International Relations Theory

In Sensible Politics, William A. Callahan uses his expertise in theory and filmmaking to explore not only what visuals mean, but also how visuals can viscerally move and connect us in "affective communities of sense." The book's rich analysis of visual images (photographs, film, art) and visual artifacts (maps, veils, walls, gardens, cyberspace) shows how critical scholarship needs to push beyond issues of identity and security to appreciate the creative politics of social-ordering and world-ordering.

For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil, Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills.

This scathing critique of US political culture is a brilliant analysis of the Iran-Contra scandal. Chomsky offers a message of hope, reminding us resistance is possible.

History and geography delineate the operation of power, not only its range but also the capacity to plan and the ability to implement. Approaching state strategy and policy from the spatial angle, Jeremy Black argues that just as the perception of power is central to issues of power, so place, and its constraints and relationships, is partly a matter of perception, not merely map coordinates. Geopolitics, he maintains, is as much about ideas and perception as it is about the actual spatial dimensions of power.

As American interests assumed global proportions after 1945, policy makers were faced with the challenge of prioritizing various regions and determining the extent to which the United States was prepared to defend and support them. Superpowers and developing nations soon became inextricably linked and decolonizing states such as Vietnam, India, and Egypt assumed a central role in the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Dans les relations professionnelles, il est quelquefois difficile de rester authentique, de savoir exprimer en toute simplicité sa perception, ses opinions, ses besoins, ses réticences, ses émotions. En conséquence on se tait, on se sur-adapte, on refoule ses émotions, on "prend sur soi". Tout cela est souvent stressant, épuisant, quelquefois inutile et contre-productif. Il est toutefois possible de s’affirmer avec bienveillance, dans le respect de ses collaborateurs, de sa hiérarchie ou de ses collègues, de conjuguer fermeté et savoir-faire relationnel.

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.

The United States was once the hope of the world, a beacon of freedom, and the defender of liberal democracy. Nations and peoples on all continents looked to America to stand up for the values that created the Western world, and to oppose autocracy and repression. But as Bernard-Henri Levy lays bare in this powerful and disturbing analysis of the world today, America is retreating from its traditional leadership role, and in its place have come five ambitious powers, former empires eager to assert their primacy and influence.

While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse.

In April 1917, as Tsar Nicholas II's abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was far away, exiled in Zurich. To lead the revolt, Lenin needed to return to Petrograd immediately. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia's adversaries and betraying his homeland.

Scattered over the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea lie the remnants of failed peace proposals, international summits, secret negotiations, UN resolutions, and state-building efforts. The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly, perhaps terminally, thwarted by violence. Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative, and powerful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling counterhistory.

In 1950, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested for allegedly passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, an affair FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover labeled the "crime of the century". Their case became an international sensation, inspiring petitions, letters of support, newspaper editorials, and protests in countries around the world. Nevertheless, the Rosenbergs were executed after years of appeals, making them the only civilians ever put to death for conspiracy-related activities. Yet even after their executions, protests continued.

The product of painstaking research and countless interviews, A High Price offers a nuanced, definitive historical account of Israel's bold but often failed efforts to fight terrorist groups. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terrorist groups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace.

Ambassador C. Donald Johnson's The Wealth of a Nation is an authoritative history of the politics of trade in America from the Revolution to the Trump era.

Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice.

In this compelling, behind-the-scenes account, former top CIA officer and Cuba expert Brian Latell examines the extraordinary Castro brothers and the impending dynastic succession of Fidel's younger brother, Raul. Exploring the brothers' remarkable relationship, he reveals how Fidel and Raul have collaborated, divided responsibilities, and resolved disagreements for more than 46 years, a challenge to the notion that the little-known Raul has been an insignificant player.

In Bloody Foreigners and The Last Wolf, Robert Winder explored the way Britain was shaped first by migration and then by hidden geographical factors. Now, in Soft Power he explores the way modern states are asserting themselves not through traditional realpolitik but through alternative means: business, language, culture, ideas, sport, education, music, even food...the texture and values of history and daily life.

Covering the period from 1936 to 1953, Empire of Ideas reveals how and why image first became a component of foreign policy, prompting policymakers to embrace such techniques as propaganda, educational exchanges, cultural exhibits, overseas libraries, and domestic public relations.

Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for US nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.

In this new, updated edition of a book heralded as a clarion call to the nation's conscience, William Bennett asks why we see so little public outrage in the fade of the evidence of deep corruption within Bill Clinton's administration. The Death of Outrage examines the Monica Lewinsky scandal as...