Fallout from nuclear energy isn’t worth the risk
By MV Ramana, Verso, £20.00
If you thought nuclear energy had any upsides, think again: it is expensive, it cannot be scaled up fast enough and it aggravates environmental and ecological risks. At least, this is what MV Ramana sets out to establish in his latest book. Rhys Crilley, Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, praises Ramana’s efforts to expose the risks and costs of nuclear energy in a ‘methodological, rigorous and clear way’. The book details the danger of nuclear reactors and the pitfalls of nuclear plants.
The latter are rarely delivered on time and within budget. As Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power in Ukraine (pictured above) has shown, they are also vulnerable in the context of armed conflict. ‘Written with clarity and urgency,’ the book uses a broad body of evidence to put forward ‘an utterly convincing case’ that nuclear energy ‘only makes sense as part of a flawed social and economic order’ that prioritizes profit at the expense of the environment.
Fans of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film about the Manhattan Project, will be well acquainted with the personalized politics of the atomic bomb. Similarly, Ramana chronicles how private companies and nuclear weapons states continue to benefit from and drive nuclear energy through sustained propaganda that obscures the ‘unjust state of nuclear energy affairs’. As our reviewer put it, ‘Can nuclear energy save us from the climate crisis? According to MV Ramana, the answer is a resounding “no”’.
The full review appears in the May 2025 issue of ‘International Affairs’
Uncle Sam or Big Brother?
By By David A Lake Cornell, University Press, £20.99
For US foreign policy enthusiasts, David Lake requires no introduction. However, in Inderjeet Parmar’s opinion, it is precisely Lake’s reputation as a mainstream political scientist that makes this book so valuable. While tackling questions of hierarchy is not particularly trailblazing, Lake provides a ‘very good study of indirect rule’ of how the US dominates other states through an alignment with their domestic elites. This ‘thorough examination’ of the US’s contradictions seems to indicate ‘the crisis of legitimacy that plagues American power at home and abroad has finally reached the very upper echelons’ of academia.
The full review appears in the January 2025 issue of ‘International Affairs’
War child stories
By Tatiana Sanchez Parra, Rutgers University Press, £32.00
What happens to the children born of war, and their mothers, in the aftermath of conflict? Adopting a ‘narrative voice’, Tatiana Sanchez Parra illustrates the complicated everyday, legal and bureaucratic hurdles of these victims with examples drawn from a Colombian village that underwent prolonged paramilitary occupation. Sanchez Parra calls attention to the experiences of forced motherhood and the ways in which conflict ‘continues to remake women’s lives, beyond sexual violence’. It is therefore a rare attempt to expose the ‘immense operation of power’ that renders these women and their children largely invisible ‘outside the scope of transitional justice’.
The full review appears in the May 2025 issue of ‘International Affairs’
Great power outage
By Sergey Radchenko, Cambridge University Press, £30.00
In this re-telling of the Soviet Union’s trajectory from the ashes of the Second World War to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, Sergey Radchenko pain-stakingly conveys the USSR’s efforts to secure international recognition as a great power equal to the US. The sense of entitlement that emerged from defeating Nazi Germany underpinned the Sino-Soviet rivalry in the third world and Leonid Brezhnev’s support for Hanoi in the Vietnam War. While Radchenko’s ‘thoroughly researched and stimulating book’ suggests that the Soviet pursuit was illegitimate, Donald Trump’s apparent tolerance for a Russian sphere of influence may suggest this book is very timely.
The full review appears in the May 2025 issue of ‘International Affairs’
