Preeti Aroon: The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz. When she was naive and in her 20s, Novogratz -- No. 85 on FP’s Global Thinkers list -- went to Africa to “save the world.” She quickly learned why top-down development projects funded by rich countries fail over and over again. Her journey, narrated in first person, tells in story form what aid skeptics such as William Easterly -- No. 39 -- often explain in more abstract terms.
Elizabeth Dickison: Those following events in Guinea over the last several weeks know that things in this small West African country have been a bit rocky; Moussa Dadis Camara, head of the junta that seized power late last year, was shot by one of his fellow junta members and taken to Morocco for care – with no signs he’ll be back soon. Now, it looks like countries in the region are getting nervous. AllAfrica.com reports today, “The international community appears to be laying the ground for a West African military intervention to prevent Guinea from sliding into war and destabilizing surrounding nations.” Read on in AllAfrica’s excellent analysis.
Blake Hounshell: Jon Lee Anderson's article on Somalia in this week's New Yorker is a great follow-up to Jeffrey Gettleman's essay in last March's issue of FP, "The Most Dangerous Place in the World." Anderson gets up close and personal with Sharif Ahmed, the U.S.-backed Islamist who in theory is Somalia's president and must travel around his own besieged compound in an armored Land Cruiser.
Joshua Keating: Rutu Modan's graphic novel Exit Wounds starts with the story of a father's mysterious disappearance the wake of a suicide bombing, then takes an unexpected turn that confounds the reader's expectations for what a story about contemporary Israel should be.
David Kenner: I’m reading the explosive (pun intended) Times of London article alleging that Iran is developing the component which would trigger the explosion of a nuclear weapon, and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis’s analysis of this news. I’m also reading the new International Crisis Group report on Syria’s “evolving strategy.” Finally, I’ve been barreling through Mohammed Shafi Agwani’s documentary study of the 1958 Lebanon crisis – but that’s a whole different can of worms.
Christina Larson: There is now a rising tide of climate-themed news articles, blog posts, tweets, press releases, emails, and RSS feeds, all trying to make sense of the ongoing climate talks at Copenhagen. (Dr. Ranjendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recently gave his Mother Jones' David Corn his take: "It's all very baffling to me.") Among the most insightful is an article by the Wall Street Journal's David Sanger explaining how the "Summit Is Seen as U.S. Versus China."
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