I remember vaguely in my pre-academic days about this guy who wrote a spoof on postmodernism which was published by a journal. It hit the ivory tower like an earthquake and the so-called elitists were never the same after it. It was the moment we entered the post-postmodern age.

That man was Alan Sokal, NYU physicist, and his book "Beyond The Hoax" is a behind the scenes look at the article that rocked the Annales School of philosophy. The primary motivations behind Sokal's philosophical critiques against postmodernism are simple: postmodernism was an elitist philosophy which undermined the shared commitment to the struggle for social justice. Throughout the book, you do get the sense of Sokal's own secular humanist convictions, progressivism without the pretension and condescension.

Overall, I found this to be one of the best philosophical books I've ever read. Sokal is straight-forward, exploratory, and sufficiently intriguing to read. I recommend this to anyone who wants an intellectual response to postmodernism.

So far, one of the better books I've read for 2009 in terms of international relations and US foreign policy. The book design is an interesting format in that it is basically a transcript of a roundtable discussion between US foreign policy heavyweights in Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, moderated by David Ignatius.

As for the topics discussed, they are wide ranging. From the middle east, to China, to Russia, to Europe. If there was one part I felt that they left out, it was Latin America, where Mexico is barely touched with the rest all but ignored. This is a big omission considering how important Latin America was as a part of the overall US foreign policy strategy for the last 100 years. Think Cuba or Venezuela.

Overall, I thought this was a very important book to read, especially with a new President in the White House in 2009. Though certainly not a complete discussion on US foreign policy, this is a good start for the new year.

The premise of chronicling the rise of Google is a fascinating one. The corporation that is the information age's equivalence of the East India Company is one that is intriguing and frightening at the same time. Randall Stross, technology writer for the New York Times attempts to do just that in "Planet Google."

While I like the premise of the book, I have to say that the research lacks depth and ideological insight. That is to say, Stross tells us the how and what, but he is light on the why. While there are extensive endnotes, I was surprised by the lack of archival information from Google itself, considering Stross had such in depth internal access to Google's executives and day-to-day operations.

Overall, if one is relatively unfamiliar with the what and how of Google, this would be a good read into the general story of one of the most important companies of our time. For a deeper look at the societal implications of Google's omniscience, keep looking.

In this World War II subaltern history, Frederic Spotts attempts to bring to light, the lives of those who chose to stay in France during the occupation and collaboration under the Vichy regime. This is a social and cultural history of what life was like under Nazi collaboration.

The historical questions "The Shameful Peace" attempts to answer are: what was collaboration? Was it accepting German hospitality to visit or perform in Germany, attending a reception hosted by German official or even just seeking German approval to publish a book... What was resistance - fleeing the country, refusing to publish, to exhibit or to perform?" (p. 4).

Throughout the chapters, Spotts offers some anecdotal evidence here and there but overall I thought the writing lacked cohesion. There was a lot of name dropping and random stories but I felt that Spotts was not focused enough in his arguments, he was all over the place at times. Its too bad, because it was a good idea for a book and this is a history that really needs to be told, just needed to be written and argued better.

Because of the reasons stated, I cannot therefore recommend the book. If you're looking for a book that explores what life was like under Vichy controlled France, you'll have to keep looking.

Part of the Oxford History of the United States Series, this survey text of American foreign policy since the revolution is both comprehensive and in depth. This would be the perfect book for an undergraduate course on the history of American foreign policy.

George C. Herring's writing is fluid yet incredibly descriptive. At 1000+ pages, the book is a mammoth to get through, but for a college history class, is definitely manageable over a semester. I was really surprised at not only how accurate and nuanced the entire book was, but Herring was even able to include certain elements that I was even surprised with. Herring also includes some very detailed maps of all the major conflict zones, definitely helps in the spatial contextualization.

Overall, I can think of no finer text than "From Colony to Superpower" in educating oneself about the foreign policy of the most important country in the world today. Definitely recommend it for either a survey course, or even just as a reference book.

Though I did enjoy reading this survey of Western music "triumph" by historian and scholar Tim Blanning, I do want to say first that Blanning's perspective is entirely eurocentric and therefore cannot qualify to speak for the "triumph of music" globally.

Having said that, I felt the book did a good job overall blending both cultural and political events together to show how music and its influence shaped the course of European history. Wagner and his nationalist inspired compositions are probably the most strident example.

Overall, I think the book is a good survey text, but lacks some depth that cultural historians will be looking for. Many intellectual theories of culture are only superficially covered leaving much to be desired. Still, I'm recommending it for the casual reader who wants to learn more about the rise of music in the European context.

The newest book edited by Michael Lewis, aptly named "Panic" is a collection of previously published articles before, during, and after the market collapses of 1987, the Asian financial crisis of 1998, the Dot Com bust in 2001 and the latest Subprime mortgage meltdown.

Though, none of the books contents represents any new analysis or synthesis of the events past, nor is much contextualization given by Lewis of the articles and events, I still felt that the book was a good read. Mostly because it was refreshing to re-read what people were feeling at the time. They give a snapshot in time of the over-confidence, anxieties, and overall market psychology that underlies the whole system.

I do highly recommend this book, not just because I'm a Michael Lewis fan, but because I think the book illustrates both the complexity and the folly of the economic markets. There's no trying to make sense of it all, because there is no sense to begin with.

If you are interested in historical fiction, then this new book by renowned historians Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore might pique your interest. The innovative part of the book is the way they incorporate primary sources as part of the novel.

The plot itself is well-thought out. A lady in disguise and a gentleman in exile, set in revolutionary Boston. There were two issues I had though with the writing. First, it was a little too contrived, the letters too polished, to prose-like, nobody writes letters like that. I realize they did that for readability purposes, but I felt it took away from the realism of colonial times.

Overall, I think the idea is good, the intentions altruistic, I just felt that the authors were writing history more than writing a novel. It feels more like non-fiction than it should have.

Contrary to the title, this collection of essays about neoliberalization, otherwise referred to as "The Washington Consensus" is not just an anti-neoliberal polemic. The collection includes essays that defend it, and in fact define its doctrine in more concrete terms.

The book is therefore difficult to summarize as each individual essay has their own thesis, writing style, arguments, etc... The authors, to each their own, are some of the leading economic theorists of our time, including but not limited to John Williamson, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Frankel and more.

If you want to learn more about the macroeconomic theory behind the Friedman style economics, beyond the coles notes version you get in popular books like the "Shock Doctrine" of Naomi Klein, than this book is for you.

In "American Christians and Islam," Thomas S. Kidd presents a scholarly historical survey of Christian proselytizing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book is roughly divided into the sections of: Barbary wars, Victorian era, middle-class reformers, Arab-Israeli crisis, modernity, postwar, and post 9-11.

The thesis of the book is that: American Christians' views about Islam usually divulge more about American Christians than about actual Muslims. Kidd attempts to show how a distorted vision of the Muslim world has led to unnecessary animosity between members of both faiths. Kidd does not attempt to show the Muslim point of view, but he is polemical against the prevailing Christian attitudes toward Islam and Muslims in general.

If you are really interested in a more detailed book on Protestant missionaries in the Middle East, I highly recommend "Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East" by Ussama Makdisi. That is not to say that "American Christians and Islam" is not important or not any good, but that "Artillery of Heaven" presents more depth with which the analysis can draw its conclusions from.