Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars Before They Start

This cross-disciplinary reader on global politics is a fresh and fascinating book. When the insights and methodologies of public health are applied to the handling of international disasters, the change in policy perspective is an intriguing--even hopeful--mix of sound thinking and new ideas. The editor, Kevin M. Cahill, president of the Center for International Health and Cooperation, has pulled together essays from the new United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, former British Foreign Secretary David Owen, and Organization of African Unity Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim. One of the most thoughtful essays in the book is by Alain Destexhe, the former head of "Doctors without Borders." Destexhe considers cases in which "aid becomes the pretext for political inaction, which leads only to catastrophe". This is a satisfying and challenging collection that puts events in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Somalia in a fascinating context.