Dan,

Congrats on the impending book publication!

Well, I gave it a skim-- "blah." You write better stuff here almost every day! One suggestion, re-read Rousseau. Ask yourself what kind of government he would characterize the US as. Because your two "opposing parables" seemed in perfect agreement from the start.

After Wilma passes I will exploit my access to a commercial printer and print myself out a copy.

I'll take a look, Dan, but it honestly sounds to me like you need a copy reader who pays meticulous attention to every detail. One may be available sometime after November, or so I've heard.

Ah wonderful, I can once again feel productive. Between the rush of finishing my thesis and trying to develop a logistics management plan at work, I thought life couldn't get more frantic, and for me, more exciting.

That is until 5:30 Monday morning on my way to work when someone decided to run a red light providing me with an opportunity to spend my week pecking furiously at the keyboard in a percocet induced, one handed (yes I love the new lighter, stronger fiberglass casts doc, even if I have to spend 12.5 hours in the ER to get one. Ah the joys of the free Canadian healthcare system) venture indulging in my second favorite hobby - political economics.

As luck would have it, my misfortune on the roads provides me the time to read about something I'm quite passionate about. I look forward to a great read this weekend and hope I will be able to provide some valuable comments. Dan, I do hope that your misfortune at the U of C opens the door to new, more promising opportunities.

"Well, it is for my field. Anyone in the discipline who sees a new book in their field will first check the acknowledgments, index, and bibliography to see if they are mentioned. And anyone who tells you otherwise is not to be trusted."

As opposed to fields where the first thing checked for is the author's enemies to see how they've been skewered?

dan,

being that many of us would have paid for the book, i think you just lost a lot of profit.

I kinda liked it, but it could use more sex.

Excellent idea Dan. Any deadlines we should be aware of?

I second Sandra's excellent question.

Come on Dan, don't blame globalization for bad IR theory. I'm quite confident bad IR theorists don't need globalization to exercise their craft!

Damn, a few years ago I tried to write your chapter 5… you did far better than I did ;-).

anon: being that many of us would have paid for the book, i think you just lost a lot of profit.

Well, I assume the final copy will include photos of Salma Hayek to make up for that.

you could still get those photos for free off this site.

Hey, that is my book! I wrote the exact thing myself. I knew someone was hacking into my computer.

Drezner, you will pay for this!

Do you have a contact at the Princeton Press so that I can straight out this mess.

Dan,

A few impressions from reading rapidly through the first 20pp:

a) you write with exceptional clarity and a minimum of the jargon and cant that turned me off from an academic career in IR or Poli Sci;

b) like most of us in the center of the spectrum you seem to prefer presenting complex issues in terms of clearly-defined dichotomies-- another boost to clarity, though perhaps at the expense of accuracy;

c) you have no trouble stating your preferences and conclusions in simple, direct language.

Clarity. Lack of jargon. Courage of one's convictions. Do you still wonder why you didn't get tenure?

Why are you wasting your time in academia? Wouldn't you have a larger audience, and much more influence, as a 100% public intellectual? Isn't it possible to make a better living-- financially better, socially better, professionally better-- outside the academy?

best regards,
t

I did a Ph.D. in the hard sciences and remember hearing that most of these academic press soft science books were just peoples Ph.D. theses turned into a book. Is that yours?

You may want to check out Donald Knuth's policy on mistakes and typos in his tomes....