Abstract:

This book examines the leading role of the Quaker American Friends Service Committee in the United Nations relief program for Palestine Arab refugees in 1948-1950 in the Gaza Strip. Using archival data, oral histories, and biographical accounts, it provides a detailed look at internal decision-making in an early non-governmental organization.

This first truly international history of the Korean War argues that by its timing, its course, and its outcome it functioned as a substitute for World War III. Stueck draws on recently available materials from seven countries, plus the archives of the United Nations, presenting a detailed narrative of the diplomacy of the conflict and a broad assessment of its critical role in the Cold War. He emphasizes the contribution of the United Nations, which at several key points in the conflict provided an important institutional framework within which less powerful nations were able to restrain the aggressive tendencies of the United States. In Stueck's view, contributors to the U.N. cause in Korea provided support not out of any abstract commitment to a universal system of collective security but because they saw an opportunity to influence U.S. policy. Chinese intervention in Korea in the fall of 1950 brought with it the threat of world war, but at that time and in other instances prior to the armistice in July 1953, America's NATO allies and Third World neutrals succeeded in curbing American adventurism. While conceding the tragic and brutal nature of the war, Stueck suggests that it helped to prevent the occurrence of an even more destructive conflict in Europe.

This book examines the politics of water scarcity in the Middle East's Jordan River Basin (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority) between 1920 and 2006. Jeffrey K. Sosland demonstrates that while water scarcity might generate political tension, it does not by itself precipitate war, nor is it likely to do so. At the same time, efforts to promote water cooperation, such as those initiated by the United States, have an identifiable political benefit by creating rules, building confidence, and reducing tensions among adversaries. Sosland concludes that while this alone might not resolve the overall conflict, it does create positive long-term value in achieving peace.

From 1915 to 1923, the Ottoman Empire drove the Armenians from their ancestral homeland and slaughtered 1.5 million of them in the process. While there was an initial global outcry and a movement led by Woodrow Wilson to aid the “starving Armenians,” the promises to hold the perpetrators accountable were never fulfilled. In this groundbreaking work, Michael Bobelian profiles the leading players—Armenian activists and assassins, Turkish diplomats, U.S. officials— each of whom played a significant role in furthering or opposing the century-long Armenian quest for justice in the face of Turkish denial of its crimes, and reveals the events that have conspired to eradicate the “forgotten Genocide” from the world’s memory.