International Political History

In this fully updated fourth edition, Pinder and Usherwood cover the migrant crisis and the UK's decision to leave the Union, set in the context of a body that is now involved in most areas of public policy. Discussing how the EU continues to draw in new members, they conclude by considering the future of the Union and the choices and challenges that may lie ahead.

China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back 1,500 years. But today, their relationship is strained. China's military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan's brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years, less than 10 percent of each population had positive feelings toward the other, and both countries insist that the other side must deal openly with its history before relations can improve. Ezra Vogel's China and Japan examines key turning points in Sino-Japanese history.

When Lions Roar begins in the mid-1930s at Chartwell, Winston Churchill's country estate, with new revelations surrounding a secret business deal orchestrated by Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of future American president John F. Kennedy. From London to America, these two powerful families shared an ever-widening circle of friends, lovers, and political associates - soon shattered by World War II, spying, sexual infidelity, and the tragic deaths of JFK's sister Kathleen and his older brother Joe Jr.

A seasoned peacebuilder and acclaimed expert on violence explains the five reasons why conflict (rarely) blooms into war and how to interrupt that deadly process It’s easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war, to see it solely as a series of errors, accidents, and emotions gone...

Why do the USA, UK and Europe so hate Russia? How it is that Western antipathy, once thought due to anti-Communism, could be so easily revived over a crisis in distant Ukraine, against a Russia no longer communist? Why does the West accuse Russia of empire-building, when 15 states once part of the defunct Warsaw Pact are now part of NATO, and NATO troops now flank the Russian border? What is the source of the Trump-Russia probe?

In the 25 years after 1989, the world enjoyed the deepest peace in history. In The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth, the eminent foreign policy scholar Michael Mandelbaum examines that remarkable quarter century, describing how and why the peace was established and then fell apart. Mandelbaum argues that the widespread peace ended because three major countries put an end to it with aggressive nationalist policies aimed at overturning the prevailing political arrangements in their respective regions.

One of the nation's most acclaimed journalists, the New York Times' Mark Leibovich, presents a blistering, penetrating, controversial--and often hysterical--look at Washington's incestuous "media industrial complex...

Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War examines how intoxicants have been put to the service of states, empires, and their armies throughout history. Since the beginning of organized combat, armed forces have prescribed drugs to their members for two general purposes: to enhance performance during combat and to counter the trauma of killing and witnessing violence after it is over.

The birth of South Sudan was celebrated the world round. But the celebration would not last: South Sudan's freedom-fighters soon plunged their new nation back into chaos, shattering the promise of liberation and exposing the hubris of their American backers. Drawing on extraordinary personal stories of identity, liberation, and survival, this narrative tells an epic story of paradise won and then lost. Zach Vertin's firsthand accounts, from deadly war zones to the halls of Washington power, bring listeners on an extraordinary journey into the rise and fall of the world's newest state.

Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion barrels, an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and several centuries' worth of competing territorial claims, the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential conflict. The underreported military buildup in the area where the Western Pacific meets the Indian Ocean means that it will likely be a hinge point for global war and peace for the foreseeable future.

Kilcullen brings together his most salient writings on this vitally important topic. Here is a picture of modern warfare by someone who has had his boots on the ground in some of today's worst trouble spots - including Iraq and Afghanistan - and who has been studying counterinsurgency since 1985. Filled with down-to-earth, common-sense insights, this book is the definitive account of counterinsurgency, indispensable for all those interested in making sense of our world in an age of terror.

The first decade after India's independence, 1947-1957, was probably the most crucial in the nation's history. Opening a window to this period, this book weaves a story out of the complex ideas and events that have largely remained beneath the surface of public discourse. The transfer of power...

Si en sus anteriores libros Pedro Baños ofrecía un lúcido análisis de las relaciones de poder, esta nueva obra no solo describe con detalle las excepcionales circunstancias que se están dando en el presente y las que padeceremos en el futuro inmediato en nuestro mundo hiperconectado, sino que va mucho más allá y propone soluciones que sirvan a todas las personas, en cualquier país, convirtiéndose en un manual práctico imprescindible.

Las fórmulas del siglo pasado ya no son válidas. Hemos entrado de lleno en la era digital, una verdadera revolución industrial...

In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”

He's the butt of political jokes, frequently subjected to ridicule, and almost never absent a "Worst Presidents" list where he most often ends up at the bottom. Historians have labeled him the "Worst President Ever," "Dead Last," "Unfit," and "Incompetent," to name but a few. Many contemporaries...

In this powerful reassessment of the postwar order in Europe, Norman Naimark suggests that Joseph Stalin was far more open to a settlement on the continent than we have thought. Through revealing case studies from Poland and Yugoslavia to Denmark and Albania, Naimark recasts the early Cold War by focusing on Europeans' fight to determine their future. As nations devastated by war began rebuilding, Soviet intentions loomed large. Stalin's armies controlled most of the eastern half of the continent, and in France and Italy, communist parties were serious political forces.

"The Fight shines a much needed light on the troubling games DC politicians and insiders play with the American people." -Sean Hannity "The Fight is a lesson plan for fighting back against the Washington DC political machine." - Mark Levin In The Fight, Dan Bongino picks up the story where...

In the early hours of February 24, 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine. The brutality of the Russian assault has horrified the world. But Russians themselves appear to be watching an entirely different war—one in which they are the courageous underdogs and kind-hearted heroes successfully battling a malign Ukrainian foe.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was?

Super Bomb unveils the story of the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's 1950 decision to develop a "super" or hydrogen, bomb. That fateful decision and its immediate consequences are detailed in a diverse and complete account built on newly released archives and previously hidden contemporaneous interviews with more than 60 political, military, and scientific figures who were involved in the decision.