David Sogge (Author of Give And Take)

David Sogge rated a book it was ok The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A self-satirizing yet self-indulgent portrait of a successful reactionary, pro-imperial English novelist who, under the influence of opiates and alcohol, hears persecutory voices, about which the British writer Philip Toynbee wrote, in a 1957 review: ...more
Aug 10, 2026 01:22AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge rated a book liked it The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World by Oona A. Hathaway	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In Paris on 27 August 1928, representatives of 15 states signed a treaty, the 'Peace Pact' committing their countries to renounce the use of war. For this book's authors, that commitment means that world-historical time should be partitioned in two e ...more
Aug 09, 2026 01:08AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Internationalists by Oona A. Hathaway. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Internationalists by Oona A. Hathaway <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge rated a book really liked it Is Art History Global? (The Art Seminar) by James Elkins	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book offers a colourful spectrum of views about the discipline of art history. That makes it a lot more refreshing and instructive than other art history tomes I’ve read and in some cases reviewed here on Goodreads. Motivating this book was the ...more
Aug 06, 2026 10:52AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Is Art History Global? by James Elkins. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Is Art History Global? by James Elkins <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge rated a book liked it Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Aug 05, 2026 01:44AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge rated a book liked it Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Aug 03, 2026 11:35PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge rated a book really liked it Is Art History Global? (The Art Seminar) by James Elkins	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book offers a colourful spectrum of views about the discipline of art history. That makes it a lot more refreshing and instructive than other art history tomes I’ve read and in some cases reviewed here on Goodreads. Motivating this book was the ...more
Aug 02, 2026 08:04AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Is Art History Global? by James Elkins. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Is Art History Global? by James Elkins <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge liked Nadi's review of The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World: "I read this book in 2023 and somehow completely forgot I had drafted the following hefty review: Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro’s controversial analysis of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact (or the “Peace Pact”) is a stimulating read. The authors’ t" Read more of this review »
Jul 29, 2026 03:52AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Internationalists by Oona A. Hathaway. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Internationalists by Oona A. Hathaway <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Sogge rated a book really liked it Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development by Rita Abrahamsen	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book’s chief innovation -- a deployment of Bourdieu’s Field Theory on terrains of Western development and humanitarian aid, amidst broader concepts like ‘hegemony’ and ‘Liberal International Order' -- was intriguing. Yet theory and accompanying ...more
Jul 28, 2026 08:39AM · like · see review
David Sogge liked Nils's review of Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development: "A theory-heavy and quite original reading of the rise and fall of the practice of international developmentalism, and specifically foreign aid. Abrahamsen and Williams develop a useful Bourdieusian analysis that argues that the role of foreign aid du" Read more of this review »
Jul 26, 2026 04:51AM · see review
David Sogge rated a book really liked it Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development by Rita Abrahamsen	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book’s chief innovation -- a deployment of Bourdieu’s Field Theory on terrains of Western development and humanitarian aid, amidst broader concepts like ‘hegemony’ and ‘Liberal International Order' -- was intriguing. Yet theory and accompanying ...more
Jul 25, 2026 06:56AM · like · see review

David Sogge rated a book it was ok

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
by Evelyn Waugh

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A self-satirizing yet self-indulgent portrait of a successful reactionary, pro-imperial English novelist who, under the influence of opiates and alcohol, hears persecutory voices, about which the British writer Philip Toynbee wrote, in a 1957 review: ...more

David Sogge rated a book liked it

The Internationalists by Oona A. Hathaway

The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World
by Oona A. Hathaway

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In Paris on 27 August 1928, representatives of 15 states signed a treaty, the 'Peace Pact' committing their countries to renounce the use of war. For this book's authors, that commitment means that world-historical time should be partitioned in two e In Paris on 27 August 1928, representatives of 15 states signed a treaty, the 'Peace Pact' committing their countries to renounce the use of war. For this book's authors, that commitment means that world-historical time should be partitioned in two epochs: that before the Pact (when “Might made Right”) and that after the Pact (when peace under international law should prevail). Such a monumental law, formulated by a small number of Great Men, has an almost biblical ring to it. But the authors prefer a more sensational, indeed apocalyptical analogy: “the outlawry of war fundamentally altered the balance of power in the world,” just as “an environmental disaster that wipes out all the predators” (p. 341). That is, the 1928 Peace Pact is analogous to the crash of that big asteroid 66 million years ago, with massive extinction of dinosaurs as a result. Sound a bit exaggerated? It did to me.

Unfortunately for the authors’ arguments, and more importantly for millions on the planet, the Peace Pact failed bring peace or to wipe out the predators. Indeed many are still at large, today far more lethally armed than in the 1920s and with fewer qualms about igniting wars between and within states. Last year (2025) saw 65 armed conflicts affecting 35 countries – a quantity not seen since 1946. Evidently, few have any respect for the Peace Pact -- if they have even heard of it. In terms of formal international law, those war-makers are in jeopardy, for they are outlaws. Yet nobody gives a damn. How seriously, then, can we then take the authors’ thesis that the 1928 Pact has made a serious difference?

The book shows problems of method. If historically complex things like armed conflict are explained by single causes, then the very method of explanation is almost certainly incomplete if not wholly fallacious. At least that is what I was taught. Yet the authors’ insistence on the Peace Pact as fundamental and decisive in reducing the risk of war looks suspiciously mono-causal, a sign of weak methods. Could not the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the spectre of mutually assured destruction serve better to explain impediments to war? Or other international accords, also unmentioned in the book, such as the the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, as managed by the OSCE, which has helped keep the peace in Europe and beyond? In any event, an analysis taking multiple factors into account would have been much more convincing.

Then there’s the matter of issues and episodes selected. Published in 2017, the book acknowledges some major armed conflicts – Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – and some minor ones such as Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus 1974, Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua 1963 and of East Timor 1975 and Russia’s takeover of the Crimea 2014. But the book has nothing to say about others, such as Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara 1975; the NATO-led, UN-approved intervention in Libya 2011 (which spawned yet more violence elsewhere in Africa); various anti-communist ‘rollback’ wars, executed mainly by battlefield proxies (Afghanistan from 1979 onward, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua); and interventions in Somalia begun in 1992, which continue up to today. These unmentioned conflicts have two common denominators: first, total contempt for legal prohibitions against war-making, and second (and not coincidentally) their promotion from Washington DC. The US government and others collaborating with it including the UN, somehow keep overlooking the 1928 Pact prohibiting war.

Furthermore, the authors frame the protagonists of wars in peculiar ways. For example, in the case of Vietnam they cast years of Western, mainly US-led war-making as North Vietnamese aggression against the erstwhile republic of south Vietnam.

In these skewed perspectives on history, some cherry-picking is detectable. And the cherries picked suggest a benign view of US disrespect for sovereignty, notably in the post-Pact ‘New World Order’ in which everyone supposedly is held to the same rules as promoted by international bodies ranging from the IMF to the UN to the WTO. Emphasis on the Peace Pact’s formal scope and adherence results in a curious flattening of what in reality are gross asymmetries of coercive power, and thus immunity from prosecution for violations of the law against war. Indeed the superpowers, the USA chief among them, enjoy perpetual get-out-jail-free cards.

To parry the discouraging record of disrespect for the Peace Pact, the authors put forward cases in which perpetrators are sanctioned or non-violently coerced, measures they refer to as “outcasting”. They do demonstrate, often at length and in recondite legal detail, that these measures can have effect. Formal Independence of East Timor is one case in which such juridical-diplomatic pressures did help win respect for sovereignty. Yet as of 2026, the evidence from the cases of Russia, Iran and Afghanistan hardly demonstrate the positive outcomes of outcasting ; indeed its results often look counterproductive.

Meanwhile as bankrolled and armed by its partner-in-crime the USA, and with most countries of the EU acting as accomplices, Israel continues to annex Palestinian territory and bits of southern Lebanon and to bombard Iran.

The book’s heroes, the “internationalists" were in the 1920s riding high against the warmongers. Today however it’s not the warmongers getting dissed. On the contrary, it is major institutions created to settle disputes and promote justice and peace that face pushbacks mounted from Washington DC, which clearly aims to destroy those parts of international law that it dislikes. Once upon a time, Dutch governments proudly boasted about The Netherlands being a citadel of international justice. Such self-adulation is now rarely heard; kowtowing to Washington has priority today. Recently a leading Dutch professor of international relations described the premises of international courts in The Hague as almost empty shells, mere antiquities for sightseers.

Yet this book's key theme, the pursuit of peace, make it relevant, especially in these lawless times. For it is apparent that universal laws, including those prohibiting war, pose lingering threats to leaders like Trump and others such as EC President von der Leyen in Brussels. Given these leaders' hostility to rules that would constrain their death-dealing, there remain good reasons to applaud this book’s championing of measures to outlaw war. ...more

David Sogge rated a book really liked it

Is Art History Global? (The Art Seminar)
by James Elkins

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This book offers a colourful spectrum of views about the discipline of art history. That makes it a lot more refreshing and instructive than other art history tomes I’ve read and in some cases reviewed here on Goodreads. Motivating this book was the This book offers a colourful spectrum of views about the discipline of art history. That makes it a lot more refreshing and instructive than other art history tomes I’ve read and in some cases reviewed here on Goodreads. Motivating this book was the editor’s sense of urgency: “Far and away the most pressing problem facing the discipline is the prospect of world art history”.

Fortunately for the reader, that fixation didn't block dissenting voices. Many contributors, and the editor, exprress concerns about “conceptual imperialism”. They see needs to de-throne Eurocentric approaches to art and its history – let’s say, the dead white males dominating discussion and the production of knowledge for centuries. For the editor that reformation should bring on “Scholarship that is attentive to non-Western concepts and methods is arguably the most promising and intellectually difficult future for a world art history.”

Some contributors don't share the urgency of creating global art history, given other more pressing issues. In arguments for a world-spanning discipline one writer sees traces of essentialism in multiculturalist and postcolonial critiques of art history. Two contributors, Atreyee Gupta and Sugata Ray, express even stronger doubts:

How then can “world art history” ask the non-West to feign amnesia and return to a past “untarnished” by the West? For whose benefit? Despite its best intentions, then, this project is dependent on a territorialized binary: the (multicultural) “West,” contained within a geopolitical space called Euro-America, and its Other, a (monocultural) “non-West,” that is, the rest-of-the-world.

Apart from the cut-and-thrust of critique and counter-critique, the book presented for me dozens of new insights and facts, such as that Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art, massively influential in university courses and beyond, was written for children!

In short, as a forum for informed and diverse views, this book has a lot of thoughtful things to say about how art and culture more broadly can be studied and appreciated beyond dominant paradigms. ...more

David Sogge rated a book liked it

Billy Bathgate
by E.L. Doctorow

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Who inherits the ill-gotten gains of the racketeers? The wealth of some dynasties, from the Astors to the Kennedys, was built on rackets. It's a recognised feature of American business and law-making (and law-breaking) seen today in the rise of the S ...more

David Sogge rated a book liked it

Billy Bathgate
by E.L. Doctorow

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Who inherits the ill-gotten gains of the racketeers? The wealth of some dynasties, from the Astors to the Kennedys, was built on rackets. It's a recognised feature of American business and law-making (and law-breaking) seen today in the rise of the S ...more

David Sogge rated a book really liked it

Is Art History Global? (The Art Seminar)
by James Elkins

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This book offers a colourful spectrum of views about the discipline of art history. That makes it a lot more refreshing and instructive than other art history tomes I’ve read and in some cases reviewed here on Goodreads. Motivating this book was the This book offers a colourful spectrum of views about the discipline of art history. That makes it a lot more refreshing and instructive than other art history tomes I’ve read and in some cases reviewed here on Goodreads. Motivating this book was the editor’s sense of urgency: “Far and away the most pressing problem facing the discipline is the prospect of world art history”.

Fortunately for the reader, that fixation didn't block dissenting voices. Many contributors, and the editor, exprress concerns about “conceptual imperialism”. They see needs to de-throne Eurocentric approaches to art and its history – let’s say, the dead white males dominating discussion and the production of knowledge for centuries. For the editor that reformation should bring on “Scholarship that is attentive to non-Western concepts and methods is arguably the most promising and intellectually difficult future for a world art history.”

Some contributors don't share the urgency of creating global art history, given other more pressing issues. In arguments for a world-spanning discipline one writer sees traces of essentialism in multiculturalist and postcolonial critiques of art history. Two contributors, Atreyee Gupta and Sugata Ray, express even stronger doubts:

How then can “world art history” ask the non-West to feign amnesia and return to a past “untarnished” by the West? For whose benefit? Despite its best intentions, then, this project is dependent on a territorialized binary: the (multicultural) “West,” contained within a geopolitical space called Euro-America, and its Other, a (monocultural) “non-West,” that is, the rest-of-the-world.

Apart from the cut-and-thrust of critique and counter-critique, the book presented for me dozens of new insights and facts, such as that Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art, massively influential in university courses and beyond, was written for children!

In short, as a forum for informed and diverse views, this book has a lot of thoughtful things to say about how art and culture more broadly can be studied and appreciated beyond dominant paradigms. ...more

David Sogge liked Nadi's review of The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World:

"I read this book in 2023 and somehow completely forgot I had drafted the following hefty review:

Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro’s controversial analysis of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact (or the “Peace Pact”) is a stimulating read. The authors’ t" Read more of this review »

David Sogge rated a book really liked it

Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development
by Rita Abrahamsen

Rate this book

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This book’s chief innovation -- a deployment of Bourdieu’s Field Theory on terrains of Western development and humanitarian aid, amidst broader concepts like ‘hegemony’ and ‘Liberal International Order' -- was intriguing. Yet theory and accompanying ...more

David Sogge liked Nils's review of Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development:

"A theory-heavy and quite original reading of the rise and fall of the practice of international developmentalism, and specifically foreign aid. Abrahamsen and Williams develop a useful Bourdieusian analysis that argues that the role of foreign aid du" Read more of this review »

David Sogge rated a book really liked it

Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development
by Rita Abrahamsen

Rate this book

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This book’s chief innovation -- a deployment of Bourdieu’s Field Theory on terrains of Western development and humanitarian aid, amidst broader concepts like ‘hegemony’ and ‘Liberal International Order' -- was intriguing. Yet theory and accompanying ...more

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	Give And Take: What's the Matter with Foreign Aid? 4.31 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2002 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Casus Belli: Cómo los Estados Unidos venden la guerra by Martin Jelsma, Zia Mian, David Sogge (Goodreads Author) 3.18 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2011	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mirages de l'aide internationale 4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2002 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Compassion and Calculation: The Business of Private Foreign Aid (Transnational Institute Series) liked it 3.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1996 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sustainable Peace: Angola's Recovery really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1992	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	KAŞIK VE KEPÇE 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2003	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Report of a review mission, 6-20 May 1989: Programme of Assistance to Displaced Persons, Huila Province, Angola, of the State Secretariat for Social ... Mondlane Foundation, Programme AO/87/010 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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