Book cover of Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy by Erich Schwartzel
Business & Money

Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy

An eye-opening and deeply reported narrative that details the surprising role of the movie business in the high-stakes contest between the U.S. and China

From trade to technology to military might, competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape. But this battle for global influence is also playing out in a strange and unexpected arena: the movies. […Learn More]

Book cover of The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen
History

The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy. 

Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen’s understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own–as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.  […Learn More]

Book cover of A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order by G. John Ikenberry
International & World Politics

A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order

For two hundred years, the grand project of liberal internationalism has been to build a world order that is open, loosely rules-based, and oriented toward progressive ideas. Today this project is in crisis, threatened from the outside by illiberal challengers and from the inside by nationalist-populist movements. This timely book offers the first full account of liberal internationalism’s long journey from its nineteenth-century roots to today’s fractured political moment. […Learn More]

Book cover of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict by Sumantra Bose
Asia

Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict

An authoritative, fresh, and vividly written account of the Kashmir conflict—from 1947 to the present

The India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is one of the world’s incendiary conflicts. Since 1990, at least 60,000 people have been killed—insurgents, civilians, and military and police personnel. In 2019, the conflict entered a dangerous new phase. India’s Hindu nationalist government, under Narendra Modi, repealed Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomous status and divided it into two territories subject to New Delhi’s direct rule. […Learn More]

Book cover for Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick
Asia

Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town

A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy.
Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched eleven thousand feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit. Ngaba was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese Communists encountered one another. […Learn More]

Book Cover of Crucible The Long End of the Great War & the Birth of a New World by Charles Emmerson
Europe

Crucible: The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917 – 1924

The gripping story of the years that ended the Great War and launched Europe and America onto the roller coaster of the twentieth century, Crucible is filled with all-too-human tales of exuberant dreams, dark fears, and the absurdities of chance

In Petrograd, a fire is lit. The Tsar is packed off to Siberia. A rancorous Russian exile returns to proclaim a workers’ revolution. In America, black soldiers who have served their country in Europe demand their rights at home. […Learn More]

International & World Politics

The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World

The New Silk Roads – a brand new book by Peter Frankopan – takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today.

The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established. […Learn More]