World History Political Science

A peaceful mountaintop setting crucially removed from the constant scrutiny of the press, Camp David has served as both a site of critical diplomacy and unparalleled tranquility. It is where President and Mrs. Reagan rode horses through the mountains, where Gerald Ford could take a moment to jump on a trampoline with his daughter, where Nixon rode shotgun with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, and where Jimmy Carter could find the ultimate flight-sledding - only to break his clavicle two weeks before the end of his tenure.

The astonishing but true story of one of the most notorious spy cases from the Cold War—and the international manhunt that seized global attention as it revealed the shadowy world of deep cover KGB operatives. Based on new archival material and inside sources from around the world, Dead Doubles follows the hunt for the highly damaging Portland Spy Ring. This incredible narrative, layered with false identities, deceptions, and betrayal, crisscrosses from the UK to the USSR to the US and New Zealand, and brings to life one of the most extraordinary spy stories of the Cold War.

A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983 - the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon. The year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one - more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the United States, President Reagan vastly increased defense spending, described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and launched the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the country from incoming missiles.

For better or worse - be it militarily, politically, economically, technologically, or culturally - Americans have had a profound role in shaping the wider world beyond them. The United States has been a savior to some, a curse to others, but either way such views are often based on a caricature of American actions and intentions. American foreign relations, then, is a subject of immense global importance that provokes strong emotions and much debate, but often based on deep misunderstanding.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity. For decades, the U.S. State Department called it diplomacy. David Friedman was an outside candidate when President Trump appointed him U.S. ambassador to Israel. He took office to find U.S.-Israel policy stuck in stalemate. For years, accepted wisdom was that extensive experience and detailed knowledge of Middle Eastern history and culture were necessary to negotiate treaties. In truth, Friedman realized, all parties played on that accepted wisdom to stall—expecting to get a better deal further down the road.

In May 1940, with France on the verge of defeat, Britain alone stood in the path of the Nazi military juggernaut. Survival seemed to hinge on the leadership of Winston Churchill, whom the king reluctantly appointed prime minister as Germany invaded France. Churchill's reputation as one of the great 20th-century leaders would be forged during the coming months and years as he worked tirelessly first to rally his country and then to defeat Hitler.

Everything is a computer. Ovens are computers that make things hot; refrigerators are computers that keep things cold. These computers - from home thermostats to chemical plants - are all online. All computers can be hacked. And Internet-connected computers are the most vulnerable. Forget data theft: Cutting-edge digital attackers can now crash your car, your pacemaker, and the nation’s power grid. In Click Here to Kill Everybody, renowned expert and best-selling author Bruce Schneier examines the hidden risks of this new reality.

Anna Fifield reconstructs Kim's past and present with exclusive access to sources near him and brings her unique understanding to explain the dynastic mission of the Kim family in North Korea. The archaic notion of despotic family rule matches the almost medieval hardship the country has suffered under the Kims. Few people thought that a young, untested, unhealthy, Swiss-educated basketball fanatic could hold together a country that should have fallen apart years ago. But Kim Jong Un has not just survived, he has thrived.

Para aqueles que não conhecem o trabalho de Nicolau Maquiavel, O príncipe pode parecer um manual abstrato para a conduta de um mandatário. Entretanto, este clássico da filosofia moderna, fundador da ciência política, é fruto da época em que foi concebido.

Kissinger's six leaders are Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher. All of them were formed in a period when established institutions collapsed all over Europe, colonial structures gave way to independent states in Asia and Africa, and a new international order had to be created from the vestiges of the old.

In the last winter of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin arrived in the Crimean resort of Yalta. Over eight days of bargaining, bombast, and intermittent bonhomie, they decided on the conduct of the final stages of the war against Germany, on how a defeated and occupied Germany should be governed, on the constitution of the nascent United Nations, and on spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece.

In this eloquent challenge to the reigning wisdom on globalization, Dani Rodrik reminds us of the importance of the nation-state, arguing forcefully that when the social arrangements of democracies inevitably clash with the international demands of globalization, national priorities should take precedence. Combining history with insight, humor with good-natured critique, Rodrik’s case for a customizable globalization supported by a light frame of international rules shows the way to a balanced prosperity as we confront today’s global challenges in trade, finance, and labor markets.

What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Romanov Sisters, Caught in the Revolution is Helen Rappaport's masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eyewitness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold.

Economic growth isn't working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalist modernity, The Future Is Degrowth argues that the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological destructions associated with capitalism, and points to desirable alternatives to it.

On the eve of International Women's Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global cause célèbre, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists, and online warriors prompting an unprecedented awakening among China's educated, urban women.

19th century Europe produced some of the greatest soldiers, statesmen, scientists, artists, and thinkers of any period in recorded history. And by the middle of that century nationalism had emerged triumphant from Ireland to Greece, and many new nations, including Germany and Italy, had appeared. But nationalism was accompanied by a chauvinistic impulse toward militarism.

How is it that the law enforcer itself does not have to keep the law? How is it that the law permits the state to lawfully engage in actions which, if undertaken by individuals, would land them in jail? These are among the most intriguing issues in political and economic philosophy. More specifically, the problem of law that itself violates law is an insurmountable conundrum of all statist philosophies. The problem has never been discussed so profoundly and passionately as in this essay by Frederic Bastiat from 1850. This essay might have been written today. It applies to our own time.

In today’s political climate, more and more presidential candidates are espousing socialist - or democratic socialist - policies. Once associated with oppression, socialism is now a current topic of conversation with everyday Americans, including policies like taxing the rich and healthcare for all. But what exactly is socialism and why does it spark such an intense debate? Socialism 101 provides an easy-to-understand, unbiased overview to the nearly 300-year-old origins of this mode of government, its complex history, basic constructs, and modern-day interpretations....

Noam Chomsky argues that, contrary to popular perception, the real "rogue" states in the world today are not the dictator-led developing countries we hear about in the news but the United States and its allies. He challenges the legal and humanitarian reasons given to justify intervention in global conflicts in order to reveal the West's reliance on the rule of force. He examines NATO's intervention in Kosovo, the crisis in East Timor, and US involvement in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.