World History Political Science

In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global affairs, Naím explains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world.

Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I.

The heroic story of Pussy Riot, who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies. On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas, they performed a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” They were quickly shut down by security, and in the weeks and months that followed, three of the women were arrested and tried, and two were sentenced to a remote prison colony. But the incident captured international headlines, and footage of it went viral.

Este audiolibro nació en el aire: en las ondas hertzianas que transmitían los micros sobre el pasado de Venezuela que escribió Inés Quintero. Ahora, esta edición permite volver a disfrutar de todos esos divertidos y asombrosos asomos a la historia nacional con toda la frescura, inteligencia y sentido del humor de esta académica tan prestigiosa y tan hábil para comunicarse con el gran público.

Without oil, there would be no globalisation, no plastic, little transport, and a global political landscape that few would recognise. It is the lifeblood of the modern world, and humanity’s dependence upon it looks set to continue for decades to come. In this captivating audiobook, Vaclav Smil explains all matters related to ‘black gold’, from its discovery in the earth, right through to the political maelstrom that surrounds it today.

The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage - to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than 70 years of great-power peace, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history.

For generations, British thinkers told the history of an empire whose story was still very much in the making. While they wrote of conquest, imperial rule in India, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean was consolidated. While they described the development of imperial governance, rebellions were brutally crushed. As they reimagined empire during the two world wars, decolonization was compromised. Priya Satia shows how these historians not only interpreted the major political events of their time but also shaped the future that followed.

Conflicts over specific rules lie at the heart of the disputes, which are about much more than sovereignty over islands and rocks in the South and East China Seas. Instead, the main contests concern the strategic maritime space associated with those islands. To consolidate control over this vital maritime space, China's leaders have begun to implement "China's law of the sea": building domestic legal institutions, bureaucratic organizations, and a naval and maritime law enforcement apparatus to establish China's preferred maritime rules on the water and in the diplomatic arena.

An esteemed activist invites us to consider the complex idea of abolition as much more than a strategy or a set of tactics—at a deeper level, abolition is an entire political framework, culture, and orientation.

America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.

From the French Revolution of the 18th century to the Mexican, Russian, German, Chinese, anticolonial, and Iranian revolutions of the 20th, Chirot finds that moderate solutions to serious social, economic, and political problems were overwhelmed by radical ideologies that promised simpler, drastic remedies. But not all revolutions had this outcome. The American Revolution didn't, although its failure to resolve the problem of slavery eventually led to the Civil War, and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was relatively peaceful, except in Yugoslavia.

Covert agent Cyril DePaul thinks he's good at keeping secrets, especially from Aristide Makricosta. They suit each other: Aristide turns a blind eye to Cyril's clandestine affairs, and Cyril keeps his lover's moonlighting job as a smuggler under wraps. Cyril participates in a mission that leads to disastrous results, leaving smoke from various political fires smoldering throughout the city. Shielding Aristide from the expected fallout isn't easy, though.

On Liberty is an 1859 philosophical treatise by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) which applies an ethical system of utilitarianism to society and the state. Mill starts with a brief overview of the meaning of liberty and proffers his basic argument in favor of liberty for the individual, to the degree that it harms no one else. The value of liberty of opinion and liberty of action are set forth in two chapters.

This panoramic book tells the story of how revolutionary ideas from the Enlightenment about freedom, equality, evolution, and democracy have reverberated through modern history and shaped the world as we know it today.

The untold story of how Russia refined the art and science of targeted assassination abroad—while Western spies watched in horror as their governments failed to guard against the threat. Unflinchingly documenting the growing web of death on British and American soil, Heidi Blake bravely exposes the Kremlin's assassination campaign as part of Putin's ruthless pursuit of global dominance—and reveals why Western governments have failed to stop the bloodshed.

When Iranians overthrew their monarchy, rejecting a pro-Western shah in favor of an Islamic regime, many observers predicted that revolutionary turmoil would paralyze the country for decades to come. Yet 40 years after the 1978-79 revolution, Iran has emerged as a critical player in the Middle East and the wider world, as demonstrated in part by the 2015 international nuclear agreement. In Iran Rising, renowned Iran specialist Amin Saikal describes how the country has managed to survive despite ongoing domestic struggles, Western sanctions, and other serious challenges.

As Hitler's ascendancy began to make a Second World War inevitable, a clandestine network flooded the United States with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of its war effort and persuading Americans that their natural alliance was with the Axis. Prequel unearths the forgotten story of these insurrectionists, as well as the heroic efforts of the journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose their plot and bring them to justice. Deeply researched, the story of how the crisis was averted is also a deeply relevant tale for our own disquieting times.

In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows. But China's tradition of secrecy about its aid fueled rumors and speculation, making it difficult to gauge the risks and opportunities provided by China's growing embrace. This well-timed book, by one of the world's leading experts, provides the first comprehensive account of China's aid and economic cooperation overseas. Deborah Brautigam tackles the myths and realities, explaining what the Chinese are doing, how they do it, how much aid they give, and how it all fits into their "going global" strategy.

The United States' role in saving Europe's intellectual elite from the Nazis is often told as a tale of triumph, which in many ways it was. America welcomed Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, Hannah Arendt and Herbert Marcuse, Rudolf Carnap and Richard Courant, among hundreds of other physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, historians, chemists, and linguists who transformed the American academy. Yet for every scholar who survived and thrived, many, many more did not. In this rigorously researched book, Laurel Leff rescues from obscurity scholars who were deemed "not worth saving".

Swansong 1945 chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8.