David Bosco
Oct 24 2009 3:00 pm
The anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter on 24 October 1945 has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948. It has traditionally been marked throughout the world by meetings, discussions and exhibits on the achievements and goals of the Organization. In 1971, the General Assembly recommended that Member States observe it as a public holiday. In celebration of UN Day, the United Nations Association of Houston presents David L. Bosco, former senior editor at Foreign Policy. Bosco is Assistant Professor in the School of International Service, American University. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he has been a political analyst and journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and deputy director of a joint United Nations-NATO project in Sarajevo. His writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including the Washington Post, Slate, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal-Europe, The American Prospect, and the American Scholar. He has provided commentary and analysis for CNN, National Public Radio, Voice of America, and other outlets.
Bosco's book, Five to Rule Them All,
tells the inside story of the UN Security Council, from the Berlin Airlift to the Iraq War. Part public theater, part
smoke-filled backroom, the Council has enjoyed notable successes and
suffered ignominious failures, but it has always provided a space for
the five great powers to sit down together. Drawing
on extensive research, including dozens of interviews with serving and
former ambassadors on the Council, the book chronicles political
battles and personality clashes as it opens the closed doors of its
meeting room. What emerges here is a revealing portrait of the most
powerful diplomatic body in the world.
When the five permanent members are united, David Bosco points out, the Council can wage war, impose blockades, redraw borders, unseat governments, and levy sanctions. There are almost no limits to its authority. Yet the Council exists in a world of realpolitik. Its members are, above all, powerful states with their own diverging interests. Time and again, the Council's performance has dashed the hope that its members would somehow work together to establish a more peaceful world. But if these lofty hopes have been unfulfilled, the Council has still served an invaluable purpose: to prevent conflict between the Great Powers. In this role, the Council has been an unheralded success. As Bosco reminds us, massacres in the Balkans and chaos in Iraq are human tragedies, but conflicts between the world's great powers in the nuclear age would be catastrophic.
In this lively, fast-moving, and often humorous narrative, Bosco illuminates the role of the Security Council in the postwar world, making a compelling case for the enduring importance of the five who rule them all.
Location:
- Street:
- Houston Academy for International Studies
- Additional:
- 1810 Stuart, near Elgin and Hamilton
- City:
- Houston ,
- Province:
- Texas
- Postal Code:
- 77004
- Country:
- United States
