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Diplomatic History: Fall 1997, Columbus, OhioAuthor(s): Sean O'NeillSource: Foreign Policy, No. 109 (Winter, 1997-1998), pp. 174-175Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149478 .

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Global Newsstand

bleak. However, in analyzing the evolution-and devolution-of China's intellectual class during the past 100 years, he finds a significant obstacle in Chinese society that may be to blame both for this devolution and for China's difficult adaptation to globalization: the country's well-ingrained hostility toward pluralism.

All three authors display a real nostalgia for a time in China when the intellectual played a more activist role in public life. However, the country remains divided between a mass culture and an elite culture that rarely engage each other meaningfully. If Chinese intellectuals are to rediscover their voice, they must overcome these entrenched cultur- al divisions and reach out to the masses they ostensibly wish to serve.

-Drew Liu

Diplomatic History Fall 1997, Columbus, Ohio

In the Fall 1997 edition of Diplomatic History, University of San Diego professor Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman provides a definitive summation of the so-called new diplomatic history, drawing on her research into U.S. negotiations with Ghana to send the inaugural mission of the Peace Corps to that country.

Hoffman recalls how friends cautioned her against pursuing her sub- discipline, the study of how the men charged with America's defense brought the nation war and peace. They considered it "a historical boondocks in which shriveled researchers mined the archival warrens of Washington, D.C., for what one clerk said to another." To the contrary, she argues that her branch of study is increasingly cosmopolitan.

The new diplomatic history begins with the traditional work of studying the written record left by American officials, but it goes fur- ther, examining the global context in which those officials made their decisions. Hoffman, a practitioner of the new, says that she tries to "do justice to the real life of a foreign people as they contemplated how to handle, resist, emulate, and manipulate the United States."

Thus, her research on how the Peace Corps came to Ghana includes both Washington's and Accra's views. Washington thought that the corps' good works might lure Ghana, a nonaligned country, into the American camp in the Cold War. Kwame Nkrumah, then president of Ghana, worried that the volunteers would be spies and propagandists.

174 FOREIGN POLICY

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Hoffman notes that the result of the mission disappointed U.S. strate- gic hopes, but she also shows how Nkrumah eventually overcame his suspicions because he wanted more teachers so that every child could learn to read and do sums. Together, the old and new methodologies reveal the full story of how Ghana's needs intersected with America's.

Some historians dislike the perspectives now being applied to past events, but not Ohio State's Michael Hogan, editor of this quarterly. Hogan has welcomed the new into Diplomatic History. The magazine looks freshly at international events by studying their multiple players and parts--like recognizing that the last house in town is also the first in the countryside.

-Sean O'Neill

International Policy October 1997, Cairo

Recent Arab discourse on international affairs reflects a deepening concern over the diminished ability of Arab states to shape events in their immediate environment, let alone the world. The focus of this leading Egyptian quarterly is no exception. The Soviet Union's demise, Iraq's defeat in 1991, a stagnant peace process, the Israeli-Turkish alliance, and Iran's growing influence have exposed a divided Arab world to new threats-not least of which is the possibility of fading into irrelevance. The two main essays in this edition, however, outline ways to carve out a secure place for the Arabs amidst new political alignments and emerging economic blocs.

Egyptian diplomat Alaa El-Hadidy observes that the Middle East has become less attractive to foreign investment than Asia and Latin Amer- ica given its insignificant share in international trade (4 percent), high tax rate, and large public sector. Israel proposed a regional alliance based on economic integration, an idea the United States supported. Howev- er, economic and political obstacles render it quite untenable. El-Hadidy sees a European-Mediterranean basin partnership as a more realistic option, as well as increased trade between Asia and the Gulf States.

Mohammad Abdul Shafei Esaa, a professor at the Institute of National Planning in Cairo, disagrees. He contends that the Arabs should instead look to the Muslim world as their future sphere of cul- tural and political interaction. True, this group of states claims only a

WINTER 1997-98 175

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