Editor's Shelf pictures the books as they appear on the shelf. It's more of an inventory of recent arrivals than any serious assesment of the book.

Victory in War Foundations of Modern Military Policy , William C. Martel ,The Fletcher School, Tufts University, Massachusetts , ISBN-13: 9780521859561

For millennia, policymakers and statesmen have grappled with questions about the concept of victory in war. How long does it take to achieve victory and how do we know when victory is achieved? And, as highlighted by the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, is it possible to win a war and yet lose the peace? The premise of this book is that we do not have a modern theory about victory and that, in order to answer these questions, we need one. This book explores historical definitions of victory, how victory has evolved, and how it has been implemented in war. It also subsequently develops the intellectual foundations of a modern pre-theory of victory, and discusses the military instruments necessary for victory in the twenty-first century using case studies that include U.S. military intervention in Panama, Libya, Persian Gulf War, Bosnia/Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

War Crimes and Just War , Larry May, Washington University, St Louis, ISBN-13: 9780521691536

Larry May argues that the best way to understand war crimes is as crimes against humanness rather than as violations of justice. He shows that in a deeply pluralistic world, we need to understand the rules of war as the collective responsibility of states that send their citizens into harm's way, as the embodiment of humanity, and as the chief way for soldiers to retain a sense of honour on the battlefield. Throughout, May demonstrates that the principle of humanness is the cornerstone of international humanitarian law, and is itself the basis of the traditional principles of discrimination, necessity, and proportionality. He draws extensively on the older Just War tradition to assess recent cases from the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia as well as examples of atrocities from the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future , Vali Nasr, W. W. Norton, ISBN-13: 978-0393062113

The Shia Revival effectively and persuasively demonstrates the political and historical counterpoints to modern Iraq, asking that we reconsider our assumptions about the Shia and apprehend the delicate balance that must be maintained with their Sunni counterpart. Nasr raises an uncomfortable point: Westerners have too often conceived of the Middle East through a rarified Sunni perspective. In these changing times, the Western world must learn to understand the history, motivations and philosophy of the Shia. He suggests that the sectarian division between Shia and Sunni and the historic marginalization of Shia throughout the Islamic world will play a large part in determining our collective future. Provocative, carefully researched and timely, The Shia Revival is an important book for anyone wanting to understand the current and future state of the Middle East.
 

The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey, Edited by Esra Özyürek, Syracuse University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0815631316

Turkish society is frequently accused of having amnesia. It has been said that there is no social memory in Turkey before Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded modern Turkey after World War I. Indeed, in 1923, the newly founded Turkish Republic committed to a modernist future by erasing the memory of its Ottoman past. Now, almost eighty years after the establishment of the Republic, the grandchildren of the founders have a different relationship with history. New generations make every effort to remember, record, and reconcile earlier periods. The multiple, personalized representations of the past which they have recovered allow contemporary Turkish citizens to create alternative identities for themselves and their communities. Unlike its futuristic and homogenizing character at the turn of the twentieth century, Turkish nationalism today uses memories to generate varied narratives for the nation and its minority groups.

Future Jihad Terrorist Strategies Against the West, Walid Phares, Palgrave Macmillan,ISBN-13: 978-1403975119

This book presents a frightening new picture of what we can expect from terrorists in the future. Phares shows that there has been a fundamental misunderstanding about al Qaeda's ultimate goal in the West and what victory means to jihadists. Called 'the only person who really can read the minds of terrorists' by the press, Phares is uniquely qualified to identify the aims and strategies of the organizations waging war on the West. He answers such critical questions as: How long will this war last? Is the United States secure on the inside? Will it have to engage the jihadists worldwide in multiple campaigns and where? Future Jihad points the way for America to win the ideological war at the heart of jihad.