GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
Frederic Wehrey is a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He specializes in post-conflict transitions, armed groups, and identity politics, with a focus on Libya, North Africa, and the Gulf.
His commentary and articles appeared in
the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Journal of Democracy, and t
he Chicago Journal of International Law. He has been interviewed by major media outlets such as
the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, NPR, BBC, and CNN. He routinely briefs U.S. and European government officials on Middle East affairs and has testified before the Senate and the House of Representatives. He has served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on security in southern Libya and as an adviser to Multi-National Force-Iraq
Deterrence and Disarmament: Pulling Back the Curtain
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Black History Month 2021: Personal connections to books on history
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Jan 30, 2021
One of the joys of reading about history is the way in which each generation interprets the past through its own perspective. This isn’t simply new facts coming to light or official documents being unsealed rather, it’s the historian’s equivalent of “the observer effect” in physics: It’s impossible to completely remove yourself from your own context and perspective. There is no such thing as objective history. This, in part, helps explain the position Sakamoto Ryoma (1836-67) holds in the pantheon of Japanese greats every generation creates him anew.
Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration, by Marius B. Jansen
Jan 30, 2021
Many writers of fiction who have shared so much as a short story have heard the old question, “Is this autobiographical?” No literary genre, however, plays with the possibility of “what actually happened” as liberally as the Japanese
shishо̄setsu, known to Western readers as the confessional I-novel. Originating in the early 20th century, the style is marked by an intimate first-person narrative drawing from personal experience, leaving readers guessing as to what is truthful and what is embellished.
An I-Novel, by Minae Mizumura
Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
344 pages
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
An exciting addition to the genre for English readers is Minae Mizumura’s “An I-Novel,” which was published in Japanese in 1995 and comes out in English early March. The story centers on a character named Minae Mizumura, who, at the age of 12, moves with her family to the United States and is plunged into struggles of belonging.