RSA Library Update - January 2008

What follows is a complete list of RSA library acquisitions for the month of January 2008. Fellows are welcome to e-mail library@rsa.org.uk if they wish to borrow any of these items, or search the library catalogue for thousands of other titles....

000s – Generalities

Judy Edwards
Idealism not Ostentation, the Society of Arts in the Adelphi
2006, REF RSA 062 EDW
Written as the dissertation to her MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors, 1660-1830 from Birkbeck College, Idealism not Ostentation, the Society of Arts in the Adelphi discusses the design and architecture of the RSA's home at 8 John Adam Street in the context of its use as a functional building by the Society, and the wider Adelphi development. This copy has been kindly donated to the Library by Judy Edwards, a Fellow of the RSA.

100s – Philosophy & Psychology

Claire Colebrook
Gilles Deleuze
Routledge, 2001, 194 COL
Why think? Not, according to Gilles Deleuze, in order to be clever, but because thinking transforms life. Why read literature? Not for pure entertainment, Deleuze tells us, but because literature can recreate the boundaries of life. With his emphasis on creation, the future and the enhancement of life, along with his crusade against 'common sense', Deleuze offers some of the most liberating, exhilarating ideas in twentieth-century thought. This book offers a way in to Deleuzean thought through such topics as: 'becoming'; time and the flow of life; the ethics of thinking; 'major' and 'minor' literature; difference and repetition; and desire, the image and ideology.

Gilles Deleuze
The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque
Continuum, 2006, 194 DEL
Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. He is a key figure in poststructuralism, and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. In The Fold, Deleuze proposes a new and radical way of understanding philosophy and art. Leibniz drew on the art of the baroque period in his invention of the concept of the fold; Deleuze develops the concept further to present a new way of practising philosophy based upon the fold as the relationship of difference with itself.

200s – Religion

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall and Sahib Mustaqim Bleher (trans.)
The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an
Islamic Dawah Centre International, 2005, 297.122
The first translation of the Qur’an by a Englishman and practising Muslim, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s 1930 text The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an remains the standard English rendering. This new edition preserves the flow of Pickthall’s original work, while featuring extensive adaptations and alterations by Sahib Mustaqim Bleher to present it in a modern English form. This edition ash kindly been donated to the Library by Abdul Latif, a Fellow of the RSA.

300s – Social Sciences

Mark J. Penn
Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Today’s Big Changes
Allen Lane, 2007, 303.4 PEN
In Microtrends, respected and sought-after analyst Mark Penn in the world articulates a new way of understanding how we live. He reveals the real trends wielding large influence on society today and tomorrow. In every case these are small patterns of behaviour involving as little as one percent of the population, yet they can transform a business, tip an election, or spark a movement. Relying on some of the best data available, Penn identifies more than 70 microtrends in religion, leisure, politics, and family life that are changing our lives. Microtrends is an invaluable tool in the quest to better understand our world and a remarkable portrait of the 21st century, where the most important trends are the smallest ones.

J. Michael Adams and Angelo Carfagna
Coming of Age in a Globalized World: The Next Generation
Kumarian Press, 2006, 303.482 ADA
The world is rapidly changing. It is growing more interdependent and more complex, with new connections and with problems that transcend national and cultural boundaries. To survive and succeed in this environment, individuals must understand the driving forces of globalization and the trends that are likely to shape our future. Employing an easily understood connect-the-dots metaphor, Coming of Age in a Globalized World: The Next Generation navigates the threads that surround and link humanity. Exploring the notion of an interrelated world, J. Michael Adams and Angelo Carfagna stress the importance of world citizenship as they seek to reconcile the contrast between national bonds and global interests, providing a comprehensive landscape of current issues and conflicts in global politics as they challenge the next generation to shape viable answers to the impending global issues. Shedding light on the realities and myths of globalization, this book is geared toward students, educators, and all concerned for the future.

Alan Weisman
The World Without Us
Virgin, 2007, 304.2 WEI
'On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go.' Alan Weisman looks to the future to discover what the world might be like, and how it would change, if humans disappeared right now, for good. In the current age of anxiety over our impact on the earth's climate and environment, this timely book offers an intriguing glimpse of what the real legacy of our time on the planet may be. How would the natural world respond if it were suddenly relieved of the burden of humanity? Would the climate return to where it was before we fired up our engines? Could nature ever obliterate all traces of human civilization? This groundbreaking book examines areas of the world that have been abandoned or never occupied by humans to see how they have fared without us and looks beyond to discover whether, and for how long, our largest cities, biggest achievements and most devastating mistakes will last after we are gone. In doing so it wrestles with some of the key concerns of our time and reveals a picture of the future that is both illuminating and terrifying.

Rageh Omaar
Only Half of Me
Penguin, 2007, 305.697092 OMA
A Muslim boy goes to a madrassa in Mogadishu to learn the Koran. His parents take him on two pilgrimages to Mecca. He arrives in Britain as a child just as Somalia collapses into a state of civil war that will continue throughout his childhood and prevent him from going home. To the media, government and general public, this is the classic background story of the most feared figure of our times: the young, male, black, British Muslim. It is also the story of Rageh Omaar's childhood. Rageh Omaar's unique and profoundly moving book is the story of his childhood in Somalia, his family's attitude to religion, his double life as a British Muslim and that of other British Muslims. Full of humanity and rage, empathy and insight, Only Half of Me takes us into lives that are widely misunderstood, and tries to make sense of our own fractured world.

Stacy Schiff
Benjamin Franklin and the Birth of America: Franklin’s French Adventure, 1776-85
Bloomsbury, 2006, 327.7304409033 SCH
Six months after America declared her independence, Congress dispatched Benjamin Franklin to France to solicit aid and arms for the upcoming fight. He was seventy years old, possessed of the most rudimentary French and had no diplomatic training. But this most remarkable of envoys was also among the most famous men in the world. During his eight years in Paris he charmed the French, outwitted the British spies and stirred a passion for a republic in those who lived under an absolute monarchy. Stacy Schiff tells a tale of international intrigue and from it emerges an intimate portrait of a brilliant man, as well as a sense of the fragility and improvisation of his country's bid for independence.

Worldwatch Institute
State of the World 2008: Toward a Sustainable Global Economy
Earthscan, 2007, 333.72 WOR
In this 25th edition of State of the World - long established as the most authoritative and accessible annual guide to our progress towards a sustainable future - the studies pay particular attention to the many innovations in economic policy and business practices that lead us towards a more sustainable global economy. Published annually in 28 languages, State of the World is relied upon by national governments, UN agencies, development workers and lawmakers for its authoritative and up-to-the-minute analysis and information. It is essential for anyone concerned with building a positive, global future.

Dollan Cannell
638 Ways to Kill Castro
Freemantle, 2007, 335.4 CAN
638 Ways to Kill Castro is a political documentary exploring the relationship between the US and Cuba through the numerous, and increasingly bizarre, attempts to kill him. The plots are recounted by the people on both sides who were there: those who tried to kill Castro and those who thwarted their efforts.

Michael Moore
Sicko
Optimum, 2008, 353.68 MOO
Michael Moore’s latest documentary tries to find out why it is that the American health care system is ranked lowest among developed nations, while costing more per person than any other.

Alan B. Krueger
What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism
Princeton University Press, 2007, 363.32511 KRU
Many popular ideas about terrorists and why they seek to harm us are fuelled by falsehoods and misinformation: leading politicians and scholars have argued that poverty and lack of education breed terrorism, despite the wealth of evidence showing that most terrorists come from middle-class, and often college-educated, backgrounds. In What Makes a Terrorist , Alan Krueger argues that if we are to correctly assess the root causes of terrorism and successfully address the threat, we must think more like economists do. Krueger is an influential economist who has applied rigorous statistical analysis to a range of tough issues, from the minimum wage and education to the occurrence of hate crimes, and in this book he examines the factors that motivate individuals to participate in terrorism, drawing inferences from terrorists' own backgrounds and the economic, social, and political conditions in the societies from which they come. What Makes a Terrorist brings needed clarity to one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Rob Allen, Mike Hough and Una Padel (eds.)
Reshaping Probation: The New Offender Management Framework
Policy, 2006, 364.6 ALL
The Government has embarked on a programme of radical reform for the probation and prison services with the setting up of a National Offender Management Service (NOMS), with the aim of making the two services work more effectively together, and to promote private sector involvement in 'corrections' work. This groundbreaking volume takes a critical look at the different aspects of the NOMS proposals, at a time when the Government is still working out the detail of its reforms. No other academic publication has scrutinised the NOMS proposals so closely. Through six contributions from leading experts on probation and criminal justice the report: identifies the risks attached to NOMS; assesses the prospects of success; provides ideas for reshaping government plans; and presents an authoritative critique of a set of proposals that could go badly wrong.

400s – Language

500s – Natural Sciences & Mathematics

Deborah E. Harkness
The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution
Yale University Press, 2007, 509.42109031 HAR
This book explores the streets, shops, back alleys, and gardens of Elizabethan London where a boisterous and diverse group of men and women shared a keen interest in the study of nature. These assorted merchants, gardeners, barber-surgeons, midwives, instrument makers, mathematics teachers, engineers, alchemists, and other experimenters formed a patchwork scientific community whose practices set the stage for the Scientific Revolution. While Francis Bacon has been widely regarded as the father of modern science, scores of his London contemporaries also deserve a share in this distinction. It was their collaborative, yet often contentious, ethos that helped to develop the ideals of modern scientific research.

Joseph F. DiMento and Pamela Doughman (eds.)
Climate Change: What it means for us, our Children and our Grandchildren
MIT, 2007, 577.22 DIM
Most of us are familiar with the terms climate change and global warming, but not too many of us understand the science behind them. We don't really understand how climate change will affect us, and for that reason we might not consider it as pressing a concern as, say, housing prices or the quality of local education. This book explains the scientific knowledge about global climate change clearly and concisely in engaging, nontechnical language, describes how it will affect all of us, and suggests how government, business, and citizens can take action against it. Climate Change explains the nuts and bolts of climate and the greenhouse effect and describes their interaction. It discusses the nature of consensus in science, and the consensus on climate change in particular. It describes both public- and private-sector responses, considers how to improve the way scientific findings are communicated, and evaluates the real risks both to vulnerable developing countries and to particular areas of the United States. We can better tackle climate change, this book shows us, if we understand it.

600s – Technology (Applied Sciences)

David Hillson and Ruth Murray-Webster
Understanding Risk and Managing Risk Attitude, Second Edition
Gower, 2007, 658.155 HIL
Despite many years of development, risk management remains problematic for the majority of organizations. One common challenge is the human dimension, in other words, the way people perceive risk and risk management. Risk management processes and techniques are operated by people, each of whom is a complex individual, influenced by many different factors, and the problem is compounded by the fact that most risk management involves people working in groups, introducing further layers of complexity through relationships and group dynamics. David Hillson's and Ruth Murray-Webster's Understanding and Managing Risk Attitude will help you understand the human aspects of risk management and to manage proactively the influence of human behaviour on the risk process. This second edition is updated to strengthen the understanding of individual risk attitudes and reinforce what individuals can do to manage those risk attitudes that are leading them away from their objectives. For people who want to embrace this subject, the book highlights ways forward that work in practice.

Jo Whiterod
Running Pension Trustee (and Other) Meetings: A Practical Guide to Arranging and Minuting Business Meetings
Troubador Publishing, 2008, F 658.456 WHI
This unique book offers a wealth of simply suggestions and ideas for effective meetings administration, presented in a succinct, accessible style, with an invaluable range of relevant hints and tips from other professionals. Although the principal focus is on pension trustee meetings, much of the material has a far more general application. The book is aimed primarily at anyone who has to organise, prepare for, or run any sort of formal or informal meeting and who feels that they need help to ensure that matters progress as smoothly as possibly. It will also be of value to those who attend meetings and would like reassurance that the meetings are being run properly and well. This item was kindly donated to the Library by the author, Jo Whiterod, a Fellow of the RSA.

700s – The Arts

Nigel Spivey
Who Art Made the World
2 Entertain Video, 2005, 700.103 SPI
Embark on a thrilling journey through time and five continents to the heart of creativity. Fusing social history, politics, science, nature, archaeology and religion, this international landmark series unravels a universal mystery - why the world around us looks like it does. Modern-day mysteries are answered by journeying back to the beginning of civilisation via some of the most amazing man-made creations in the world. A strong narrative thread drives through each film as exciting scientific demonstrations reveal how our minds, and those of our ancient ancestors, relate to art. Beautiful, surprising, compelling and above all, relevant, with a visual ambition worthy of its epic subject-matter, this awe-inspiring adventure will appeal not only to art lovers, but to anyone who has ever wondered about humanity's place in the world.

Tim Marlow
Great Artists, Parts One and Two
Seventh Art, 2007, 701.18 MAR
What was it like to be an artist in centuries past? What makes a painting or an artist 'great'? Tim Marlow presents this fascinating introduction to the works of the Old Masters as displayed in over fifty museums, churches, and palaces throughout Europe and the United States. These two DVDs contain all 26 episodes from both seasons of Tim Marlow’s acclaimed Channel 5 documentary.

Simon Schama
Power of Art
BBC, 2006, 701.18 SCH
Focusing on eight iconic works of art, this series reveals the history of visual imagination through the ages. A combination of dramatic reconstruction, spectacular photography and Simon Schama’s unique, personal style of storytelling transport the viewer back to the intense moments when great works were conceived and born.

Robert Gordon McHarg III
Art-Tube01
Smash, 2001, 709.04074 MCH
Art-Tube01 collects the works of the 42 artists featured in London’s first rolling art exhibition; the use of the advertising hoardings of a Piccadilly line tube train to display two works by each contributor. This catalogue has been kindly donated to the Library by its curator, Robert Gordon McHarg III, a Fellow of the RSA.

Christopher Swann
Daniel Libeskind: The Making of an Architect
2006, 720.92 SWA
A feature-length documentary on the life and work of the architect Daniel Libeskind, the Master Planner of Ground Zero in New York, whose work includes the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and new buildings for the Denver Art Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. This documentary was written and directed by Christopher Swann, a Fellow of the RSA, who kindly donated a copy of this documentary that is not commercially available.

Eyal Weizman
Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation
Verso, 2007, 725.656953 WEI
Hollow Land is a groundbreaking exploration of the political space created by Israel's colonial occupation. In this journey from the deep subterranean spaces of the West Bank and Gaza to their militarized airspace, Eyal Weizman unravels Israel's mechanisms of control and its transformation of the Occupied Territories into a theoretically constructed artifice, in which natural features function as the weapons and ammunition with which the conflict is waged. Weizman traces the development of these ideas, from the influence of archaeology on urban planning, Ariel Sharon's reconceptualisation of military defence during the 1973 war, through the planning and architecture of the settlements, to contemporary Israeli discourse and practice of urban warfare. In exploring Israel's methods to transform the landscape itself into a tool of total domination and control, Hollow Land lays bare the political system at the heart of this complex and terrifying project of late-modern colonial occupation.

Christopher Swann
The House that George Built: The Rebuilding of Glyndebourne Opera House
725.822 SWA
A documentary filmed over three years that tells the story of the rebuilding of the Glyndebourne Opera House under architect Michael Hopkins, up to its opening to the public in 1996. This documentary was directed and produced by Christopher Swann, a Fellow of the RSA, who kindly donated a copy of this documentary that is not commercially available.

Tom Walford and Hilary Young (eds.)
British Ceramic Design 1600-2002
English Ceramic Circle, 2003, 738.09410903 WAL
A collection of papers presented at a Colloquium held at Victoria & Albert Museum on 21st September 2002, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the English Ceramic Circle, the oldest society dedicated to the study of British ceramics and enamels.
This book was kindly donated to the Library by John Mallet, a Fellow of the RSA who wrote an essay collected in this volume.

Robert Gordon McHarg III
HIM Book: 101 HIMs
Trolley, 2007, 779.23 MCH
Underground artist Robert Gordon McHarg III presents 101 portraits of HIM, his life-size sculpture of Charles Saatchi, dressed in a variety of absurd costumes, allowing the artist to collect the ultimate collector. This book was kindly donated to the Library by McHarg, a Fellow of the RSA.

Benjamin Turner and Gabe Tuner
In the Hands of the Gods
Lionsgate, 2008, 796.3382 TUR
In the Hands of the Gods is the story of five young British freestyle footballers’ journey across the Americas to Argentina in the hope of meeting their hero, Diego Maradona, the Godfather of freestyle football.

George Lowe
The Conquest of Everest: The Amazing Story of the 1953 Expedition
Optimum Classics, 2007, 796.522 LOW
The Conquest of Everest tells the awe-inspiring story of the first successful attempt on the peak of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. The team included John Hunt, Edmund Hillary, Tensing Norgey and Tom Stobart, their film technician. The documentary details the history, preparation and description of the route, as well as fascinating footage of previous attempts and the social context of the achievement.

800s – Literature

900s – Geography & History

Robert Macfarlane
The Wild Places
Granta, 2007, 914.10486 MAC
The Wild Places is both an intellectual and a physical journey, and Macfarlane travels in time as well as space. Guided by monks, questers, scientists, philosophers, poets and artists, both living and dead, he explores our changing ideas of the wild. From the cliffs of Cape Wrath, to the holloways of Dorset, the storm-beaches of Norfolk, the saltmarshes and estuaries of Essex, and the moors of Rannoch and the Pennines, his journeys become the conductors of people and cultures, past and present, who have had intense relationships with these places. At once a wonder voyage, an adventure story, an exercise in visionary cartography, and a work of natural history, The Wild Places is written in a style and a form as unusual as the places with which it is concerned. It also tells the story of a friendship, and of a loss. It mixes history, memory and landscape in a strange and beautiful evocation of wildness and its vital importance.

Guy Delisle
Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China
Jonathan Cape, 2006, 915.127 DEL
Guy Delisle's work for a French animation studio requires him to oversee production at various Asian studios on the grim frontiers of free trade. His employer puts him up for months at a time in 'cold and soulless' hotel rooms where he suffers the usual deprivations of a man very far from home. After Pyongyang, his book about his time in North Korea, Delisle turned his attention to his posting in Shenzhen, the cold, urban city in Southern China that is sealed off with electric fences and armed guards from the rest of the country.

The BBC
The Great War
BBC, 2002, 940.3 BBC
The Great War is one of the most ambitious and prestigious series ever produced by the BBC. Drawing on over one million feet of film, hundreds of exclusive interviews and contemporary diaries and letters, this documentary masterpiece is by far the most comprehensive film history of World War One ever made.

Robin Frame
The Political Development of the British Isles, 1100-1400
Clarendon Press, 1995, 941.03 FRA
All too often British history means English history and the histories of Wales, Scotland and Ireland are left to scholars of the 'Celtic Fringe'. In this clear and authoritative introduction to the medieval history of the British Isles, the four countries are viewed together, revealing the similarities and contrasts between the different regions. During the period 1100-1400 the British Isles formed a political sphere of great complexity, and were closely integrated with continental Europe. The most dynamic power was that represented by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, church and monarchy, and their successor, the Plantagenet state. Robin Frame traces the expansion of this power, which by 1300 had embraced the whole of Wales and much of Ireland. He examines how the Scottish kings alone sustained and extended rival orbit, and how the prolonged clash between the two monarchies eventually loosened the control of each other over its Gaelic fringes.

Frank Barlow
The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042-1216
Longman, 1999, 942.02 BAR
Now in its fifth edition, this hugely successful text remains as vivid and readable as ever. Frank Barlow illuminates every aspect of the Anglo-Norman world, but the central appeal of the book continues to be its firm narrative structure. Here is a fascinating story compellingly told. At the beginning of the period he shows us an England that is still, politically and culturally, on the fringe of the classical world. By the end of John's reign, the new world that has emerged was in outlook, structure and character, recognisable as part of the modern age. Incorporating the findings of the most recent scholarship in the field - much of it Barlow's own - the fifth edition includes new material on the role of women in Anglo-Norman England.

Rees Davies
The First English Empire; Power and Identities in the British Isles, 1093-1343
Oxford University Press, 2002, 942.03 DAV
The future of the United Kingdom is an increasingly vexed question. This book traces the roots of the issue to the Middle Ages, when English power and control came to extend to most of the British Isles. By 1300 it looked as if Edward I was in control of virtually the whole of the British Isles. Ireland, Scotland, and Wales had, to different degrees, been subjugated to his authority; contemporaries were even comparing him with King Arthur. This was the culmination of a remarkable English advance into the outer zones of the British Isles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What remained to be seen was how stable (especially in Scotland and Ireland) was this English 'empire'; how far the northern and western parts of the British Isles could be absorbed into an English-centred polity and society; and to what extent did the early and self-confident development of English identity determine the relationships between England and the rest of the British Isles. The answers to those questions would be shaped by the past of the country that was England; the answers would also cast their shadow over the future of the British Isles for centuries to come.

Guy Delisle
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
Jonathan Cape, 2006, 951.93043 DEL
When North Korea recently opened the door a crack to foreign investment, cartoonist Guy Delisle found himself in its capital Pyongyang on a work visa for a French film animation company, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city. Armed with a smuggled radio and a copy of 1984, Delisle could only explore Pyongyang and its countryside while chaperoned by his translator and a guide. But among the statues, portraits and propaganda of leaders Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il - the world's only Communist dynasty - Delisle was able to observe more than was intended of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered.

Joe Sacco
Palestine
Fantagraphics, 2007, 956.9 SAC
Based on years of research and extended visits to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s (Sacco conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews), Palestine is the first major comics work of political nonfiction by Sacco, who has often been called the first comic book journalist and single-handedly pioneered the medium to universal acclaim. This new edition of Palestine also features a lengthy introduction by the outspoken political essayist and historian Edward Said (Peace and Its Discontents and The Question of Palestine), one of the world's most respected authorities on the Middle Eastern Conflict.

Asger Leth
Ghosts of Cité Soleil
Revolver Entertainment, 2008, 972.94 LET
This documentary takes viewers inside a Haitian slum of Cité Soleil, where poverty and violence are an everyday part of life. While presenting one family's story, a love triangle, and a war, the filmmaker examines gang life from the inside out.

Jean-Philippe Stassen
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda
First Second, 2006, 967.571 STA
This is the story of a boy caught up in an unthinkable horror; a major achievement of storytelling and artistry. This is the harrowing tale of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, as seen through the eyes of a boy named Deogratias. He is an ordinary teenager, in love with a girl named Benigne, but Degratias is a Hutu and Benigne is a Tutsi who dies in the genocide, and Deogratias himself plays a part in her death. Stassen's interweaving of the aftermath of the genocide and the events leading up to it heightens the impact of the horror, giving powerful expression to the unspeakable, indescribable experience of ordinary Hutus caught up in the violence.

Featured Item - "The Conquest of Everest"

George Lowe
The Conquest of Everest
Optimum Classics, 2007, 796.522 LOW

Mountaineer Edmund Hillary, who died today in Auckland aged 88, was the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest, successfully reaching the summit with Tensing Norgay in 1953, as part of a British expedition led by John Hunt, and had a 40-foot vertical cliff on the mountain, the Hillary Step, named after him in the process.

The Conquest of Everest was filmed by the technician Tom Stobart, who accompanied Hillary and Tenzing for much of their journey (although not the final leg, captured only in photographs), and directed by George Lowe, was released later that same year, and went on to win the BAFTA for Best Documentary and be nominated for an Oscar. It details the preparation and planning the went in to the 1953 attempt, as well as its social context and the history of defeat these men set out to challenge.

To borrow a copy of The Conquest of Everest, please contact the RSA Library.

Featured Book - "What Makes a Terrorist?"

Alan B. Krueger
What Makes a Terrorist? Economics and the Root of Terrorism
Princeton University Press, 2007, 363.32511 KRU

When the rhetoric of the War on Terror sees George Bush arguing that "[w]e fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror", and the arguments that support that position seem so intuitive, you would expect the latest book by economist Alan Krueger addressing the roots of terrorism to support that view. In fact, he sets out to debunk most of the premises that frame international counter-terrorist practises.

Based on a lecture given in 2006 at the London School of Economics, What Makes a Terrorist? argues that, instead of recruiting from the undereducated and economically vulnerable in their native countries for attacks on Western soil, terrorist organisations, terrorists and terrorism are far more likely to look like the events of summer 2007, when doctors and engineers in the UK plotted and carried out suicide bombings in their home country.

Krueger’s work hilighting the myths that surround the motivations and methods of terrorists in the media is an important statement at a time when they determine foreign and domestic policies to an unprecedented extent, and he will be presenting and discussing his findings and their implications at a lecture here at the RSA on 16 January 2008.

To borrow a copy of What Makes a Terrorist? Economics and the Root of Terrorism, please contact the RSA Library.