Republicans, including ambassador to the United Nations and envoy for peace in Sudan, But the partisanship of President

George W, Bush, a variety of other Republicans and quite a few Democrats has now led Danforth to urge political rivals to pull together to strengthen the United States, so the nation can in turn promote world peace, Danforth oozes sincerity and good sense as he excoriates "Christian conservatives" (naming James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, among others) for corrupting religious doctrine on reproduction and marriage and inappropriately inserting it in government. Conceding that he's an imperfect human being who sometimes failed as a student, husband, father, lawyer, minister and senator, Danforth comes across as a welcome paragon of virtue, (Sept.)

intended results and that globalization is the key to opening closed authoritarian states, Bremmer persuasively illustrates his core thesis without eliding the complexities of global or national politics, (Sept.)

erick professor Lodge (Politics in South Africa)

The Reaper's Line: Life and Death on the Mexican Border

LEE MORGAN II, Rio Nuevo (Norton,

The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall
IAN BREMMER, Simon & Schuster, $26

(320p) ISBN 0-7432-7471-7 ' V ^ y , ' y y i t h this timely book, politi\ \ ) \ jj cal risk consultant Bremmer V \J aims to "describe the political and economic forces that revitalize some states and push others toward collapse," His simple premise is that if one were to graph a nation's stability as a function of its openness, the result would be a "J curve," suggesting that as nations become more open, they become less stable until they eventually surpass their initial levels of stability. In other words, a closed society like Cuba is relatively stable; a more open society like Saudi Arabia is less so; and an extremely open society like the United States is extremely stable, Bremmer expertly distills decades sometimes centuriesof history as he analyzes 10 countries at different positions on the J curve. North Korea is perhaps the most disturbing example of the left side of the curve, where a closed authoritarian regime produces effective stability; on the right of the curve sit stable countries like Turkey, Israel and India, This leads Bremmer to conclude that political isolation and sanctions often work against their

dist,), $25 (528p) ISBN 1-887896-97-X [/ ^he U,S,-Mexican border is one of the most violent places on earth, writes .- -, retired drug enforcement agent Morgan, He makes his case over 500 pages of gunplay, fisticuffs and bloodshed interspersed with profanity-laced denunciations of rival agencies and clueless Washington officials who believe they understand illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Having enjoyed serving in Vietnam, Morgan sought similar adventure in the Border Patrol and the Custom Service's drug enforcement service. Working mostly in Arizona, he found corrupt officials and Border Patrolmen cooperating with corrupt Mexican officials, police and soldiers to transport drugs and people into the U,S, Still, he and fellow officers intercepted countless shipments, which the author recounts in excessive but lively rounds of shootouts, car chases and murder. Reforms that created the Department of Homeland Security and shifted antidrug enforcement to the Border Patrol are disastrous, he asserts, because the patrol is hopelessly corrupt. Sneering at the current immigration debate, he insists no barrier or law can keep out Mexicans in search of work and that the money would be better spent on making Mexico prosperous enough to provide jobs for its people. Despite the incessant fireworks and macho prose style, the book provides a thoughtful view of these issues, (Sept.)

shows how Mandela's struggle for equality brought him to prominence. Though Mandela is hardly lacking biographers. Lodge makes an important contribution with his argument that Mandela's appeal rests on his ability to personify his political beliefs, Mandela's politics, which emphasize a mix of authority, empathy and respect for all people, are mirrored by his actions and behavior toward everyone he's come in contact with, thereby allowing his personal grace and dignity to be a political gesture. According to Lodge, Mandela's magnanimity serves as a model for a new kind of citizenship, one that embraces difference and the messiness of democracy without sacrificing the gentlemanly restraint Mandela associated with English political institutions. Lodge is careful to give Mandela an assertive role in this process, showing how he cultivated his own life story and his status as a martyr for justice in order to hasten the coming of democracy to his country. Vivid descriptions of the daily horrors of apartheid and the men and women around Mandela, such as his ex-wife Winnie and the troubled F,W, de Klerk, reveal the complicated world that Mandela ultimately and triumphantly managed to change, 17 b&w photos not seen by PW. (Sept. 30)

I Was Vermeer: The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century's Greatest Forger FRANK WYNNE, Bloomsbury, $24,95 (288p) ISBN 1-58234-593-7
J'n this intriguing if dry biography, I Wynne recounts how Dutch forger Han =ii.van Meegeren successfully passed off more than a dozen bogus worksincluding, most famously. The Supper at Emmaus in 1937as authentic Vermeers, Halses and de Hooches, Van Meegeren, who favored the style of the old Dutch masters just as modernism was hitting its stride, decided to embarrass his forward-looking critics by creating and selling his own "Vermeer," He continued his charade until he was forced to admit his crimes in 1947 while defending himself against a separate charge of treason, Wynne takes great care in explaining just

Mandela: A Critical Life

TOM LODGE, Oxford Univ,, $25 (288p) ISBN 0-19-280568-1 'elson Mandela is perhaps the world's most revered living political figure for his role in transforming South Africa into a true democracy. In this illuminating bio. University of Lim-

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