Since World War Two, migration of people within countries, from one country to another, and from outside Europe to the continent has been the rule rather than the exception. Peter Gatrell has produced a sweeping and engrossing history of these migrations: why they occurred, how host countries saw and see them, and why governments often…
DetailsThat digital technologies are disruptive has become commonplace. Audrey Kurth Cronin meticulously shows how digital technologies like the Internet, smartphones, and artificial intelligence—as did earlier innovations like dynamite and the Kalashnikov rifle—have expanded the reach and force of malicious non-state actors. The book’s greatest virtue may be its calm voice. Cronin shows that the destructive…
DetailsWith a magisterial sweep through history, Acemoglu and Robinson tell the story of the struggle to establish a narrow corridor between despotism and anarchy, where liberty can thrive. For liberty to emerge and flourish, both state and society must be strong. They emphasize that preserving liberty is an ongoing struggle that never finishes. Today, it…
DetailsThis courageous book questions the state of American liberal democracy. Putting democracies that failed or survived under the microscope, Levitsky and Ziblatt then apply their analysis to the contemporary United States. Looking at how democracy is endangered, they provide a road map for how the United States can be truly exceptional as a multiracial democracy.…
DetailsThe 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…
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