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Summary: Excellent view into international environmental policy
Review: I came across this book in a Washingon, D.C. bookstore and consumed the entire thing in a matter of days. It's both lucid and insightful. Interest in so-called international environmental issues is high these days, but very few books are available that even attempt to define what such issues are, much less describe them as a group and relate them to one another. This book is in a class by itself. Not only does it discuss and provide fascinating insight into specific areas of international environmental policy, from global warming to international forestry conservation, but also it relates these areas to one another within a single, coherent and robust theoretical framework. The authors display not only a detailed practical knowledge of the policy issues they discuss, but also higher level insight into characteristics that connect disparate policy areas to one another. This is not just interesting; it's of immense practical usefulness. Even without a detailed knowledge of all the specific topics (and acronyms) it addresses, this book is well worth the money of anyone interested in international environmental policy.
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Summary: Confusing and repetitive
Review: This book was assigned for a class on environmental public policy, and I think it's the worst textbook I've ever had. The sections are badly ordered and repetitive, and the usage of constant acronymns prevents the book from being readable. There are certain parts that are far more clear than others, such as the section on global forests. But on the whole, the book reads like it was rushed into printing.
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Summary: Nice Try...no Cigar
Review: Was assigned this textbook by my professors who actually happens to be one of the authors. I was impressed with the first couple of chapters, but then realized the text drags on into long, verbose explanations and becomes repetitive. It seems as if the authors intention was to keep the text simple, but instead, they produced a rather tedious and boring read! It's a shame too because I absolutely love the course. I don't think the book accurately reflects the author's teaching abilities.
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Summary: From everyone's fav expert on Cambodia
Review: What if Dr. Josef Goebbels, after spending a lucrative and leisurely tenure as propaganda chief for Der Fuhrer, decided to pursue an alternative career path teaching at a prominent university in the US, all the while denying that he or his former buddies had anything to do with genocide on a massive scale? Would he have been accepted with open arms, provided with a lush salary/tenure, treated as an authority on the subject, and allowed to present his ideas and opinions to generations of students? We'll never know, but judging by the reaction of US "intellectuals" and academic institutions to Gareth Porter, erstwhile cheerleader for the Khmer Rouge, we certainly have a good idea.Porter began his career in the mid-1970s, producing crude agitprop for the impressionable and the credulous to high praise and acclaim from ivy covered institutions and ivy-covered scholars. The high point of his career came during his congressional testimony, where he denied that any "killing fields" existed in Cambodia, and that it was all a Big Lie from the CIA. Despite being roasted by the likes of Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY), our hero kept true to his beliefs...even after his Vietnamese pals came charging across the border and discovered mountains of human skulls, armies of emaciated peasants, and a society that would have made Charlie Manson proud. Needless to say, apologies during the subsequent quarter century have not been forthcoming, and we will most certainly see Dr. Porter living well, fat, and happy in the land of the free and the home of the brave, whilst he ventures out into new territory, pontificating ever-so-widely on subjects as diverse as environmental politics...my how time flies when you're having fun...
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