Complaining about poli sci and other annoyances.

FN and I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday agreeing about our inherent superiority and discussing other deep things. Which is to say that I didn't get nearly as much reading done as I needed to. But I blame the book I attempted to read/finish, the book that I've now dipped into for the third time, and I still haven't managed to finish. Let me explain.

The book is Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time by Gordon Craig and Alexander George (3rd ed., 1995). It's fine, but boring and not particularly interesting. You see, it just doesn't really tell me anything I don't already know, and it does it in this super-annoying poli sci kinda way. Ugh. Craig is actually a historian---George is a political scientist---but he's a very traditional one, and right now I am just not in the mood for a traditional, simplified overview of world leaders' decisions. Blech.

Basically, my problem with this book is that it sucks the past out of history. The Cold War---to focus on what much of the book focusses on---was seemingly about rational, realist, level-headed leaders making clearly-thought-out decisions (within their own worldviews) . . . this is my impression of the book. The authors believe in some way that we can distill past events down to simple models of the international system, and learn from this how to avoid problems in the future. I mean, I get it that it's in human nature to want to simplify complexity, but I'm annoyed by this tendency. Plus, the book makes the Cold War seem so sterile. The authors talk about "thermonuclear war" a great many times, but the writing is just so blah that it makes the past seem, well, totally unlike the past. I think books about history should evoke the past in some way! They should try to get readers to empathize---and I don't meant sympathize---with people who lived in the past. How else can their be any kind of understanding?! The Cold War was about emotions, people! When Nixon talked about bombing Vietnamese "bastards" like they'd never been bombed before, doesn't this strike you as evidence that he'd personalized the war and wasn't always being rational? (See George Herring's excellent survey of the Vietnam War for more quotes like this from American leaders.) The past wasn't straight-forward and rational and based on some kind of realpolitik, etc., etc. Of course, it was partly those things, but to read Craig and George, you'd think people were all automatons. Annoying.

Frank Costigliola is writing a book about emotions and the Cold War. Or something like that. That guy is awesome. I am totally sold by his chapter in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (2nd ed., 2004): "Reading for Meaning: Theory, Language, and Metaphor." And I think his "'Unceasing Pressure for Penetration': Gender, Pathology, and Emotion in George Kennan's Formation of the Cold War" in the Journal of American History 83 (March 1997) is fantastic. He is so cool.

So, anyways, I gave up on Craig and George half-way through. I realize this is bad of me; after all, I really should read the whole thing before I start complaining. But, seriously, I don't have time to be annoyed right now. I only have time to blog and talk and read good books for comps. Sheesh. I'm a third of the way through Bob Bothwell and Jack Granatstein's book on Trudeau and Canadian foreign policy, which is fairly good. And it makes me feel so much better about history. (By the way, I heard Granatstein hates being referred to as "Jack" in print. Sorry, Jack, I meant to write "J. L.")

Which leads me to my final thoughts. Is all poli sci as wacky as I think it is? I've actually tried to like and respect it, but even in undergrad I had this love-hate thing going on. I mean, poli sci was intellectually interesting---as in, it could be cool to perform mental acrobatics in an essay and to hell with the facts!---but it was just so reckless with the past. I'm totally open to the possibility that I just don't really get what political science is really all about. Please, tell me I'm wrong about it! Because right now, I think it's a fool's discipline, and I'm really unimpressed.

I have my last meeting with my main supervisor today before I write her exam on Tuesday. I think I will tell her that I think poli sci is crazy.

On an unrelated matter, why is it that I seem to be unable to sleep these days? Is is just too hot to sleep? Just another thing to annoy me. Oh, and my ear still kinda hurts too.