January 2003

Elementary Economics, a book for high-school students. Was good to refresh my knowledge of the field a bit.

A description of the history of international cooperation (or the lack thereof) in the fields of security, economic policy, social policies and military alliances. It's written in a bit boring style unfortunately. The author is clearly not in favor of the United States' policy on a lot of things; but that's perhaps not surprising given the fact that he works for the Parool, a traditionally left-wing newspaper.

The description of the development of international law and of the United Nations was interesting.

A survey of non-voters, by the Sociaal Cultureel Planburo. It describes backgrounds, motivations not to go voting, etc.

A book by Rick van der Ploeg, economist and ex-minister of Cultural Affairs. It's very interesting and well written that gives insight in the trade-offs politicians have to make between effectiveness and fairness of policies.

As Labour politician he is in favour of a society based on solidarity, as an economist he is in favour of free markets and (economical) liberalism. I liked it a lot to read about how he deals with these two goals.

A very positive review in Foreign Affairs made me want to read the book. Jonathan, Irena and Ilana gave it to me as a present for Christmas (2002).

Manfred Steger writes about globalism, the ideology associated with globalization. His survey of the academic debate about globalization is very thorough and well-referenced.

He analyses both the claims of hyper-globalists and of the anti-globalization movement; very much worth reading.

Book written by the ex-chairman of the CDA, on the crisis in October 2001 that forced him and Jaap de Hoop-Scheffer to resign.

The author, Maarten Huygens, has been a journalist for NRC Handelsblad for many years. The book deals with the effects of globalization (or Americanization) on Dutch society and politics. It's not extremely well-written but some of the observations were interesting. There's a rather extensive review online.

A collection of essays written by Gerard van Westerloo who followed Ad Melkert during the campaign for the elections 2002. Interesting to read after 'Strijd om de Macht', the author is a journalist and it thus looking from 'the other side'.