https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/3471 2026-11-05T20:40:26Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/150647 Title: Book review : Nepal and major powers in the Himalayas : small state in international affairs Authors: Chand, Bibek Abstract: This volume offers revealing insights into the Nepali way of great power management. The authors use the case of Nepal to provide a wider assessment of the role played by small states in international relations. The book provides readers with a detailed account of how a small state like Nepal navigates a world that is increasingly defined by uncertainties in power distribution in the international system. It addresses a growing need for perspectives that adopt small powers like Nepal as their focus, while the international system undergoes changes. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/150646 Title: Article review : Sport and history in small states and non-sovereign territories Authors: van Drongelen, Wesley Abstract: On 18 November 2025, Curaçao became the smallest nation ever to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, relieving Iceland of that record. Such small state achievements make global headlines; at least briefly, and more so should the team then go on to do well at the tournament. The newsworthiness derives from the fact that being competitive on the global stage, in whatever sport, is always harder for small states (or, in the Curaçao case, subnational island jurisdictions or SNIJs) than it is for larger nations, for a variety of reasons. Besides, people love a good underdog story. Yet, sporting success in small states and dependent territories is not that rare, despite the odds. But even when and where a small state does not ‘punch above its weight’ (a knackered cliché perhaps, but one that is derived from the world of sport, so apt to use here) the stories and histories of sport still reveal much about a state’s population, identity, challenges, and international ties. Hence Matthew McDowell’s welcome effort to compile a special issue on the topic in the International Journal of the History of Sport (IJHS). 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/150644 Title: Book review : Reordering Caribbean futures in the fires of global change Authors: Meeks, Brian Abstract: Reordering Caribbean futures in the fires of global change, represents an important moment for the renewal of a certain tradition of Caribbean scholarship, generated from within the region, and aimed at understanding the current historical trajectory of the region’s small states and their prospects for the future. Among other collections in this tradition, I mention Selwyn Ryan’s Trinidad and Tobago: The independence experience (1988); Rex Nettleford’s Jamaica in independence (1989), Kenneth Hall and Denis Benn’s Contending with destiny: The Caribbean in the 21st Century (2000) and Brian Meeks and Folke Lindahl’s New Caribbean thought: A reader (2001). Published typically at the end of a decade, or, as in the latter two, at the end of the millennia, the purpose has been to achieve a sort of stock-taking of individual countries as well as the region’s performance over the period, and an attempt is made to soberly identify possible pathways for the future. While giving emphasis to questions of political economy, most of these texts have tended to be broader and even eclectic in scope, addressing matters of health, education, philosophy, social policy and popular culture. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/150643 Title: Book review : Agency, security and governance of small states : a global perspective Authors: Anatol, Marlon Abstract: This book is a refreshing, insightful addition to the literature on small states in the global system, using examples of different regions, as well as adding significantly to the theoretical approaches that can be utilized to broaden the understanding of small states and their existence and survival internationally. Having read many texts on the conceptual and theoretical approaches related to small states, Kolnberger and Koff’s book brings historical and theoretical lenses which serve to elucidate the issues in a clear and comprehensible manner, notwithstanding the complexities and intricacies of analysis necessary to further the discourse in international relations. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z