The Chinese state is back, if it ever went away. In her incisive examination of the changes that Ji Jinping has made to the way the Chinese state functions, Elizabeth C. Economy traces the impact on Chinese domestic markets and on foreign policy. This is a compelling analysis of a new China that is asserting…
DetailsRania Abouzeid’s remarkable book is a powerful account of the everyday lives of Syrian protestors, killers and their victims. She draws on five years of clandestine reporting from Assad’s prisons, ISIS strongholds and rebel meetings. A deeply moving personal narrative, it highlights the dilemmas of different actors caught in a spiral of violence. NoTurning Back…
DetailsThe sinister philosophy underlying Russian authoritarianism, the torturous drive for freedom in Ukraine, and the manipulation of U.S. elections are the subjects of this brilliant and original book that combines history, philosophy and astute contemporary political analysis. Snyder has connected the dots, explaining how Russian goals – the undermining of the European Union and NATO,…
DetailsThe Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, by Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, is a riveting account of the people who created the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928. It tells the story of visionaries who tried to limit war through law and traces the impact of international law on…
DetailsNo region is more important to contemporary global security and economic relations than the Asia Pacific. Richard McGregor, in Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century, describes the challenges the United States faces in light of the rivalry between Japan and China – Japan as a steadfast U.S.…
DetailsThe distinguished historian, Lawrence Freedman shows how intellectuals, novelists, film makers and military strategists have thought about war. Thinking about war in the last 150 years, Freedman argues, has been shaken by one epoch-changing event: nuclear weapons. Yet The Future of War: A History traces important continuities in thinking about war before and after the…
DetailsIn a lucid and important book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap? Graham Allison reaches back to Thucydides to tell the story of the conflict between rising powers and those that have already risen and asks if China and the United States are destined to fall into Thucydides’ Trap. Learning from…
DetailsLaura Secor takes us deep into an Iran that few of us know. With stunning revelations and evocative writing, her ambitious work, Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, portrays a post-revolutionary generation of reformers whose vision of a modern Islamic state continues to meet frustration. In the book Secor explores the…
DetailsThe fall of the Soviet Union took with it one of history’s greatest propaganda machines. Or so we thought. From the front lines of a nation’s political death and rebirth, Arkady Ostrovsky documents a relationship between Russian media and the Kremlin that helps explain the rise of Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and the oligarchs who…
DetailsIn Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World, Shadi Hamid has dared to go where few scholars have ventured, as he courageously examines the political nature and history of Islam. The enduring conflicts of the Middle East, the social cleavages of the Persian Gulf, even the constrictive rule of Central Asia…
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