Norwegian and Soviet/Russian World War II Memory Policy During the Cold War and the Post-Soviet Years

Abstract

World War II has played a significant role in using “memory” in all kind of “memory politics” in Europe as well as in the USA. Using examples from Norway and the Soviet Union, later the Russian Republic, this article shows how successfully, but also how contradictorily, historical events can be used as memory politics. We will also see what “memory culture” and “memory policy” is predominant in circumpolar Norway and the Soviet Union/Russia after World War II. We are introduced to the concept of “memory agents”, the producers and directors of “memory politics”. The case is first and foremost the battle of Narvik in Norway in the spring of 1940. We also take a look at the circumpolar borderland between Norway and the Soviet Union during World War II, where the German “Gebirgsjäger” from the Narvik front regrouped and continued their assault on Soviet Union in Murmansk County from the summer of 1941. In what way were the war events useful in the post war era, and how could they directly affect Soviet–Norwegian relations during the Cold War? In addition we ask how memories contributed to the justification of different approaches to the foreign policy in both countries. Besides, the article demonstrates how the memory policy of World War II was affected after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union in Norway and Russia, respectively.     

‘THE FIVE ACCURSED YEARS’

The subject for this paper is the question of how the Second World War has been perceived and used since that war – in Denmark, and especially in recent years, but also with a comparative view to Norway and Sweden. In addition to an outline of the development of public history regarding the war and the Scandinavian countries and a comparison of the ways history is used, the paper examines the friction areas between history, politics and morality in relation to actual cases and raises the question of how to establish a balance between the three which will enable a reliable picture of historical events as well as secure a positive identification for future generations.     

Kennedy's international legacy,fifty years on

This article explores historical assessments of the foreign policy of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated fifty years ago. It traces the evolution of JFK historiography from the uncritical so‐called ‘Camelot’ school to harsh revisionist critiques in the 1980s and 1990s, and on to the current ‘third wave’ of scholarship. The article focuses in particular on new work concerning JFK's handling of the Berlin and Cuba superpower crises, his role in expanding the United States’ involvement in Vietnam (and whether blame for this war can be assigned to him) and larger questions about his approach to the danger of nuclear holocaust and the possibility of defusing Cold War tensions. The conclusion to the article examines his various peace‐seeking initiatives in the months following the Cuban Missile Crisis, and suggests that Kennedy may have been turning towards a more critical view of American Cold War politics when he was killed in Dallas in November 1963.     

Ambivalent patriotism: Jacob Aall and Dano‐Norwegian identity before 1814

Abstract. Like many Norwegian elite, Jacob Aall (1773–1844) lived between two national identities – Norwegian and Danish. On the one hand, he was a subject of the Danish crown, educated in Denmark in the refinements of European knowledge and high culture; on the other he was a loyal provincial son of Norway, engaged in building the political and economic autonomy of his homeland. This article examines the two sides of national identity in Jacob Aall's life and work by focusing on the evolution in his understanding of the concept of the Norwegian nation. It argues that the patriotism central to Aall's understanding of modernity and the coming‐to‐age of Norway contains two disparate, but equally necessary sides. The one is characterised by an abiding sentiment of national romantic cultural belonging, the other is a learned commitment to the Enlightenment utilitarian principles that gave force to the Norwegian national movement.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. International Relations theory Sovereignty: evolution of an idea. By Robert Jackson. International legitimacy and world society. By Ian Clark. Human rights and ethics American torture: from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond. By Michael Otterman. International law and organization Law, war and crime: war crimes trials and the reinvention of international law. By Gerry Simpson. Foreign policy The Israel lobby and US foreign policy. By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Koizumi diplomacy: Japan's Kantei approach to foreign and defense affairs. By Tomohito Shinoda. Conflict, security and armed forces Nuclear logics: contrasting paths in East Asia and the Middle East. By Etel Solingen. Who should keep the peace? Providing security for twenty‐first‐century peace operations. By William J. Durch and Tobias C. Berkman. Terrorism and global disorder: political violence in the contemporary world. By Adrian Guelke. Endless war? Hidden functions of the ‘war on terror’. By David Keen. After mass crime: rebuilding states and communities. Edited by Béatrice Pouligny, Simon Chesterman and Albrecht Schnabel. The looming tower: Al‐Qaeda's road to 9/11. By Lawrence Wright. Chechnya: from nationalism to jihad. By James Hughes. Politics, democracy and social affairs The myth of the rational voter: why democracies choose bad policies. By Bryan Caplan. All politics is global: explaining international regulatory regimes. By Daniel Drezner. The international politics of space. By Michael Sheehan. After Hitler: recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995. By Konrad H. Jarausch. Political economy, economics and development Making aid work. By Abhijit V. Banerjee. Business power in global governance. By Doris Fuchs. Rational extremism: the political economy of radicalism. By Ronald Wintrobe. Ethnicity and cultural politics Changing white attitudes toward black political leadership. By Zoltan L. Hajnal. Uncouth nation: why Europe dislikes America. By Andrei S. Markovits. History The Cold War and after: capitalism, revolution, and superpower politics. By Richard Saull. Tales from Spandau: Nazi criminals and the Cold War. By Norman J. W. Goda. Iraq and the lessons of Vietnam: or how not to learn from the past. Edited by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young. Spy satellites and other intelligence technologies that changed history. By Thomas Graham Jr and Keith A. Hansen. Europe Democracy in Europe: The EU and national polities. By Vivien A. Schmidt. Russia and Eurasia Getting Russia right. By Dmitri V. Trenin. Middle East and North Africa The Islamic Republic and the world: global dimensions of the Iranian revolution. By Maryam Panah. Inside Lebanon: a journey to a shattered land with Noam and Carol Chomsky. Edited by Assaf Khoury. Sub‐Saharan Africa US foreign policy and the Horn of Africa. By Peter Woodward. Asia and Pacifc Military inc: inside Pakistan's military economy. By Ayesha Siddiqa. The deadly embrace: religion, politics and violence in India and Pakistan 1947‐2002. Edited by Ian Talbot. Islam, oil and geopolitics: Central Asia after September 11. Edited by Elizabeth Van Wie Davis and Rouben Azizian. North America The crisis of American foreign policy: the effects of a divided America. By Howard J. Wiarda, with the assistance of Esther M. Skelley. The J curve: a new way to understand why nations rise and fall. By Ian Bremmer. Latin America and Caribbean The Pinochet regime. By Carlos Huneeus.     

The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic Wars

At the conclusion of peace at Kiel in 1814, the Danish state had to cede Norway to Sweden. Thus, Denmark was one of the greatest losers of the Napoleonic Wars. Denmark allied with France in 1807 after the British bombardment of Copenhagen and seizure of the Danish navy; Denmark stuck by Napoleon until the bitter end. After the crushing French defeat in Russia in 1812, King Frederick VI more than once received an offer from the Allies to change sides and break with Napoleon; however, he dismissed them. In Danish historiography, the king has therefore been seen as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. A more recent Danish historiographical trend stresses the fact that the Danish state was multi-territorial, and among other areas it contained the kingdom of Norway; consequently, this multi-territorial state formation was, in the mind of the Danish political decision makers, especially the exposed situation of Norway, dependent on grain imports and the subject of Swedish territorial ambition. But how did Frederick VI see things himself? What were his motivations for his foreign political decisions? Based on letters written by the king and instructions to Danish diplomats abroad it is argued that the grain provision and ongoing possession of Norway by the Danish state were crucial factors in the king’s decision to stick with Napoleon. This can be further nuanced: the king was expecting the wars to end with an international peace conference with Napoleonic representation, and so the king’s strategy was to stay loyal to Napoleon, in order to get his support for keeping Norway.     

Past,present, and future: the role of the Cold War in legitimising Danish foreign policy activism

The Cold War has had an extended life span in Danish foreign policy due to the establishment of a right-wing revisionist agenda. This article argues that this revisionism came to serve different contemporary purposes under the Anders Fogh Rasmussen governments. Externally it was used to legitimise the Danish participation in the Iraq War and came to serve as a tool to discipline the war-sceptical social democratic led opposition and secured parliamentary support for an offensive Liberal-inspired activism in Danish foreign policy. Domestically the revisionism became entangled with the overall cultural war that the Liberal-led government launched and thereby became a part of the overall ideological war that united the governing coalition from 2001 to 2011.     

THE SCANDINAVIAN 1968 IN A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

The article compares the events of 1968 in Scandinavia, pointing to the differences and similarities between the Scandinavian countries as well as comparing Scandinavia to the rest of Europe. Within Scandinavia, Norway and Sweden present a Scandinavian model with focus on conflicts between centre and periphery, Maoism and a low level of conflict. In Denmark, the student movement and theoretical Marxism dominated the scene. However, the political context of the three countries and the interplay between mainstream politics and 1968 were rather similar. In Finland, both the political context as well as the movement developed quite differently. The article concludes that the high level of integration of the protest movements makes Scandinavia stand out compared to continental Europe.     

Danish and Swedish immigrants’ cultural policies between 1960 and 2006: toleration and the celebration of difference

In the late 1960s, as non-Nordic immigrants became an important component of their immigration flows, despite their similar policy backgrounds Sweden opted for multiculturalism, while Denmark did not. Their policies diverged even further from the so-called migration crisis of the 1990s. This article compares and analyses Sweden and Denmark’s respective policies between 1960 and 2006, arguing that their policies effectively diverged in the late 1960s; Danish assimilation is constituted of the toleration or acceptance, albeit disapproving, of immigrants’ cultures. Swedish multiculturalism, by way of contrast, celebrates difference, holding that immigrants’ cultures are necessary for their well-being and that ethnocultural diversity enriches the national culture. However, both policies deemed some aspects of immigrants’ cultures unacceptable, in that they were looked upon as illiberal or repugnant. This study also contends that, alongside citizenship and national identity studies, Ministries of Culture’s policies are a relevant field of enquiry into states’ policies on immigrants’ cultures.     

Positioning in the Cold War – Swedish and Danish History Textbooks and the Totalitarianism Doctrine. Historical Cultures in Comparison

The Nordic countries Sweden and Denmark have a long and intertwined history. The Second World War, though, formed different experiences in the two countries that led to diverging paths in the Cold War. Denmark became a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, while Sweden stayed non-aligned. Thus, it can be assumed that Denmark was more likely to adopt Western foreign policies and doctrines than Sweden. Or was it? On a programmatic political level this may have been the case, but what about cultural perceptions developed in Swedish and Danish ‘minds of men’? Is there a tension between les évenéments and les longues durées?

The underlying assumption in this article is that there is a contradiction and a tension between the programmatic political level and historically-inherited enemy images, and that this tension may be studied through the concept of totalitarianism and its position in the historical cultures of Sweden and Denmark in the post-war era. The totalitarianism doctrine was one of the main ideological weapons during the Cold War, serving as a basis for the Truman doctrine. It implies that Nazism and Soviet communism shared common features and may be subsumed under the same label. But would a Dane find it reasonable to view the Red Army, which belonged to the Allies which liberated his or her country, as of ‘the same kind’ as the German occupants? And would it make sense to a Swede to stay neutral to Soviet Russia, the historical enemy? The one who for a Swede is ‘the other’ might for a Dane appear as a historical ally.

The empirical sources are history textbooks for senior secondary school students, studied as artefacts of national historical cultures.     

‘The Sustenance of Salisbury’ in the era of Decolonization: The Portuguese Politics of Neutrality and the Rhodesian Oil Embargo, 1965–7

This article investigates Denmark's international legal status during the Second World War. In exploring this theme it brings together two emergent research perspectives on twentieth-century international political history: (1) a growing interest in small states as actors and active interpreters of international political events in times of crisis and war; and (2) a focus on international law as an independent and so far underexplored research theme. From this double perspective the article highlights and analyses the unprecedented and unparalleled character of the legal relationship between Denmark and Germany after the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940. In doing so it places particular focus on how this situation was viewed and conceptualised by Danish politicians and legal experts. Thus it explores the complex entanglement of politics and law that characterised Danish attempts to bring about and consolidate the particular peaceful and ‘normal’ relationship with Germany as well as efforts to change this relationship and make Denmark a belligerent state. By analysing the four concepts of neutrality, non-belligerence, peaceful occupation, and war the article shows how these legal concepts served as political instruments that were pushed forward by competing and changing understandings of Denmark's international position and interests during the war. But it also shows how these legal conceptualisations were fundamentally structured by the general international legal and political developments of the war (the deterioration of neutrality and the emergence of long-term military occupation and guerrilla warfare throughout Europe). And it demonstrates how they gradually took on a life of their own and came to frame and shape perceptions of Denmark's international position - both among Danish politicians and bureaucrats during the Second World War and among historians to this day.     

What can and cannot be willed: how politicians talk about national identity and immigrants

The ethnic‐civic framework remains widely used in nationalism research. However, in the context of European immigrant integration politics, where almost all ‘nation talk’ is occurring in civic and liberal registers, the framework has a hard time identifying how conceptions of national identity brought forth in political debate differ in their exclusionary potential. This leads some to the conclusion that national identity is losing explanatory power. Building on the insights of Oliver Zimmer, I argue that we may find a different picture if we treat cultural content and logic of boundary construction – two parameters conflated in the ethnic‐civic framework – as two distinct analytical levels. The framework I propose focuses on an individual and collective dimension of logic of boundary construction that together constitute the inclusionary/exclusionary core of national identity. The framework is tested on the political debate on immigrant integration in Denmark and Norway in selected years. Indeed, the framework enables us to move beyond the widespread idea that Danish politicians subscribe to an ethnic conception of the nation, while Norwegian political thought is somewhere in between an ethnic and civic conception. The true difference is that Danish politicians, unlike their Norwegian counterparts, do not acknowledge the collective self‐understanding as an object of political action.     

RETROACTIVE RESPONSIBILITY:

State redress for abuse and neglect in children’s homes has been debated in all Scandinavian countries since early 2000s. In Sweden, an official apology was issued in 2011, and a temporary law enabled Swedish care leavers to apply for compensation of SEK 250,000 during 2013 and 2014. In Denmark, proposals for an official apology have repeatedly been turned down in Parliament. In this article, I compare argumentation for and against state redress in the two countries. Any claim for historical justice raises questions about how to understand the injustices committed: do they safely belong to the past, or to an extended present? Using the concept ‘politics of time’, I show that Danish opponents of the proposed apology have stressed the time distance, while proponents for state redress in both countries have stressed the need to deal with all too present memories of abuse. Another main argument against state redress in the Danish political debate was that we should not anachronistically judge historical actors against the moral framework of the present. I argue that a ‘retroactivity dilemma’ is inevitably raised in redress processes, and discuss the changing notions of retroactive responsibility during the Swedish policy process.     

A Picture and a Protest: Kjartan Slettemark and the Vietnam War

In given circumstances, art can play a crucial role in motivating people to participate in altruistic acts of protest and in initiating the formation of social movements. The story of the most controversial work of art in Norwegian cultural history, the so-called Vietnam Picture from 1965, provides an illuminating illustration of how and why artists and their work can have and have had a significant impact on peace and solidarity movements. The article discusses the qualities of artistic production and its reception that can stimulate and sustain protest. Picasso’s Guernica provides an interesting parallel to the Vietnam Picture, and the two pictures are briefly compared.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory Hegemony in international society. The problem of harm in world politics: theoretical investigations. The invention of International Relations theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 conference on theory. International law, human rights and ethics The last utopia: human rights in history. International law, security and ethics: policy challenges in the post‐9/11 world. International organization and foreign policy Humanitarianism contested: where angels fear to tread. Humanitarian intervention: a history. The future of power. A contest for supremacy: China, America, and the struggle for mastery in Asia. Conflict, security and defence Military Orientalism: eastern war through western eyes. Governance, civil society and cultural politics Women under Islam: gender, justice and the politics of Islamic law. Political economy, economics and development Global poverty: how global governance is failing the poor. Global governance, poverty and inequality. Energy, resources and environment China, oil and global politics. China's energy relations with the developing world. The Routledge handbook of energy security. Food security. History Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the most dangerous place on earth. Who killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and white supremacy in Africa. Documents on British policy overseas, series I, volume IX: The Nordic countries: from war to Cold War, 1944–1951. All hell let loose: the world at war 1939–45. Europe The US–EU security relationship: the tensions between a European and a global agenda. Cultures of border control: Schengen and the evolution of European frontiers. Immigration and conflict in Europe. Les diplomates: derrière la façade des ambassades de France. Civic and uncivic values: Serbia in the post‐Milosevic era. Russia and Eurasia Popular support for an undemocratic regime: the changing views of Russians. Middle East and North Africa The Arab revolution: ten lessons from the democratic uprising. Iran, the Green Movement and the USA: the fox and the paradox. The other side of the mirror: an American travels through Syria. Sub‐Saharan Africa Season of rains: Africa in the world. Inventing Africa: history, archaeology and ideas. South Africa pushed to the limit: the political economy of change. Oil and insurgency in the Niger Delta: managing the complex politics of petroviolence. Consuming the Congo: war and conflict minerals in the world's deadliest place. South Asia Does the elephant dance? Contemporary Indian foreign policy. Religion, caste and politics in India. Secularizing Islamists? Jama'at‐e‐Islami and Jama'at‐ud‐Da'wa in urban Pakistan. The wrong war: grit, strategy, and the way out of Afghanistan. East Asia and Pacific Where China meets India: Burma and the new crossroads of Asia. China in 2020: a new type of superpower. From Mao to market: China reconfigured. Latin America and Caribbean The rise of Evo Morales and the MAS. From rebellion to reform in Bolivia: class struggle, indigenous liberation, and the politics of Evo Morales. Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo in Bolivia: the first term in context, 2006–2010. Latin America and global capitalism: a critical globalization perspective. Latin American foreign policies: between ideology and pragmatism.     

Denmark,Norway and Sweden in 1814: a geopolitical and contemporary perspective

1814 is the ‘year of miracles’ in Norwegian history. The transition from Danish to Swedish rule was transformed into a union between a Norwegian kingdom and the Swedish one. Seen in a contemporary and regional perspective, the outcome of 1814 seems less of a Norwegian victory, but even less of a Danish tragedy or a Swedish triumph.

It was a geopolitical and geographical adjustment from one set of imagined ‘natural’ borders – in which Sweden/Finland were tied together by the Baltic Sea, and the Kattegat and the North Sea tied together the Danish composite state from the Danish islands and the Jutland peninsula to Norway and the North Atlantic islands – towards a new definition of ‘natural borders’, in which the Baltic and the Kattegat were the enemy areas. The Scandinavian state system became split between two peninsula states that turned their backs on one another.

Denmark was banished southwards; Sweden gravitated northwards. She was compensated with Norway in a twin union, explained as geographically ‘natural’, held together by the Scandinavian mountain range that had been nature’s own fortification wall for centuries.

The renegotiation processes of ‘natural’ borders in connection with the upheavals in 1814 shows the predominance of politics over nature in region formation. 1814 is, in the Scandinavian region-building history, a manifestation of the political changeability of constructed state borders.     

Science as propaganda: Swedish scientists and the co-production of American hegemony in Sweden during the cold war, 1953–68

This article takes a close look at how the United States used the funding of scientific research in Sweden as a hegemonic and propaganda tool in the 1950s and 1960s. It shows that non-aligned Sweden functioned just as much as a node in the international science network set up by the Americans after the Second World War as did the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. These funds were awarded mainly to an elite network of prominent Swedish scientists. The article sheds interesting light on the controversies of such funding in Sweden during the cold war and adds important knowledge about Swedish–American relations during the cold war. The article argues that this Swedish scientific elite co-produced US hegemony in Sweden by actively seeking out American military funding and by making use of it. It also argues that US funding was intended to portray the United States as an altruistic patron of science in the world and thus serve American propagandistic purposes as well.     

Cold War,Public Opinion,and Foreign Policy Spending Decisions: Dynamic Representation by Congress and the President

Conventional wisdom before the Vietnam War held that public opinion exerted no influence on U.S. foreign policy decisions. Scholars working in Vietnam's aftermath found episodic influence of public opinion on foreign policy, but missing in our understanding were longitudinal examinations of public opinion's influence on foreign policy. A number of post-Vietnam scholars subsequently revealed a long-term relationship between public opinion and defense spending. This study extends that work by analyzing responsiveness to public opinion in different foreign policy arenas by different government institutions, and by accounting for a critical variable not relevant in most previous studies: the end of the cold war. We construct a model explaining the influences of public opinion and the cold war on spending proposals for defense and foreign economic aid by the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both public opinion and the end of the cold war exert direct influence on defense spending proposals by the presidency, while the Senate and the House respond primarily to public opinion inputs and the partisan composition of the Senate. In the case of foreign economic aid, the cold war's end gives occasion for increasing spending proposals, contrary to the public's expectation that the end of the cold war minimized the need for the U.S. to provide foreign economic assistance.     

World population growth,family planning,and American foreign policy

The US decision since the 1960s to link foreign policy with family planning and population control is noteworthy for its intention to change the demographic structure of foreign countries and the magnitude of the initiative. The current population ideologies are part of the legacy of 19th century views on science, morality, and political economy. Strong constraints were placed on US foreign policy since World War II, particularly due to presumptions about the role of developing countries in Cold War ideology. Domestic debates revolved around issues of feminism, birth control, abortion, and family political issues. Since the 1960s, environmental degradation and resource depletion were an added global dimension of US population issues. Between 1935 and 1958 birth control movements evolved from the ideologies of utopian socialists, Malthusians, women's rights activists, civil libertarians, and advocates of sexual freedom. There was a shift from acceptance of birth control to questions about the role of national government in supporting distribution of birth control. Immediately postwar the debates over birth control were outside political circles. The concept of family planning as a middle class family issue shifted the focus from freeing women from the burdens of housework to making women more efficient housewives. Family planning could not be taken as a national policy concern without justification as a major issue, a link to national security, belief in the success of intervention, and a justifiable means of inclusion in public policy. US government involvement began with agricultural education, technological assistance, and economic development that would satisfy the world's growing population. Cold War politics forced population growth as an issue to be considered within the realm of foreign policy and diplomacy. US government sponsored family planning was enthusiastic during 1967-74 but restrained during the 1980s. The 1990s has been an era of redefinition of the issues and increased divisiveness among environmentalists, feminists, and population control advocates. The current justification of US population program assistance is based on concern for the health of women and children. Future changes will be dependent on ideology, theology, and political philosophy.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory British international thinkers from Hobbes to Namier. Edited by Ian Hall and Lisa Hill. International law, human rights and ethics After Abu Ghraib: exploring human rights in America and the Middle East. By Shadi Mokhtari. Globalizing justice: the ethics of poverty and power. By Richard W. Miller. International organization and foreign policy The contemporary Commonwealth: an assessment 1965–2009. Edited by James Mayall. The Commonwealth and international affairs: the Round Table centennial selection. Edited by Alex May. International security in practice: the politics of NATO—Russia diplomacy. By Vincent Pouliot. Conflict, security and defence Securing the state. By David Omand. Why intelligence fails: lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War. By Robert Jervis. Preventing catastrophe: the use and misuse of intelligence efforts to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. By Thomas Graham Jr and Keith Hansen. Intelligence for an age of terror. By Gregory Treverton. Liberal peace transitions: between statebuilding and peacebuilding. By Oliver P. Richmond and Jason Franks. Aftermath: the Omagh bombing and the families' pursuit of justice. By Ruth Dudley Edwards. Governance, civil society and cultural politics The Muslim revolt: a journey through political Islam. By Roger Hardy. The borders of Islam: exploring Samuel Huntington's faultlines from Al‐Andalus to virtual Ummah. Edited by Stig Jarle Hansen, Atle Mesøy and Tuncay Kardas. Global Salafism: Islam's new religious movement. Edited by Roel Meijer. Political Islam observed. By Frédéric Volpi. Political economy, economics and development High financier: the lives and time of Siegmund Warburg. By Niall Ferguson. Too big to fail: inside the battle to save Wall Street. By Andrew Ross Sorkin. Capitalism 4.0: the birth of a new economy. By Anatole Kaletsky. This time is different: eight centuries of financial folly. By Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Crisis: cause, containment, and cure. By Thomas F. Huertas. The end of influence: what happens when other countries have the money. By Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong. Energy, resources and environment Global politics of health. By Sara E. Davies. History America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War. By David Milne. The Atlantic and its enemies: a personal history of the Cold War. By Norman Stone. The Cold War and national assertion in Southeast Asia: Britain, the United States and Burma, 1948–1962. By Matthew Foley. Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War. By Ang Cheng Guan. Europe The European Union as a small power: after the post‐Cold War. By Asle Toje. The paradoxical republic: Austria, 1945–2005. By Oliver Rathkolb. Russia and Eurasia Turkmenistan's foreign policy: positive neutrality and the consolidation of the Turkmen regime. By Luca Anceschi. Middle East and North Africa The United States and Iraq since 1979: hegemony, oil and war. By Steven Hurst. The Iraq effect: the Middle East after the Iraq war. By Frederic Wehrey, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Jessica Watkins, Jeffrey Martini and Robert A. Guffey. Crisis of authority: Iran's 2009 presidential election. By Ali M. Ansari. Abu Dhabi: oil and beyond. By Christopher M. Davidson. Regime and periphery in northern Yemen: the Huthi phenomenon. By Barak A. Salmoni, Bryce Loidolt and Madeleine Wells. Sub‐Saharan Africa Somaliland: an African struggle for nationhood and international recognition. By Iqbal D. Jhazbhay. Zimbabwe: years of hope and despair. By Philip Barclay. Milk and peace, drought and war: Somali culture, society and politics: essays in honour of I. M. Lewis. Edited by Markus V. Hoehne and Virginia Luling. The curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War. By Adekeye Adebajo. South Asia My life with the Taliban. By Abdul Salam Zaeef. Edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn. India and Pakistan: continued conflict or cooperation? By Stanley Wolpert. Toughing it out in Afghanistan. By Michael O'Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan. Empires of mud: wars and warlords in Afghanistan. By Antonio Giustozzi. Inside nuclear South Asia. Edited by Scott D. Sagan. East Asia and Pacific Mao's great famine: the history of China's most devastating catastrophe. By Frank Dikötter. North America Obama's wars: the inside story. By Bob Woodward. The bridge: the life and rise of Barack Obama. By David Remnick. The promise: President Obama, year one. By Jonathan Alter. Reading Obama: dreams, hope, and the American political tradition. By James T. Kloppenberg. Soft power and US foreign policy: theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives. Edited by Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox. Dominion from sea to sea: Pacific ascendancy and American power. By Bruce Cumings. American foreign policy. By Paul R. Viotti. Latin America and Caribbean 1959: the year that inflamed the Caribbean. By Bernard Diederich. Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution: populism and democracy in a globalised age. By Barry Cannon. Venezuela's Chavismo and populism in comparative perspective. By Kirk A. Hawkins. Electing Chávez: the business of anti‐neoliberal politics in Venezuela. By Leslie Gates. Revolutionary social change in Colombia: the origin and direction of the FARC‐EP. By James J. Brittain. Blood and capital: the paramilitarization of Colombia. By Jasmin Hristov. Portrait of a nation: culture and progress in Ecuador. By Osvaldo Hurtado.