Our new format designed to replace our book reviews places more of the choice on you, the Reader. My colleagues and I at American Diplomacy will identify a variety of new books that we believe may interest you. We’ll provide basic information on the books and links to reviews. You will have the choice of whether, or how far, to pursue your interests in the books that follow. Good reading! And please let us know how you like the new format.
William P. Kiehl, Ed.D.
Contributing Editor, Books
Books
Bruce Smith’s biography examines Lincoln Gordon’s contributions to U.S. mobilization during WWII, the European post-war recovery, the security framework for NATO and U.S. Latin American policy.
http://adst.org/publications/adst-dacor/lincoln-gordon/
Lincoln Gordon: Architect of Cold War Foreign Policy by Bruce L. R. Smith
University Press of Kentucky, May 2015. 472 pp, 40 illustrations, notes on sources, endnotes, index. ISBN-10: 0813156556 ISBN-13: 978-0813156552
Harvard’s Joseph Nye answers his own question with a resounding “No.” He explains what the United States must do in order to retain its lead in military, economic, and soft power capabilities.
Is the American Century Over? by Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Polity, January 2015. 152 pages. ISBN-10: 0745690076 ISBN-13: 978-0745690070
Citibank analyst and CFR adjunct fellow on energy Bruce Clayton offers some important historical lessons for Washington and Wall Street about energy policy and financial markets.
http://www.cfr.org/oil/market-madness/p36064?co=C011801
Market Madness: A Century of Oil Panics, Crises, and Crashes by Blake C. Clayton.
Oxford University Press. February 2015. 248 pages ISBN 978-0-19999-005-4
Emma Sky served in Iraq longer than any other senior military or diplomatic figure. The Unraveling is an intimate insider’s portrait of how and why the Iraq adventure failed.
The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq by Emma Sky
PublicAffairs. April 2015. 400 pages. ISBN-10: 161039593X ISBN-13: 978-1610395939
The Accidental Superpower is a contrarian, and eye-opening assessment of American power. Near the end of the Second World War, the United States made a bold strategic gambit that rewired the international system. Empires were abolished and replaced by a global arrangement enforced by the U.S. Navy. With all the world’s oceans safe for the first time in history, markets and resources were made available for everyone. Enemies became partners. We think of this system as normal—it is not.
The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder by Peter Zeihan
Grand Central Publishing. November 2014. 384 pages. ISBN-13: 9781455583669
In The Fall of the Ottomans, historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to life, uncovering the story of the region’s crucial role in the conflict. This is essential reading for an understanding of the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21535310-the-fall-of-the-ottomans
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan
Basic Books. March 2015. ISBN 046502307X ISBN13: 9780465023073
This book, by experts in the fields of economics and Russian culture, is the sequel to the 2001 volume Culture Matters. It discusses modernization, democratization, economic, and political reforms in Russia and asserts that these reforms can happen through the reframing of cultural values, attitudes, and institutions.
http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Matters-Russia-Everywhere-Russia-Ukraine/dp/1498503500
Culture Matters in Russia—and Everywhre: Backdrop for the Russia-Ukraine Conflict Edited by Lawrence Harrison and Evgeny Yasin
Lexington Books. April 2015. 582 pages. ISBN-10: 1498503500 ISBN-13: 978-1498503501
In Fateful Transitions, Daniel M. Kliman revisits historic power shifts to shed light on enduring patterns in international relations, demonstrating that the regime type of ascendant powers greatly influences global interactions. “This is an important book leveraging history to understand the problem of declining U.S. hegemony and a rising China. With its lucid writing style and accessible approach, Fateful Transitions should have wide appeal for scholars, students, and policymakers. It may well be the best book on relations among the great powers in the coming global transition.”—Bruce Russett, Yale University
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15302.html
Fateful Transitions: How Democracies Manage Rising Powers, from the Eve of World War I to China’s Ascendance by Daniel M. Kliman
University of Pennsylvania Press. October 2014. 248 pages. ISBN 978-0-8122-4653-7 ISBN 978-0-8122-9029-5