Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 149

BOOK REVIEWS

These groups often use violence as the means to
take the resources for the potential wealth generated
from sales.
A respected geographer with a Ph.D. from Oxford,
Le Billon conducted extensive research for his book
and excels at providing historical evidence to support his premise. The primary objective with Wars of
Plunder is to provide a relationship between resources
and the conflicts that often erupt over the wealth the
resources provide. His term “resource curse” highlights the disadvantages that some countries with an
abundance of resources face when those resources are
desired by larger nations. He highlights Nigeria as a
good example of a country that possesses a large oil
reserve, pointing out that the dependence on profit from oil has not resulted in nation-state equality
funded from the oil wealth.
The author provides great insight for ways to utilize resources for peace. He creates three approaches
of peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. If
we can learn, as a government, about the advantages
of peacemaking, we can prevent the conflict before
the level reaches the need for military intervention.
He highlights the importance of an integrated unified-action approach to sanctions as an effective tool
to curb the violence.
Le Billon utilizes the conclusion of his volume to
provide three strategies he believes would greatly reduce
the number of conflicts in the world. The strategies
are categorized against resource conflict, for resource
conflict, and for the resource curse. The premise of the
strategies is good, but each relies on fairness in global
governance. It is impossible to assume that all nations in
the world will abide by fairness when competing for natural resources. The author places too much faith in “deep
democratization processes that build robust checks and
balances within society and consolidate state legitimacy
and capacity.” This is evident with China’s presence in
Africa and Central Asia to claim oil, timber, and gems in
sometimes less-than-legal means. For these strategies to
be successful in reducing conflict, all world powers need
to work in unison to provide a level playing field.
The author has written an excellent book, which is
highly detailed and informative. It provides readers with
an understanding of the challenges facing the global
economy with the increasing need for resources to meet
the demands of growing nations. The book supports
MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2015

educating military officers on the importance of understanding the elements of national power. It also provides
military officers with an excellent historical account of
the importance of utilizing diplomacy and economic
development to reduce conflicts around the globe. This
combination makes Wars of Plunder: Conflicts, Profits
and the Politics of Resources a book that will appeal to a
wide array of readers and be of particular importance to
military leaders.
Lt. Col. John E. Elrich, U.S. Army, Fort
Leavenworth, Kan.

CITIES OF EMPIRE: The British Colonies and the
Creation of the Urban World
Tristram Hunt, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2014,
544 pages

T

here are, rightly, many critics of the British
Empire and its legacies. Slave plantations helped
to fund it, questionable ideologies justified it,
and harsh military actions protected and expanded
it. Despite its dark aspects, the legacies of the British
Empire continue to shape the modern world in ways
ranging from the prevalence of English as a lingua franca
to the legal and governmental structures of countries
across the world. Tristram Hunt demonstrates in Cities
of Empire that the British Empire also had a major role in
shaping global urban culture.
Apologists of the Empire often point to the developmental benefits of imperial rule, and there is considerable truth to these arguments. Devoting somewhat
self-contained chapters to Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin,
Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne,
New Delhi, and Liverpool, Hunt shows the British
Empire’s common commitment to trade and its attendant infrastructure. He argues that the British Empire
was a particularly urban empire dependent on an interconnected network of cities serving as bases for military,
economic, governmental, and population expansion.
Many of the world’s largest cities were in British colonies,
and British urban organization can still be seen.
In addition to global urbanization, Cities of Empire
offers an enjoyable introduction to British imperial
history. Hunt uses each city to illustrate the phases of the
British Empire. Some of these are simple chronological
147