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Laid Low: Inside the Crisis that Overwhelmed Europe and the IMF by Paul Blustein

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
DOI10.1177/0020702018754548
AuthorThomas A. Bernes
Date01 March 2018
Published date01 March 2018
Subject MatterBook Reviews
untitled 174
International Journal 73(1)
observers regard as imperialistic, smaller countries in the region want greater US
engagement as a bulwark against possible Chinese aggression. Thus, while the
pivot is not necessarily about containing China, it certainly is about confronting
the challenges its rise has engendered. Campbell tries to downplay this aspect of the
pivot, but there is no denying the fact that the initiative is about ensuring US
primacy in the face of an increasingly powerful challenger. I would certainly
agree with Campbell and many others that Asia has greatly benef‌itted from the
US’s role as an ‘‘of‌fshore balancer,’’ one that has kept a lid on its many tensions.
That said, greater honesty about the driving factors behind the Obama adminis-
tration’s decision to pivot to the Asia-Pacif‌ic would have strengthened the book’s
main argument about why the US must take regional engagement more seriously if
it wants Asia’s ‘‘operating system’’ to run on US software. In short, Campbell’s
soft-sell drives home the ‘‘regional’’ dimensions of the pivot, but at the cost of
underplaying the key systemic factors behind it.
Despite Campbell’s reluctance to confront the interchangeability of the ‘‘Pacif‌ic
Century’’ and ‘‘American Century’’ monikers that underlie the US pivot—and the
primary role that China’s rise plays in it—The Pivot is an informative, engaging,
and entertaining study that should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the
changing dynamics in a region of the world that will only grow in importance.
Given Canada’s own disappointing record of engagement in the Asia-Pacif‌ic
region, one also hopes that the book will f‌ind a wide readership in this country.
Paul Blustein
Laid Low: Inside the Crisis that Overwhelmed Europe and the IMF
CIGI Press, 2016. 504 pp. $28.00 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 978-1-928096-25-2
Reviewed by: Thomas A. Bernes (tbernes@cigionline.org), Centre for International
Governance Innovation
Since 2010, with some brief pauses, the Eurozone crisis has been regular...

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