The Beauty Queen’s Guide to World Peace by Dan Plesch
Published by Politicos, £8.99, ISBN 1842751107
www.danplesch.net
... the end of the Cold War and
its aftermath are explained in
terms of the commercial battle
between credit cards Visa, and
Mastercard and emergent stores
cards.
I liked this book. It improved my understanding of world security and past,
present and possible future conflicts. The book brings a message of hope. Given the
dominance of the United States with its go-it-alone foreign policy, global guerrilla
warfare and nuclear proliferation, then Plesch gives a realistic state-of-the-planet
assessment. He also slays a few myths, while on the brighter side there are the
successes of disarmament, peace treaties and peacekeeping organisations.
The book is easy reading and keeps with the beauty queen kitsch throughout
– the first part of the book being ‘Part one: The mess we’re in’; followed by ‘Part two:
A guide out of the mess’. In the Strategy chapter of part two, Plesch notes that in
terms of the TV series Star Trek, we in the west see ourselves as a ‘Federation’ of
benevolent, globalising, free-market democracies. ‘They’ see us as Borg,
preaching that they must be assimilated, as we ‘teach the world to
sing in perfect harmony’. Elsewhere, the end of the Cold
War and its aftermath are explained in terms of the commercial battle between
credit cards Visa, and Mastercard and emergent stores cards. If the whole book
were like this it’d be ‘totally gross’ but as it’s occasional it works well.
Plesch’s ‘guide out of the mess’ is manyfold but the chapters include: Strategy,
Money, Power, Strengthening democratic culture, Defusing resource wars, Scrapping
the weapons.
Some would see little in this book for arms trade campaigners, there being little
specifically about arms companies or their drive for sales and hence the proliferation.
But Chapter 4 on Corporate Power suggests amending company law and
removing limited liability – as described by radical lawyer Daniel Bennett, a
Corporate Watch associate.
The ‘Beauty Queens Guide’ is, to sum up, like Chomsky but with lip-gloss.
Thankfully Plesch’s analysis isn’t dumbed down and this book, with its wealth of
expert analysis and lucid observations make it both serious reading and, dare I
say, fun.
Andrew Wood
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