Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War by Stuart J. KaufmanReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2001), p. 180Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20050358 .

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Recent Books

dispiriting reading for the tender-hearted

and tough-minded alike.

Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. by stuart j. kaufman.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001,

262 pp. $45.00 (paper, $19.95). This author, like Kuperman, is part of a

welcome trend among younger scholars

probing the nature of modern war. Looking

back, it is remarkable how much of the national security literature of the late

Cold War drew on the conflicts of the

first half of the twentieth century. In this book, Kaufman explores the ways in

which ethnicity leads to war. Although rejecting the facile (but widely used) notion of deep, ineradicable, and ancient

animosities, he nonetheless takes ethnicity

seriously. He builds his theory around

the idea of "symbolic politics"?i.e., the

stories and in particular the archetypes and caricatures that shape

one group's

view of another. He does not dismiss the

role of manipulative leaders in inflaming hatreds and resentments, but neither does

he assign them sole blame. A shrewd and

balanced blend of theory and case analysis,

primarily drawn from the Balkans and the

Caucasus, that helps explain modern war.

War and Nature: Fighting Humans and

Insects with Chemicals from World War I

to Silent Spring, by edmund russell.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001,315 pp. $54.95 (paper, $19.95).

An interesting and highly unusual com

parison of the parallel?but sometimes

intersecting?chemical wars waged against

humans and bugs. This study is American

centered, although it includes references

to work by other governments; much of

the book is taken up with such tales as

the military's love affair with ddt, which

played an important role in beating back

one of the soldier's oldest enemies, the

louse. Such a menace is not trivial, as an

earlier-generation infantry soldier would

have noted. But its defeat came with

considerable environmental costs that, the author notes, were understood at the

time. For students of both war and

ecology, this is a remarkable and fascinating

study that draws heavily on

primary sources; it is particularly timely as

awareness grows of what war does to

the environment, as well as to people.

At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat

in the Twentieth Century, by ronald

h. spector. New York: Viking, 2001,

463 pp. $29.95. There has been an enormous amount of

writing?scholarly, official, fictional, and

autobiographical?about the experience of combat on land. But until now, its

counterpart at sea was confined largely to

the memoir and the novel. This work fills

that gap. An experienced and prolific

historian, Spector fought with the U.S.

Marine Corps in Vietnam and headed

the U.S. Navy's history program; both

experiences show in a work that is (as he

puts it) "an interpretive history" rather

than a chronological depiction or an

analytical summary. He touches on a

multitude of questions: How did com

manders view orders? What were the

relationships between enlisted sailors and

officers during combat? Who invented

new tactics for aerial combat at sea, and

how were they disseminated? No work

of this kind can be definitive, but this volume both satisfies in its own right and

provokes more questions than any histo

rian could hope to answer in one lifetime.

[l8o] FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Volume80No. 6

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