Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The United Nations: International Organization and World Politics by Lawrence Ziring, Robert Edwon United Nations Riggs, Jack C. Plano ISBN: 0-15-507865-8 Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Pub. Date: 27 August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $67.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)
Rating: 3
Summary: Subtle but pervasive pro-US bias
Comment: The revisions contained in the third edition are the work of Lawrence Ziring, professor at the University of Western Michigan. Ziring is a not an obvious candidate to be writing what is designed to be a textbook on the UN. He has publicly supported U.S. policies which are contrary to the spirit and the letter of U.N. principles, including the 'humanitarian' bombings in Yugoslavia and U.S. attacks on alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan and the biological weapons plant (which later turned out to be a pharmaceuticals factory) in Sudan. Ziring is also a member of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think-tank with people such as Robert McNamara and James A. Baker on its board of directors. The Atlantic Council focuses primarily upon supporting expanded roles for NATO.
As might be expected, in view of Ziring's credentials, the 'textbook' is written with a consistently proUS, and generally anti-UN bias. It tends to downplay the UN's effectiveness, it attempts to demonstrate that all issues must be resolved within the context of political realism, and it implies on every occasion available that regional alternatives are to be preferred over the UN. These leitmotifs are pervasive throughout the book, with the exception of a few small patches of optimistic idealism, remnants no doubt of the second edition which Ziring failed to purge.
The biases of the book are nevertheless put forth with subtlety. When Ziring writes of the US refusal to pay its back dues to the UN, for instance, he refrains from ever using the word "refuse", opting instead for evasive locutions such as "reductions in the U.S. contributions were made necessary by subsequent congressional action...." Relative space allocations are used to forward the political agenda as much as the normative commentary: e.g. the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is given more space than on the UN Human Rights Commission, and in the entirety of this 552 page book, there are only about two or three pages-worth of information about UN environmental initiatives. In terms of security issues, the UN is portrayed as a last ditch recourse which should normally defer to 'more effective' regional organizations such as NATO and the OAS.
As an example of sophisticated pro-American propaganda, this book is high quality; as a textbook for studying the UN, however, it can only be recommended to those in search of a tool for undermining the organization's legitimacy.
 |
Title: The United Nations and Changing World Politics by David P. Forsythe, Roger A. Coate, Thomas George Weiss ISBN: 0813397502 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 10 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $42.00 |
 |
Title: The United Nations in the Post-Cold War Era (Dilemmas in World Politics) by Karen A. Mingst, Margaret P. Karns ISBN: 0813368472 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: January, 2000 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
 |
Title: International Organizations: Principles and Issues (7th Edition) by A. LeRoy Bennett, James K. Oliver ISBN: 0130321850 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 19 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $73.33 |
 |
Title: A Global Agenda: Issues Before the 57th Assembly of the United Nations (Global Agenda) by Diana Ayton-Shenker ISBN: 0742523551 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Non NBN) Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $32.95 |
 |
Title: United Nations: The First Fifty Years by Stanley Meisler ISBN: 0871136562 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: March, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
