The Brookings Cafeteria

Host Fred Dews interviews experts from the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization (think tank) based in Washington, D.C., about their research and ideas on solutions to the most pressing public policy challenges facing the nation and the world.

Book cover of Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age by David Wessel
Business & Money

Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age

In a Winners Take All meets This Town narrative, a New York Times bestselling author tells the story of the creation of a massive tax break, in which political and economic elites attend to the care and feeding of the super-rich, and inequality compounds.

David Wessel’s incredible tale of how Washington works-and why the rich keep getting richer-starts when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur develops an idea intended as a way to help poor people that will save rich people money on their taxes. […Learn More]

Book cover of To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World's Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers by Bruce Jones
Biography & History

To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers

From a brilliant Brookings Institution writer, a vivid, timely, and insightful examination of the critical role that oceans play in the daily struggle for global power, in the bestselling tradition of Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography.

For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for dominance. But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent the primary modes of commercial transit. […Learn More]

International & World Politics

World in Danger: Germany and Europe in an Uncertain Time

A vision of a European future of peace and stability despite the present gloom

The world appears to be at another major turning point. Tensions between the United States and China threaten a resumption of great power conflict. Global institutions are being tested as never before, and hard-edged nationalism has resurfaced as a major force in both democracies and authoritarian states. […Learn More]

The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century by Thant Myint - U
Asia

The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

Precariously positioned between China and India, Burma’s population has suffered dictatorship, natural disaster, and the dark legacies of colonial rule. But when decades of military dictatorship finally ended and internationally beloved Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from long years of house arrest, hopes soared. World leaders such as Barack Obama ushered in waves of international support. Progress seemed inevitable. […Learn More]