David Rieff

David Rieff is the author of eight books, including A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (Simon & Schuster, 2003) and At the Point Of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention (Simon & Schuster, 2005). He is currently completing a book on the global food crisis.


Essays

Society

Evangelists of Democracy

| 10.24.12

Radicals of the democracy-promotion movement embody the very thing they are fighting against—a closed-minded conviction that they represent the one true path for all societies and thus possess a monopoly on social, ethical and political truth.

Global Governance

Saints Go Marching In

| 06.21.11

Somalia. Bosnia. Sierra Leone. Kosovo. Armed intervention is on the rise. Libya proves once again that humanitarian adventurism is a mere shroud for Western imperialism.

Reviews

Politics

Battle Hymn of the Diplomats

| 02.23.11

Awash in Wilsonian hubris, the State Department’s meandering and militaristic QDDR will ensure Foggy Bottom remains second-rate—both inside the Beltway and overseas.

Security

Punditry at the Drive-Thru

| 08.24.10

Peter Beinart's books represent the intellectual equivalent of what nutritionists call the empty-calorie principle.

Society

The Willing Misinterpreter

| 10.28.09

Despite Goldhagen's extraordinary claims, he himself concedes in his unwittingly revealing afterword that he is not presenting much in the way of original research.

Commentary

Security

A Troubling Interventionist Consensus

| 08.08.07

Voters will struggle to find a credible candidate from either of the two major parties willing to make the case for less military intervention. Robert Kagan and Ivo Daalder are satisfied with this. Most Americans should not be.

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May 25, 2013