Collateral Language: A User's Guide to America's New War

Rating:
Summary: A great primer to the language of war
Review: "war on terror," "pre-emptive war," "Anthrax," "Blowback," are some of the frequently used words by the trigger happy mullahs in washington. This book aims to illustarte the meaning behind these words. We saw how masterfully the words "Weopons of Mass destruction" were used to justify the occupation of Iraq by the Anglo-American forces. Now it is plain that all these false claims were used to woo the US public. Words such as these are being used by the bush admisnitration and the pentagon as simply and most centainly effectively as "Weopons of mass deception". This book tries to create an informed public by dissecting the rhetoric of the war mongers to create an informed public receptive to reason rather than fear.

Rating:
Summary: Good for thought
Review: I actually had one of the editors of this (Glover) as a teacher for a sociology course I took, and he brought this book to our attention for the latter third of the semester. While I don't think of him as the greatest of teachers I had, I can hardly fault his and Collins' ability to pick out good articles, and even write some themselves. The selection of articles helped bring some ideas forward in my mind and cleared my head on some matters. Others in the class would mutter afterwards about him being "too liberal," but it was refreshing and the ideas in here felt like fresh air after the stench of far-Right ideology (read: warmongering and abusiveness) I had the (dis)pleasure of dealing with frequently.

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Summary: Constructing a new world order
Review: We live in an age where words like "invasion" and "pre-emptive war" are being bandied about in a frighteningly common-sensical manner. At a time when the US government seems to be set on embarking on a war that has faced consistent opposition, it has becomingly increasingly urgent for all of us to start questioning the nature of this common-sense: why has it become acceptable for policy-makers and media persons to talk about "attacks" and "regime-change" openly as a strategy to create a new world order; how "new" is this form of creating a world order; and what is the nature of the order that is being constructed? John Collins and Ross Glover's edited volume goes a long way in helping address these extremely important questions.
To say that the volume is timely is to state the obvious. What makes it invaluable is that the collection of essays attempts to historicize and bring to light the manner in which political contexts cannot be separated from what pass for rhetorical common-sense. Terms like "terrorism," "vital interests," and "fundamentalism" do not emerge in a vacuum. Understanding their meaning involves a closer look at the political context and the struggles within which they emerge. Collins and Glover have done a remarkable job of putting together a collection that does precisely that. Bypassing academic jargon, the authors have succeeded in making complex arguments accessible to a wide array of people. Collins' essay on "Terrorism" for instance, carefully takes the reader through the historical evolution of the term and the various meanings that have been associated with it during the three decades that it has been critical to US foreign policy. The essays on the concepts of Laura J. Riediehs) and "Civilization versus Barbarianism" (Marina A. Llorente) carefully delineate the manner in which concepts that are supposed to be universal and abstract, with meanings that supposedly make sense to one and all, are constructed in the context of political struggles. I could carefully go through each essay in the collection, but that might involved getting repetitive about what makes this collection so important. To put it in a nutshell, each essay in the volume is an excellent example of what political committed scholarship ought to look like. We live in a world where it is has become urgent for us to understand the dynamic and politically charged nature of the terms that are being used to construct a new world order. Collateral Language is a critical tool that needs to be used in this endeavor. The editing of the volume and its general tenor also make it a great text-book for any undergraduate course or high-school course- be it in Political Science, History or Cultural Studies. This book is a great and necessary read for anyone interested in contemporary politics.

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Summary: Don't forget the lessons of wwII
Review: WW II led to a couple of interesting works on propaganda: not
how to make your own, but how to recognise it, and how to avoid being taken in by it. In wartime we are perhaps as much in danger of propaganda and manipulation of information from our own governments, as from any other government. George Orwell wrote on how language is manipulated, in 1984 and Animal Farm. Less well known is Thouless "Clear thinking in wartime", with sections on such old favourites as propaganda speeches, and atrocity stories. Thouless' aim was to de-bunk the persuasive-sounding words, and get the reader asking how much hard fact lay behind them. Often, not much.
This new book, edited by Collins and Glover, should make interesting reading. As the generation who remember WWII are dying out, we are losing our knowledge on how to defend ourselves against propaganda. This leaves each citizen at the mercy of an enemy, and also at the mercy of their own govenment. All the war-mongers need to do is roll out a few old tricks, and people will fall for them, just like they did 60 years ago. We badly need books like this one, to help us think clearly in the coming months.
Some will doubtless say books like these are "un-patriotic", or "damage the war effort" or "put our troops in danger" . All that will show is that the propagandists have already started - such words make reading books like these more essential, not less.