Re: Amy Chua: World on Fire

[paul phillips <phillipsp@xxxxxxx>]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> *****   "World On Fire" by Amy Chua
> <snip>
> She's overreaching somewhat when she says,
> early on, "markets and democracy were among the causes of both the
> Rwandan and Yugoslavian genocides." ....  And while Serbian
> hatred of the Croats was fanned by Croatian economic dominance, the
> Bosnians they butchered were as poor as they were. Chua makes these
> caveats herself in the relevant chapters, but they dilute some of the
> grand claims she lays out in her introduction.
If this is the level of  analysis and knowledge displayed in the rest of
the book, then I wouldn't waste my time reading the book.  It suggests a
profound ignorance of Balkan history and the politico-economic basis of
the ethnic divisions that resulted and which were fanned, not by
democracy and markets, but by outside intervention from Germany, the US
and the Catholic Church.

Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba