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20 December 2021

10 Faculty Books to Kickstart the New Year

Ranging from the five disciplines taught at the Geneva Graduate Institute to the different themes (including gender, environment, sustainability, mobilities, and more), this reading list will enlighten, inform and inspire you for the new year ahead. As an added bonus, some of the books are even available in French. So, order your books now because, as the proverb goes, there's no time like the present. 

nature

 

STRANGE NATURES
CONSERVATION IN THE ERA OF synthetic biology

Kent H. Redford and William M. Adams

Nature almost everywhere survives on human terms. The distinction between what is natural and what is human-made, which has informed conservation for centuries, has become blurred. When scientists can reshape genes more or less at will, what does that mean for nature conservation?
 
The tools of synthetic biology are changing the way we answer that question. Gene editing technology is already transforming the agriculture and biotechnology industries. What happens if synthetic biology is also used in conservation to control invasive species, fight wildlife disease, or even bring extinct species back from the dead?

 

Bilcroft

 

A VIOLENT PEACE
MEDIA, TRUTH, AND POWER AT THE LEAGUE OF NATION

Carolyn Biltoft

The newly born League of Nations confronted the post-WWI world—from growing stateless populations to the resurgence of right-wing movements—by aiming to create a transnational, cosmopolitan dialogue on justice. As part of these efforts, a veritable army of League personnel set out to shape “global public opinion,” in favour of the postwar liberal international order. Combining the tools of global intellectual history and cultural history, A Violent Peace reopens the archives of the League to reveal surprising links between the political use of modern information systems and the rise of mass violence in the interwar world.

 

War

 

WAR

Andrew Clapham

How relevant is the concept of war today? This book examines how notions about war continue to influence how we conceive rights and obligations in national and international law. It also considers the role international law plays in limiting what is forbidden and legitimated in times of war or armed conflict. The book highlights how, even though war has been outlawed and should be finished as an institution, states nevertheless continue to claim that they can wage necessary wars of self-defence, engage in lawful killings in war, imprison law-of-war detainees, and attack objects which are said to be part of a war-sustaining economy.

 

defense

 

IN DEFENSE OF PUBLIC DEBT

Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves and Kris James Mitchener

Public debts rose to exceptional levels in modern history as governments responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting apocalyptic warnings about heavy debts dragging down economic growth and burdening future generations. In Defense of Public Debt offers a sharp rejoinder to this view, marshalling the entire history of public debt to demonstrate its usefulness.

 

pax

 

PAX TRANSATLANTICA
AMERICA AND EUROPE IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

Jussi M. Hanhimäki

Is the West finished as a political idea? In recent years, observers have begun pointing to signs that this transatlantic community is eroding. When the European Union expanded, the classic European nation state was in decline. Now, nationalism is on the rise. Furthermore, nations within the EU are less willing to cooperate with the US on policies that require sacrifice and risks, such as using military force alongside the US.

 

statebuilding

 

STATE-BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF NATIONALISM, RELIGION AND POLITICs

Edited by Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

Why have state-building projects across the MENA region proven to be so difficult for so long? Following the end of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s, the countries of the region began a violent and divisive process of state formation. But a century later, state-building remains inconclusive.

 

Alessandro

 

GUERRES ET MIGRATIONS 
RÉSEAUX SOCIAUX ET STRATÉGIES ÉCONOMIQUES DES HAZARAS D’AFGHANISTAn

Alessandro Monsutti 

L’ouvrage d’Alessandro Monsutti, publié initialement en 2004, puis en version anglaise en 2005, a été traduit en persan par Belgheis Alavi et M. Ali Va‘ezi. À partir du cas des Hazaras, originaires du centre de l’Afghanistan, l’ouvrage montre que l’étude des migrations et du transnationalisme est au cœur des débats théoriques et méthodologiques qui traversent l’anthropologie. La mobilité des personnes, les transferts de fonds et de biens (grâce au système hawâla) ainsi que la circulation intense de l’information entre l’Afghanistan, le Pakistan et l’Iran permettent de reproduire les liens sociaux en dépit de la guerre et de la dispersion. Les réseaux sociaux et les stratégies économiques des Hazaras d'Afghanistan illustrent la capacité d’une population de réfugiés à affronter une situation difficile.

 

organic

 

BECOMING ORGANIC
NATURE AND AGRICULTURE IN THE INDIAN HIMALAYa

Shaila Seshia Galvin

Shaila Seshia Galvin examines certified organic agriculture in India’s central Himalayas, revealing how the fraught concept of organic is less a material property of land or its produce than a quality produced in discursive, regulatory and affective registers. Becoming Organic is a nuanced account of development practice in rural India, as it has unfolded through complex relationships forged among state authorities, private corporations and new agrarian intermediaries.

 

devpol

 

GENDER IN PEACEBUILDING
LOCAL PRACTICES IN INDONESIA AND NIGERIa

Edited by Elisabeth Prügl, Christelle Rigual, Rahel Kunz, Mimidoo Achakpa, Henri Myrttinen, Joy Onyesoh, Arifah Rahmawati and Wening Udasmoro

Gender, age, class, ethnicity, religion and political ideologies all matter in peacebuilding. Adopting a feminist approach, the 13th volume of International Development Policy analyses such intersecting differences in local contexts to develop a better understanding of how intersectionally gendered dynamics shape and are shaped by peacebuilding

 

Rodogno

 

NIGHT ON EARTH
A HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIANISM, 1918-1930

Davide Rodogno

Night on Earth is a broad-ranging account of international humanitarian programs in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East from 1918 to 1930. Davide Rodogno shows that international 'relief' and 'development' were intertwined long before the birth of the United Nations, with humanitarians operating in a region devastated by war and famine and in which state sovereignty was deficient.