Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy CarterReview by: L. Carl BrownForeign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2007), pp. 178-179Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032327 .

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Recent Books

treatment. In between, so do Russia's twentieth-century economic and demo graphic changes, as well as the fate of peasants, workers, women, non-Russians, and key republics. And there are chapters on science and technology, culture, and foreign policy. The heavily laden table is introduced by a reflective essay written by Suny, the impresario for this feast, on the

way Westerners have read Russian and Soviet history from one era to the next. This book is a fitting finale to a distin guished set of volumes that starts with From Early Rus' to 1689.

Putin's Russia and the Enlarged Europe. BY ROY ALLISON, MARGOT LIGHT, AND

STEPHEN WHITE. Blackwell, 2006,

240 pp. $89.95 (paper, $39.95). Perhaps the most complex and, in many ways, most revealing dimension of Russian foreign policy is Russia's relations with Europe, once the country's leaders try to think beyond former Soviet borders.

Here, ever since Peter the Great, Russia's tormented quest for identity reaches its climax. Here Russia deals most directly

with the flight of former dominions. And, here, in particular, it faces exclusion from two of the external world's most formidable institutions-NATO and the

European Union. The conundrum of how Russia might be included in Europe when it cannot be integrated into its institutions "Russia in Europe versus Russia and Europe"-forms the core of this book. The authors center their very informed and levelheaded analysis on Russia's evolving attitude toward these two institutions, among both the public and the political elite. They embed this analysis in a lean, effective discussion of the domestic politics behind Russian foreign policy.

Middle East L. CARL BROWN

Democracy in Iran: History and the Questfor Liberty. BY ALI GHEISSARI AND VALI

NAS R. Oxford University Press, 2006, 232 pp. $25.00.

This book treats the last century of Iranian history, organized around the theme of how the country "has responded to the challenge of balancing state-building

with democracy-building." The point of departure is the era that brought into being the 1906 constitution and ended five years later with the Russian occupation and the reversal of reforms. This period of promise followed by setback serves to illustrate that Iran has long wrestled with issues of representation and constitution alism, and it continues to do so today.

At the same time, Iran has been caught up in the task of putting in place a modern and strong state. There were many more ups and downs in that search for a balance between strength and democracy through the time of the Pahlavis, ending in 1979, and thereafter during the Islamic Republic.

This thematic framework for making sense of the complex interplay of rulers and ruled, ideologies and material inter ests, provides a perceptive interpretation of Iran's past century.

Palestine: Peace NotApartheid. BY JIMMY CARTER. Simon & Schuster, 2006, 288 pp. $27.00.

Soon after taking office in 1977, Jimmy Carter declared that the Palestinians must have a "homeland." Later in his presidency, Carter led the tortuous negotiations culminating in Israel's first treaty with an

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Recent Books

Arab neighbor: the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli treaty, which, it should be remembered, contained provisions intended to move

matters toward a viable Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Out of office soon thereafter, Carter continued to follow closely the many ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, keeping in touch with the

American, Arab, and Israeli principals involved. In recent years, he has put himself very much in situ by leading the monitoring of Palestinian elections.

This book offers a historical overview in the form of a personal memoir, tracing developments since the 1970S as Carter experienced and understood them. He

may thus be said to be both a source for the historian and himself a historian of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. This little book merits a reading on both counts. Carter concludes that "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agree

ment in the Holy Land." That statement, so out of line with the way mainstream

American political figures (even those retired from public office) frame the issue, ensures that the book will be attacked by

many. Perhaps it will be read as well.

The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy. EDITED BY BRENDA SHAFFER.

MIT Press, 2006, 352 pp. $o.o00 (paper, $25.00).

Does a state's culture significantly shape its foreign policy? Would a Muslim state act differently in international relations from other states? Or can the foreign policies of a state, Muslim or otherwise, be adequately explained by perceived material interests? This book, the fruit of a two-year group research project involving

ii different scholars, addresses the larger question of the role of culture in foreign policy by considering the Muslim states bordering the Caspian Sea. After three chapters of a general and theoretical nature, it studies seriatim the several Central Asian "Stans," plus Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The contributors' findings downgrade Islamic culture and give greater scope to raison d'etat. Iran, for example, has favored Christian Armenia over Muslim Azerbai jan and muted its support for Muslim Chechens in order to further good relations with Russia. Pakistan's foreign policy is seen as more pragmatic than Islamic. As for the post-Soviet states of Central Asia, often dubbed "Islamic Republics" by outsiders, they have not declared Islam their state religion, and their foreign policies are best explained in realist balance of-power terms (plus, in some cases, in terms of resistance to Islamist forces

within the state). Two other chapters address U.S. perceptions of and actions toward these diverse Muslim states, with similar findings about the relative role of culture vis-a-vis perceived national interest in shaping foreign policies.

Distant Relations: Iran andLebanon in the

Lastsoo Years. EDITED BY H. E.

CHEHABI. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 288 pp. $59.50 (paper, $28.95).

Students and practitioners of Middle East ern politics and diplomacy turning to this

work for knowledge about Hezbollah and its ties to Iran will not be disappointed. Several chapters set out the Iranian involve

ment in the sociopolitical awakening of Lebanon's Shiites, personified by the Iran ian cleric Musa al-Sadr and epitomized by the emergence of first Amal and then

FOREIGN AFFAIRS March/April2007 [179]

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