The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

Iran: A Modern History Abbas Amanat, Yale University Press, 2017, $40/hardcover, $19.99/Kindle, 992 pages. In this expansive history spanning half a millennium, Abbas Amanat explores Iran’s fascinating past up to the modern day and aims to offer, in the author’s words, “an alternative to the black-and- white narratives of the past.” Covering revolutions, dynastic succession and everyday life, Amanat shows that in addition to the dictates of geography, economy and culture, the forces of modernity have exposed Iran to unusu- ally complex experiences. From the heyday of Western imperial- ism when the country retained a strong degree of autonomy to the disruptive Constitutional Revolution at the turn of the 20th century and the birth of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s history is marked by moments of intense upheaval and international competition. Abbas Amanat is professor of history and international studies at Yale University and director of the Yale Program in Iranian Stud- ies at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. Harold Stassen: Eisenhower, the Cold War and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament Lawrence S. Kaplan, University Press of Kentucky, 2018, $80/hardcover, $79.99/Kindle, 230 pages. Harold Stassen, a former governor of Minnesota, became President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s special assistant for dis- armament. In many ways, as Lawrence S. Kaplan explains in this nuanced biography, Stassen was his own worst enemy in that role. His ambition and ego undermined his efforts and clouded his vision, and his feuds with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were legendary. Yet while Dulles often prevailed in the meeting room, Stassen’s vision of nuclear restraint was one that Eisenhower shared, and his views became embedded in Cold War policy for decades. Lawrence S. Kaplan is emeritus director of the Lyman L. Lemnitzer Center for NATO and European Studies at Kent State University and a former professorial lecturer in history at George- town University. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books. Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia Paul J. Heer, Cornell University Press, 2018, 37.95/hardcover, $23.99/Kindle, 320 pages. George F. Kennan is famous for articu- lating the strategic concept of contain- ment, which became the centerpiece of the Truman Doctrine. In Mr. X and the Pacific , Paul J. Heer explores Kennan’s equally important, but more obscure, impact on East Asia. After assessing Kennan’s time as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff from 1947 to 1950, Heer traces his evolution from a hawkish Cold Warrior to a prominent critic of the VietnamWar. He concludes by setting forth the ways in which Kennan’s legacy has implica- tions for how the United States approaches the region now. Paul J. Heer is an adjunct professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is a veteran analyst of East Asia and spent three decades within the U.S. intelligence community. Dark Commerce: How a New Illicit Economy Is Threatening Our Future Louise I. Shelley, Princeton University Press, 2018, $29.95/hardcover, $28.45/Kindle, 376 pages. Over the past three decades, the most advanced forms of illicit trade, inextri- cably linked to computers and social media, have broken with all historical precedents. Louise Shelley explains how this world functions, and how it exacerbates many of the world’s destabilizing phe- nomena: the perpetuation of conflicts, the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, and environmental degrada- tion and extinction. She contends that illicit trade is a business the global community cannot afford to ignore and must work together to address. The Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy and University Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, Louise I. Shelley is also the founder and director of its Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center. She is the author of several books, and her article, “Illicit Trade and Our Global Response,” appeared in the October FSJ . She lives in Washington, D.C. 56 NOVEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL