A few notes on books. My copy of Sid Blumenthal’s The Clinton Wars finally, finally, finally arrived today. So I’ll be eagerly diving into it and reporting back on what I find. I’ve also just started Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, of which I’ll be saying more shortly. (My stack of books to read grew quite tall while busy finishing up the dissertation. Finally, let me recommend The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions, just out and compiled and edited by Micah Sifry and Christopher Cerf. I think those of a more hawkish disposition may find it ever-so-slightly tilted in the favor of skeptics — in the sense of counting up selections from each side. But I’m not even sure about that and may change my opinion after further reading and leafing through the selections. It’s extremely up-to-date, featuring a number of selections from the weeks just before the war, and probably the best single-volume introduction to the debate I’ve seen so far, with well-chosen selections from almost every shade of opinion out there. Even if you’re an Iraq war aficionado, it’s worth picking up a copy.
