Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by (1) John A. Agnew, Geopolitics (London: Routledge, 2003); (2) Richard A. Falk, The Declining World Order: America's Imperial Geopolitics (London: Routledge, 2004); & (3) Immanuel Wallerstein, The Collapse of American Power (New York: Basic, 2003). Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the geopolitical & postimperial significance of Ian Fleming's famous spy, Commander James Bond RN/007. By drawing on two films, From Russia with Love (1963) & The World Is Not Enough (1999), it is argued that these productions not only contest GB's post-1945 decline in international influence but also actively subvert the binary politics of the Cold War & its aftermath. The actual location of the filming (in Turkey & Central Asia) is also significant in this representational process, however. Turkey was a vital element in NATO's containment of the Soviet Union, & the unexploited oil fields of Central Asia have become a major geostrategic concern in the post-Cold War era. Arguably, the films (& Fleming's novel From Russia with Love, 1957), in order to be politically effective, also draw on long-standing colonial & European stereotypes regarding the reputation of the Balkans for violence, instability & claustrophobia. In so doing, countries such as Turkey & Azerbaijan are on the one hand simply represented as security- & or resource-based commodities that the West (in the form of the UK in the main, rather than the US) have to contain or selectively exploit but also as places that have witnessed prior infiltration & intrigue. These characterizations of place deserve serious attention because, as recent research in film studies & popular geopolitics has demonstrated, fictional referents such as James Bond & Rambo play their part in the cultural reproduction of world politics. 1 Table. Adapted from the source document.