Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
Shane’s masterpiece is a rarity among foreign affairs books, flowing dramatically like a novel, carrying the academic weight of a thesis, and laying out enough policy dilemmas to fill a month of Sunday talk shows. The story of Anwar al-Awlaki is, in some ways, the story of Americans and Arabs in the age of terror, brought into sharp relief by the Obama administration and its unpredicted—and unpredictable—drone policy, which has redefined the meaning of war and reset its price.
The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire
Susan Pedersen transports us back in time, to an age when powers, old and new, thought they could hold the world together, even as they dismantled the vestiges of empire. The fallacy and hopes of a world caught between evil and innocence are captured in Pedersen’s portrait of the birth of internationalism. Her authoritative journey…
Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses—and Misuses—of History
Barry Eichengreen provides an original look at the financial crisis and its origins, with desperately needed lessons about moving more quickly during such traumatic moments. Stimulus, coordinated monetary policy and banking regulation, as needed in 2009 as they were in 1929, and yet unappreciated to the degree they ultimately were needed. Beyond finance, Hall of…
The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I & Revolution
The years and months that carried Europe into the tragedies of 1914 and beyond do not wane in importance or impact as Dominic Lieven takes us into the lives that helped end the age of empire. And yet, as the book reveals in exquisite detail, so much was left unresolved. By telling the fall of…
Kissinger: 1923 – 1968: The Idealist
Just the mention of his surname, or its initial, is enough to set off a raging debate. For no other figure has so divided the discussion of modern foreign affairs than Henry Kissinger. Peace-seeker, war-maker, celebrity diplomat, confidante to an epoch — Kissinger is all that and more in the first volume of Niall Ferguson’s…