The full review is available here.
Power also matters: For Mazower, dominant nations come to play a role in defining the world. He embeds his narrative in the development of familiar institutions, such as the United Nations, and is especially compelling when he reveals lesser-known stories like the development of common units of measurement, presided over by social scientists in the West. This ambitious and largely convincing account falls short, however, when the author turns to contemporary matters. Disappointed that international law does not adequately constrain American war efforts, he misses an important turn in modern conflict: the way that law itself has been reimagined as a weapon of war.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Dudziak reviews Mazower, "Governing the World"
The Winter 2013 issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas includes a book review by Mary Dudziak titled "Nations United? How the Idea of Global Governance Became a Resource of American Power." Dudziak reviews Mark Mazower, Governing The World: The History of an Idea (Penguin Press, 2012). Here are the first two paragraphs: