Politics Foreign

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.

In this essential new book, Vali Nasr argues that the Obama administration had a chance to improve its relations with the Middle East, but instead chose to pursue its predecessor's questionable strategies there. Nasr takes listeners behind the scenes at the State Department and reveals how the new government's fear of political backlash and the specter of terrorism crippled the efforts of diplomatic giants, like Richard Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton, to boost America's foundering credibility with world leaders.

Kicking the Hornet’s Nest is a riveting exploration of how twelve US presidents have shaped the Middle East, often unleashing instability and conflict along the way. It is also the story of one US president who successfully charted a better course. From Truman to Trump, Daniel Zoughbie meticulously unpacks the decisions that have set the stage for today’s unrest. But this book is more than just a history lesson; it’s a sharp analysis of presidential decision-making and its far-reaching consequences.

It has become axiomatic to contend that U.S. foreign policy must adapt to an era of renewed "great-power competition." The United States went on a quarter-century strategic detour after the Cold War, the argument goes, basking in triumphalism and getting bogged down in the Middle East. Now China and Russia are increasingly challenging its influence and undercutting the order it has led since 1945. How should it respond to these two formidable authoritarian powers?

A clear-eyed analysis of the role the United States should play in the world as it exists today.

When Joe Biden assumed the United States presidency, he brought with him a team of all-star talent, perhaps the most experienced ensemble of policy experts in modern U.S. history. Their mission: repair America’s damaged reputation abroad and decide the course of its global future. The challenges and risks could not have been greater. Acclaimed national security reporter Alexander Ward takes us behind the scenes to reveal the struggle to enact a coherent and effective set of policies in a time of global crisis.

Marvin Kalb, the award-winning journalist who has written extensively about the world he reported on during his long career, now turns his eye on the young man who became that journalist. Chosen by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow to become one of what came to be known as the Murrow Boys, Kalb in this newest volume of his memoirs takes listeners back to his first days as a journalist, and what also were the first days of broadcast news.

Robert Mandel offers a unique and comprehensive strategic vision for how governments, in partnership with the private sector, can deter cyberattacks from both nonstate and state actors. The audiobook includes 12 21st-century cyberattack case studies to draw insights into cyberdeterrence and determine the conditions under which it works most effectively. Mandel concludes by making recommendations for implementing cyberdeterrence and integrating it into broader national security policy.

For over 25 years, John Dickson served the United States as a Foreign Service officer. Dickson organizes History Shock around a country-by-country series of lively personal experience vignettes, followed by compelling historical analysis of the ways in which his inadequate understanding of the host country's history lead to history shock: where dramatically different interpretations of history blocked diplomatic understanding and cooperation.

With an economy and population that dwarf most industrialized nations, China is emerging as a 21st century global superpower. Even though China is an international leader in modern business and technology, its ancient history exerts a powerful force on its foreign policy. Christopher A. Ford expertly traces China's self-image and its role in the world order - from the age of Confucius to today. Ford argues that despite its exposure to and experience of the modern world, China is still strongly influenced by a hierarchical view of political order.

The United States is the world's leading foreign aid donor. Yet there has been little inquiry into how such assistance affects the politics and societies of recipient nations. Jessica Trisko Darden challenges long-standing ideas about aid and its consequences, and highlights key patterns in the relationship between assistance and violence. She persuasively demonstrates that many of the foreign aid policy challenges the US faced in the Cold War era, such as the propping up of dictators friendly to US interests, remain salient today.

Cogently, thoughtfully, powerfully, Pfaff lays out the historical roots behind the American exceptionalism that animates our politics and foreign relations - and makes clear why it is flawed and must ultimately fail. Those roots lie in the secularization of western society brought about by the Enlightenment, and in America's effective separation from the common history of the west during the 19th and early parts of the 20th century, during which it failed to gain "the indispensable experience Europeans have acquired of modern ideological folly and national tragedy."

Career Diplomacy takes listeners inside the world of American diplomats in the US Foreign Service. Members of the Foreign Service represent the country abroad, protect and support American citizens overseas, manage government programs and facilities, and move foreign policy from the abstract to the actual.

Bis heute gilt die für Spionage in der Bundesrepublik zuständige Abteilung der DDR-Staatssicherheit, die HVA, als einer der besten Auslandsgeheimdienste seiner Zeit. Von ehemaligen Mitarbeitern wird dieses Bild sorgfältig gepflegt. Unabhängig überprüfen ließ es sich bislang nicht, da fast alle einschlägigen Unterlagen vernichtet wurden. Doch nun muss die Geschichte des deutsch-deutschen Geheimdienstkrieges neu geschrieben werden.

Christoph Heusgen, seit Februar 2022 Chef der Münchener Sicherheitskonferenz, zeigt in seinem Buch, was geschehen muss, damit Deutschland eine neue, aktive Rolle in der Welt spielen kann. Der ehemalige Sicherheitsberater von Angela Merkel und UNO-Botschafter von 2017 bis 2021 hat die deutsche Außenpolitik der letzten fünfzehn Jahre begleitet wie kaum ein anderer—angesichts der Zeitenwende durch den Ukraine-Krieg plädiert er nun für einen neuen deutschen Kurs in der Außenpolitik.

This compilation began with the outrage of what happened at the Kabul, Afghanistan airport in August 2021 and ended with a discussion following the retirement in 2023 of one the principal figures in the ill-fated pullout, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley.

Schmitz illuminates how the policies FDR pursued in response to the crises of the 1930s transformed Americans' thinking about their place in the world. He shows how the president developed an interlocking set of ideas that prompted a debate between isolationism and preparedness, guided the United States into World War II, and mobilized support for the war while establishing a sense of responsibility for the postwar world.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States Army became the principal agent of American foreign policy. The army designed, implemented, and administered the occupations of the defeated Axis powers Germany and Japan, as well as many other nations. Generals such as Lucius Clay in Germany, Douglas MacArthur in Japan, Mark Clark in Austria, and John Hodge in Korea presided over these territories as proconsuls.

In Screwed!, best-selling authors Dick Morris and Eileen McGann lay bare the unvarnished facts as never before and suggest real, immediate, and specific steps to stop those who undermine our interests and take away our jobs. Morris and McGann have documented exactly how the United States is getting screwed, and how to stop it. They dig up the facts, name names, point fingers, and suggest concrete solutions - independent of partisan politics.

Awakening to China's Rise provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of how Europe's major powers have responded to the re-emergence of China as a great power in world politics since the end of the Cold War. To do so, it puts forward a unique cross-regional comparison of how the major European powers (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) have confronted Chinese assertiveness both in the Asia-Pacific and in Europe.