramallah –  the ‘moderates’ –  East Jerusalem  as the  capital of a Palestinian state is a sine qua non of any peace agreement.  Yet the message for them from Barack Obama was that ‘Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided’. Hamas now has further reason to say ‘what did we tell you?’.   This was a speech that could have been written in the Israeli Foreign Ministry.  There were references to rockets‘ raining down on Sderot’ and ‘raining down on Israel’, but naturally none to the missiles and the artillery and tank shells that  have rained down on occupied Palestinian land  over the past four decades.  There was mention of   the ‘constant threats’ Israel has faced, but naturally not of the constant threat Israel has posed to Arab states in the past six decades.  The word extremism was used in the context of the Palestinians, but naturally not in the context of an Israeli state whose actions in the occupied territories, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights have been condemned time after time over the past six decades by the UN General Assembly and international human rights organizations – not that Obama even mentioned the word ‘occupation’. 

Up till now there is no proof that Syria or Iran are developing nuclear weapons but Obama spoke as if they were, naturally without mentioning the menacing shadow Israel’s actual possession of nuclear weapons has cast across the  Middle East  for nearly four decades.  On this issue Obama spoke as stridently as George W. Bush, Ehud Olmert and John McCain.   ‘I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon’.  He repeated the ‘everything’ so that no one missed the point that he is ready to go to war if necessary.  ‘I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel’.    Obama’s Faustian pact with expediency comes at a price he will be paying for years if he becomes president.   By locking themselves into position behind an Israel that is determined to maintain its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East whatever the cost  (within days of his speech Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said an attack on Iran was ‘unavoidable’),  he and John McCain have made another war in the Middle East more rather than less likely. This is hardly the kind of change Obama seemed to promise at the beginning of his campaign.   

Audio Interview with Kasra Naji, author of Ahmadinejad

Kasra Naji, author of Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader (UC Press, February 2008), was recently interviewed by Fresh Air at WHYY/NPR. In the interview, Naji talks about the controversial leader and his rise to power. You can find his interview on the NPR website.

The Radical Jack London: Writings on War and Revolution

As Professor and Chair of Communication Studies at Sonoma State University, author and editor, Jonah Raskin puts Jack London's revolutionary writings into context in his latest book, The Radical Jack London. Furthermore, you can read more about Jonah and his book on his website, The Radical Jack London. Among other books, he is author of American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation (UC Press, 2004) and For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman (UC Press, 1997)

The Radical Jack London in 1968

By Jonah Raskin

Had Jack London lived until 1968 he would have been 96 years old - not a biological impossibility. After all, his close friend, Upton Sinclair, lived until ‘68 and the ripe old age of 94. It’s tempting to imagine London ’68, the year that changed America and the world, and that London would have loved because upheaval inspired him, and engaged his deepest sympathies.

London was always young – he died in 1916 at the age of 40, and even at 40 there was something boyish about him, as his friends noted. He would have fit in with the youthful students who stormed college campuses in ’68, and he would have been attracted to the youth-orientated culture of the 1960s. In 1905, along with Upton Sinclair, London founded the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, an organization of radical students, and the forerunner of Students for a Democratic Society, the Sixties group that opposed the war in Vietnam. An extremist almost all his life, London wrote about war and revolution, and it’s likely that he would have written about the war in Vietnam and the cultural revolution that created hippies, Yippies, feminists and Black Panthers. He smoked hashish, rejected the sexual mores of his time, went back to the land and was drawn to Asian spirituality.

1968 was a pivotal year for me. It was the year I was arrested as a protestor, went to jail for the first time, and began to write for underground newspapers. I was not then a big fan of Jack London’s work but I knew about it and him. I admired his 1908 novel The Iron Heel, which describes the coming of a brutal dictatorship to the United States. At times in 1968 it seemed like the United States was headed in that direction, especially when the police attacked demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. London’s prescience couldn’t have been more in evidence.

What London didn’t share with the radicals of 1968 was a sense of outrage about racial injustice. In fact, at times he would be downright racist himself. He identified himself as a white man, praised the white race and looked down at people of color. That’s the part of him I like the least, and it’s the part of him that his biographers andcritics have for the most part declined to explore, much less condemn. When I began to write The Radical Jack London I knew I would have to tackle the issue of race and racism. I think I have done it in a level-headed way and I’m proud of my approach. It’s not the first time I have written about that subject. I did it in my first book, The Mythology of Imperialism, which I wrote in 1968, and in many ways The Radical Jack London is a continuation of my own scholarship as a young man aiming to describe the links between culture and politics, which the academic world of that era was eager to deny. Without a big stretch of the imagination, I can see Jack London with us in ’68, marching, chanting defying the powers-that-be.

Israel's Occupation

As a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel, Neve Gordon, writes about the history of Israel's occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as the on-going rift between Israel and Palestine dating back to the 1967 war. You can read more about his book and Middle Eastern politics at his website, Israel's Occupation. The University of California Press will be publishing his forthcoming title, Israel's Occupation in Fall 2008.

John DiIulio, Jr., author of Godly Republic, on Fresh Air

John DiIulio, Jr., the author of Godly Republic, was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday. They discussed DiIulio's experience as the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and the future of faith in American policy.

Listen to the interview here.

Taking Liberalism Back

A 2008 Presidential victory for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be a triumph for the Democrats, and will offer an opportunity to rebuild the image of the Democrats as progressive pioneers. Tom Waldman’s timely book Not Much Left (forthcoming in late April) chronicles the history of American liberalism, from its Gilded Age of championing peace and civil rights to its recent struggles with defeat and disenchantment. Not Much Left discusses how political setbacks and waning liberal sentiment have stranded the Democrats in a wasteland, and their best hope for escape is to make a sharp left turn.

"...In this important, revisionist, smart and funny history of liberalism since it's been down and out, Tom Waldman tallies its lasting achievements and argues that Democrats can't achieve a lasting resurgence unless they embrace their inner liberals."—Harold Meyerson, Executive Editor, The American Prospect and columnist for the Washington Post

"Tom Waldman's book is extremely interesting and gives us a lot to think about, particularly at this moment in our nation's history."—Congressman Henry A. Waxman

The New Female Islamic Consciousness in France

NPR ran a story on today's Morning Edition entitled "French Women Forge New Islam, Activism" in which Sylvia Poggioli reported on the new female Islamic consciousness in France.  On the vanguard of this movement is UC Press author Fadela Amara, undersecretary for urban affairs in the current government of French President Nicholas Sarkozy and a former activist from the immigrant housing projects in France. 

Amara's, Breaking the Silence: French Women's Voices from the Ghetto, is a passionate account of her struggle to found the movement called "Ni putes ni soumises" (Neither whores nor doormats) aimed at shattering the law of silence about violence against women within the Muslim community. The questions Amara raises are part of a broader agenda that seeks to integrate French Muslims into contemporary French society. These issues also pose major political problems of national identity and the defense of a secular state, and they have followed Amara from the streets of France to her curretn position in the Sarkozy government.

To listen to the full NPR story, click here.

Exploring the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we'd like to encourage everyone to explore his legacy through his writings.  The University of California Press, in a unique ongoing partnership with the Martin Luther King Papers Project, is the publisher of the Martin Luther King Papers–the definitive record of the most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts of one of America's best-known advocates for peace and justice. The series currently includes six volumes of published papers that cover various chronological periods in the life of Dr. King. Volume VI of the papers was published in March of 2007 and covers Dr. King's never before published sermon file that covers the entire period between September 1948 and March of 1963.

Bill Boyarsky Interviewed by Larry Mantle on Airtalk

Bill Boyarsky, the author of Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics, was interviewed by Larry Mantle on KPCC's Airtalk.  Click here to listen to the complete interview from KPCC.  (Requires RealPlayer to be installed on your computer.)