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MoJo copy editor Adam Weinstein on Daniel Drezner’s Theories of International Politics and Zombies:

Drezner’s real genius is that he’s written a stinging postmodern critique of IR theorists themselves, applying the full force of their structured reasoning to topics as diverse as Michael Jackson’s breakdancing zombies, Peter Jackson’s lesser film canon (Dead Alive, a splendid Kiwi undead gorefest), and romantic zombie comedy flicks—”rom zom coms,” as he puts it. It’s both a pedagogical text and a lampoon of pedagogy.

TIPZ is a pretty good book. As Adam says, it’s part mockery (“postmodern critique” wouldn’t have occurred to me, but maybe it’s that too) and part serious primer about the insights and weaknesses of various IR theories. If you’re looking for something to get you up to speed for cocktail parties in an hour or two, this is just the ticket. If you like lame zombie jokes, so much the better.

Which reminds me: Personally speaking, this has been a remarkably good year for books so far. Looking over at my pile o’ discarded books, I see that I’ve read eight so far and every single one of them has been pretty good. That’s just coincidence, but it’s a nice coincidence.

(Aside from TIPZ, this year’s reading material so far has been: Robert A. Heinlein, by William Patterson, Supreme Conflict, by Jan Crawford Greenburg, Invisible Hands, by Kim Phillips-Fein, Capitalizing on Crisis, by Greta Krippner, Burr, by Gore Vidal, A Terrible Splendor, by Marshall Jon Fisher, and Our Hero: Superman on Earth, by Tom De Haven. All recommended if you happen to be interested in the subject material.)

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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