The Blog Post I Wish I Had Written or, What Jay-Z Can Teach Us About American Hegemony

Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy.com has written one of the best blog posts I have read in a long time: Jay-Z vs the Game: Lessons for the American Primacy Debate.  Lynch combines a music obsessive’s knowledge of rap with an international relations scholar’s understanding of power politics. This is a story of rising challengers, sneak attacks, structural power, transition narratives, and alliance politics.  And if your reaction is “blah, blah, I don’t like rap,” I say just go read the post anyway, it is great whether or not you care about the history of the Jay-Z/ Nas beef.

In short, it is an excellent lesson on analyzing power relationships. And did I mention he’s got links to music? Bonus!