Blog Review

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/ is part of Foreign Policy Magazine. This blog is updated Monday thru Friday by a number of different contributors. There are anywhere between five and twelve posts a day about different aspects of foreign policy throughout the globe. The audience for this blog is people who have an interest in foreign policy. The way the posts are written indicate that the audience is assumed to have some previous knowledge of the topic. However, they do make the information accessible to those who do not already know about the events which are being written about through the links included in the posts. There are links to stories in American publications, such as Foreign Policy Magazine, New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as to articles in European publications such as Britain’s Telegraph.

This blog provides a good deal of information on a number of topics. Many posts deal with some aspect of American foreign policy, but some deal solely with events happening in other countries. Some of the posts are lengthy discussions of topics, such as the morning brief, which goes into events in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, “Elsewhere,” 2008 U.S. Election, and the day’s agenda. Other posts are short responses events pertaining to foreign policy, such as a boy scout stopping an assassination attempt on the president of the Maldives, Maumoom Abdul Gayoom[1], and reactions to Freedom House’s 2008 Freedom in the World Report.[2] There are also posts written that review books that all the posters are reading.[3] Each book can be related back to a certain aspect of foreign policy.

While the blog does deal with a number of important topics that affect the global landscape, there are also posts that give a witty look at such matters as the origins of fortune cookies.[4] After discussing that the fortune cookie has roots in Japan, it is stated, “The funny thing is, in discussion of the inter-Asian rivalry, many Chinese often complain that elements of Japanese and Korean culture actually stem from China, if you go back far enough. Now we’ve got a modern Chinese-American food that actually stems from Japan.” Even these posts are related back to some aspect of a world issue.

The blog is easy to follow with the most recent posts at the top. Each post is separated by a by a bolded title in a different color from the rest of the text. Many of the posts included photographs to supplement the event that the author is responding to. The occasional post is simply a small reaction to a photograph, as in the case of a post from Monday, January 14^th which responds to a picture of President Bush and the King of Saudi Arabia greeting each other.[5]

The posts are well written responses to world events. For certain posts the prose is a formal reporting on an issue, while others are more informal, satirical reactions to global matters. The blog provides a lot of information on a variety of topics while being interesting and entertaining to read.

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[1] “Boy Scout Foils Dastardly Plot.” Weblog Entry. Foreign Policy Passport. 14 January 2008. .

[2] “The World Is a Little Less Free.” Weblog Entry. Foreign Policy Passport. 16 January 2008. .

[3] “What We’re Reading.” Weblog Entry. Foreign Policy Passport. 14 January 2008. .

[4] “Fortune Cookies are from Japan?” Weblog Entry. Foreign Policy Passport. 16 January 2008. .

[5] “He Kisses For Thee.” Weblog Entry. Foreign Policy Passport. 14 January 2008. .