New Books in Diplomatic History

Helena F. S. Lopes, "Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The South China enclave of Macau was the first and last European colonial settlement in East Asia and a territory at the crossroads of different empir...

S4E9 The Fragility of China: A Conversation with Dennis Unkovic

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Madison's Notes, we sit down with Dennis Unkovic to discuss his latest book, The Fragility of China (Encounter Books, 2024). Unk...

Zach Fredman, "The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941–1949" (UNC Press, 2022)

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941–1949 (UNC Press, 2022) explores the wartime partnership between China...

The UN and its Discreet Diplomacy in Peacemaking

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on International Horizons, RBI Director John Torpey interviews Bertrand Ramcharan, former top UN diplomat and author of the recent book, Th...

Nick Lloyd, "The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918" (Norton, 2024)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Writing in the 1920s, Winston Churchill argued that the First World War on the Eastern Front was "incomparably the greatest war in history. In its sca...

Jeffrey Ding, "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition" (Princeton UP, 2024)

05 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When scholars and policymakers consider how technological advances affect the rise and fall of great powers, they draw on theories that center the mom...

Megan Bradley et al., "IOM Unbound?: Obligations and Accountability of the International Organization for Migration in an Era of Expansion" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

05 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It is an era of expansion for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an increasingly influential actor in the global governance of migrat...

Sean McMeekin, "To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism" (Basic Books, 2024)

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia ...

Mary Bridges, "Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower" (Princeton UP, 2024)

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There was nothing inevitable or natural about the rise of US finance capitalism in the early twentieth century.  In Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers...

Amos C. Fox, "Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare" (Howgate, 2024)

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you seek a compelling exploration of contemporary armed conflict, then Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare ...

Samuel J. Hirst, "Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939" (Oxford UP, 2024)

28 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the aftermath of the First World War the Western great powers sought to redefine international norms according to their liberal vision. They introd...

Jeff Schuhrke, "Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade" (Verso, 2024)

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad. Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Glo...

Ian Williams, "Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024)

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. Ho...

Kerry Brown, "The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power" (Yale UP, 2024)

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I tried to send several letters to her Chinese counterpart, the Wan Li Emperor. The letters tried to ask the...

Caroline Burt and Richard Partington, "Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State" (Faber & Faber, 2024)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State (Faber & Faber, 2024) offers a lively, new and sweeping history of the rise of the sta...

Mikhail Zygar, "War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine" (Scribner, 2023)

15 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar circulated a Facebook petition signed first b...

Lynn M. Tesser, "Rethinking the End of Empire: Nationalism, State Formation, and Great Power Politics" (Stanford UP, 2024)

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why did a nation-state order emerge when nationalist activism was usually an elitist pursuit in the age of empire? Ordinary inhabitants and even most ...

Isaac Nakhimovsky, "The Holy Alliance: Liberalism and the Politics of Federation" (Princeton UP, 2024)

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Holy Alliance is now most familiar as a label for conspiratorial reaction. In The Holy Alliance: Liberalism and the Politics of Federation (Prin...

Peter Rose, "The Good War of Consul Reeves" (Blacksmith Books, 2024)

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, i...

The Relations of Estonia and Japan from the 19th Century to early-21st Century

08 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is there much to say about historical ties between two countries that are 8000 kilometres apart from each other? Actually, yes. In this episode Ene Se...

James M. Scott, "Black Snow: Curtis Lemay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb" (Norton, 2024)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our interview about Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022), James M. ...

Gill Bennett, “The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy that Never Dies” (Oxford UP, 2018)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Zinoviev Affair is a story of one of the most long-lasting and enduring conspiracy theories in modern British politics, an intrigue that still re...

Edwin P Rutan II, "High-Bounty Men in the Army of the Potomac: Reclaiming Their Honor" (Kent State UP, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his recent book, High-Bounty Men in the Army of the Potomac: Reclaiming Their Honor (The Kent State University Press, 2024), Edwin P. Rutan II re...

Laura Robson and Arie Dubnov, "Partitions: A Transnational History of Twentieth-Century Territorial Separatism" (Stanford UP, 2019)

29 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The practice of Partition understood as the physical division of territory along ethno-religious lines into separate nation-states is often regarded a...

Christian Bueger and Timothy Edmunds, "Understanding Maritime Security" (Oxford UP, 2024)

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Whether it is pirates, smugglers, illicit fishing, or disputes in the South China Sea, the oceans are of increasing importance in international securi...

Michelle Tusan, "The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Michelle Tusan profoundly reshapes the stor...

Robin E. Möser, "Disarming Apartheid: The End of South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Programme and Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1968–1991" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

South Africa remains the only state that developed a nuclear weapons capability, but ultimately decided to dismantle existing weapons and abandon the ...

Robert Vitalis, "Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy" (Stanford UP, 2020)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We've heard and rehearsed the conventional wisdom about oil: that the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees access to this str...

Eyck Freymann, "One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World" (Harvard UP, 2020)

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China’s One Belt One Road policy, or OBOR, represents the largest infrastructure program in history. Yet little is known about it with any certainty...

Anders Persson, "EU Diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967-2019" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

24 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly 50 years since the European Foreign Ministers issued their first declaration on the conflict between Israel and Palestine in 1971, the Europea...

Oliver Volckart, "The Silver Empire: How Germany Created Its First Common Currency" (Oxford UP, 2024)

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The problems that gave rise to the widespread desire to introduce a common currency were myriad. While trade was able to cope with-and even to benefit...

Gregory Makoff, "Default: The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina's $100 Billion Debt Restructuring" (Georgetown UP, 2024)

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The dramatic inside story of the most important case in the history of sovereign debt law Unlike individuals or corporations that become insolvent, na...

Angela Geck, "The Power to Persuade: Strategic Arguing at the World Trade Organization" (U Toronto Press, 2024)

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Power to Persuade: Strategic Arguing at the World Trade Organization (University of Toronto Press, 2024) by Dr. Angela Geck provides an innovativ...

Justine Bendel, "Litigating the Environment: Process and Procedure Before International Courts and Tribunals" (Edward Elgar, 2023)

18 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Litigating the Environment: Process and Procedure Before International Courts and Tribunals (Edward Elgar, 2023), Dr Justine Bendel scrutinises h...

Jeremy Black, "Rethinking Geopolitics" (Indiana UP, 2024)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Amid the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2021 and the escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait, the geopolitical balance of power has change...

Isabel Bramsen, "The Micro-Sociology of Peace and Conflict" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do micro-interactions of resistance, fighting and dialogue shape larger patterns of peace and conflict? How can nonviolent resistance, conflict tr...

Lauren Benton, "They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence" (Princeton UP, 2024)

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A sweeping account of how small wars shaped global order in the age of empires. Imperial conquest and colonization depended on pervasive raiding, slav...

Barbara Emerson, "The First Cold War: Anglo-Russian Relations in the 19th Century" (Hurst, 2024)

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Britain and Russia maintained a frosty civility for a few years after Napoleon's defeat in 1815. But, by the 1820s, their relations degenerated into c...

Marc Ambinder, “The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983” (Simon & Schuster, 2018)

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983 (Simon & Schuster, 2018), by Marc Ambinder, is a history of US-Soviet Relations under Ro...

Matthew Evangelista, "Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940–1945: Bombing among Friends" (Routledge, 2024)

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tens of thousands of Italian civilians perished in the Allied bombing raids of World War II. More of them died after the Armistice of September 1943...

The Dragonbear in the Geopolitics of the 21st Century

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the “dragonbear”? It is a metophor of an emerging strategic alliance between Russia and China. In this episdoe, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to...

Petra Goedde, "The Politics of Peace: A Global Cold War History" (Oxford UP, 2019)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier histories of the Cold War haven’t exactly been charitable toward the peace activists and pacifists who led peace initiatives. Pacifists in t...

Jeremy Black, "Histories of War" (Pen & Sword Military, 2024)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A global account of histories of war, from Antiquity to the present day, Histories of War (Pen & Sword Military, 2024) shows how the varied modes of...

Edward Kaplan, "The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age" (Cornell UP, 2022)

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Waging and winning a nuclear war have been called “thinking about the unthinkable” but that’s exactly what Edward Kaplan and I discussed in our ...

On Sino-Vietnamese Border Relations

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, host SEAC Director John Sidel talks with Dr Qingfei Yin, SEAC Associate and Assistant Professor of International History at LSE. Dr Q...

David A. Messenger, "Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain" (LSU Press, 2014)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the waning days and immediate aftermath of World War II, Nazi diplomats and spies based in Spain decided to stay rather than return to a defeated G...

Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, "The Soviet-Israeli War, 1967-1973: The USSR's Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2017)

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Russia's forceful re-entry into the Middle Eastern arena, and the accentuated continuity of Soviet policy and methods of the 1960s and '70s, highlight...

Tiffany Gill, "To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism" (U Illinois Press, 2019)

21 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Black women undertook an energetic and unprecedented engagement with internationalism from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. In many cases, th...

Jacob Lee, "Masters of the Middle Waters: Indian Nations and Colonial Ambitions Along the Mississippi" (Harvard UP, 2019)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

America’s waterways were once the superhighways of travel and communication. Coursing through a central line across the landscape, with tributaries ...

Sino-Pacific Relations: A Discussion with Rodolfo Maggio

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 2024 Solomon Islands elections were surprisingly peaceful. The deepening economic inequalities, widespread corruption, rogue demagogues manipulati...

Mónica A. Jiménez, "Making Never-Never Land: Race and Law in the Creation of Puerto Rico" (UNC Press, 2024)

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Myths about the powers held by the United States are often supported by the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which derives its logic from the interp...

Mark L. Haas, "Frenemies: When Ideological Enemies Ally" (Cornell UP, 2022)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Alliances among ideological enemies confronting a common foe, or "frenemy" alliances, are unlike coalitions among ideologically-similar states facing ...

Zana Gulmohamad, "The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How is foreign policy made in Iraq? Based on dozens of interviews with senior officials and politicians, The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Politi...

Karine Varley, "Vichy's Double Bind: French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Karine Varley's book Vichy's Double Bind: French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War (Cambridge UP, 2023) advanc...

Miranda Melcher, "Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique: The Importance of Specificity in Peace Treaties" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Explaining how and why there are such diverging outcomes of UN peace negotiations and treaties, this book offers a detailed examination of peace proce...

Dmitri Alperovitch, "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century" (PublicAffairs, 2024)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century (PublicAffairs, 2024), Dmitri Alperovitch (with Garret...

J. Megan Greene, "Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II" (Harvard UP, 2022)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II (Harv...

Donald Stoker, "Purpose and Power: US Grand Strategy from the Revolutionary Era to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our interview, I spoke with Donald Stoker about the changes in American grand strategy over the past 250 years and the major themes from his new bo...

Orazio Coco, "Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War" (Routledge, 2024)

23 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War (Routledge, 2024) presents a comprehensive narr...

Andreas Fulda, "Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security" (Bloombury, 2024)

22 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a groundbreaking book, of which the findings h...

M. Girard Dorsey, "Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II" (Cornell UP, 2023)

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II (Cornell UP, 2023), M. Girard Dorsey uncovers jus...

Joanna Siekiera, "21st Century as the Pacific Century: Culture and Security of Oceania States in Great Power Competition" (Warsaw UP, 2023)

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With the ever-greater shift of the balance of global power towards the Pacific region, what does this have implications for the geopolitics of the reg...

Kira Huju, "Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order" (Oxford UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth,...

John Keane and Baogang He, "China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century" (Oxford UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. B...

David Criekemans, "Geopolitics and International Relations: Grounding World Politics Anew" (Brill, 2021)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Although we live in a globalised world, territorially embedded factors are highly relevant in such domains as security, economy, energy, environment, ...

Lydia Walker, "States-in-Waiting: A Counter Narrative of Global Decolonization" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Lydia Walker's deeply researched and carefully narrated debut monograph, States-in-Waiting: A Counter Narrative of Global Decolonization (Cambr...

Timothy P. Storhoff, "Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) explores the channels of musical exchange between Cuba...

Ibrahim Fraihat, "Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration ...

Miles M. Evers and Eric Grynaviski, "The Price of Empire: American Entrepreneurs and the Origins of America's First Pacific Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The United States was an upside-down British Empire. It had an agrarian economy, few large investors, and no territorial holdings outside of North Ame...

We Should Not Take the UN For Granted: A Discussion with Abiodun Williams

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In times where conflicts around the globe are an everyday topic, the place of the United Nations in resolving these conflicts is constantly being ques...

Kazushi Minami, "People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2024)

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2024), Kazushi Minami shows how th...

Gary J. Bass, "Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia" (Knopf, 2023)

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1948, a panel of 12 judges sentenced 23 Japanese officials for war crimes. Seven, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, were senten...

Seyed Ali Alavi, "Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future" (Routledge, 2019)

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Iran and Palestine: Past, Present and Future (Routledge, 2019), Seyed Ali Alavi (SOAS University of London) surveys the history of the relationship...

Vanessa Walker, "Principles in Power: Latin America and the Politics of U.S. Human Rights Diplomacy" (Cornell UP, 2020)

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Vanessa Walker's Principles in Power: Latin America and the Politics of U. S. Human Rights Diplomacy (Cornell University Press, 2020) explores the r...

Mark Moyar, "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968" (Encounter, 2023)

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 (Encounter, 2023) is the long-awaited sequel to the immensely influential Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam...

Robert Lyman, "A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma, and Britain: 1941–45" (Osprey, 2021)

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1941 and 1942 the British and Indian Armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its newly conquered territories throughout Asia. Bu...

Stuart A. Reid, "The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination" (Knopf, 2023)

19 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Stuart Reid about his new book The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination (Knopf, 2023). It was...

Anna Brinkman, "Balancing Strategy: Sea Power, Neutrality, and Prize Law in the Seven Years' War" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

18 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the relationship between seapower, law, and strategy? In Balancing Strategy: Seapower, Neutrality, and Prize-Law in the Seven Years' War (Ca...

Lisa Langdon Koch, "Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs" (Oxford UP, 2023)

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the nuclear age, states have taken many different paths toward or away from nuclear weapons. These paths have been difficult to predict and...

Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, "Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade" (Harvard UP, 2024)

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China...

Christopher Tounsel, "Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity" (Cornell UP, 2024)

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Tounsel's book Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the history of ...

Lisa Bhungalia, "Elastic Empire: Refashioning War Through Aid in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2023)

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The United States integrated counterterrorism mandates into its aid flows in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the early years of the global war on ...

Jeremy Garlick, "Advantage China: Agent of Change in an Era of Global Disruption" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China’s rise to global prominence is a pretty good contender for the most important world development in the past 30 years. But now the question is ...

David Tal, "The Making of an Alliance: The Origins and Development of the US-Israel Relationship" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Laying the foundation for an understanding of US-Israeli relations, this lively and accessible book provides critical background on the origins and de...

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, "Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

05 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1935, two Soviet satirists, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, undertook a 10,000-mile American road trip from New York to Hollywood and back. They immort...

Donald Stoker, "Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

05 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this provocative challenge to United States policy and strategy, former Professor of Strategy & Policy at the US Naval War College, and author or e...

Mateo Jarquín, "The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History" (UNC Press, 2024)

04 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Sandinista Revolution and its victory against the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua gripped the United States and the world in the 1980s. But as so...

Mukund Padmanabhan, "The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-invasion (Vintage Books, 2024)

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1942, at least half a million people fled the city of Madras, now known as Chennai. The reason? The British, after weeks of growing unease ab...

On the History and Evolution of Zionism

22 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On today's episode of the New Books Network, we are privileged to have Professor Arie Dubnov joining us for an in-depth discussion on the multifacet...

Robert D. Kaplan, "The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China" (Random House, 2023)

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Middle East remains one of the world’s most complicated, thorny—and, uncharitably, unstable—parts of the world, as countless headlines make ...

Traian Sandu, "Ceausescu: The Ambiguous Dictator" (Perrin, 2023)

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his ...

Mauricio Fernando Castro, "Only a Few Blocks to Cuba: Cold War Refugee Policy, the Cuban Diaspora, and the Transformations of Miami" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Only a Few Blocks to Cuba: Cold War Refugee Policy, the Cuban Diaspora, and the Transformations of Miami (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024), Mauricio C...

Louis Howard Porter, "Reds in Blue: UNESCO, World Governance, and the Soviet Internationalist Imagination" (Oxford UP, 2023)

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Before Josef Stalin's death in 1953, the USSR had, at best, an ambivalent relationship with noncommunist international organisations. Although it had ...

Matthieu Grandpierron, "Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Powers Cope with Status Decline" (McGill-Queen's Press, 2024)

02 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do great powers go to war? Why are non-violent, diplomatic options not prioritised? Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Po...

Yuliya Zabyelina, "Between Immunity and Impunity: External Accountability of Political Elites for Transnational Crime" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

31 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do top-level public officials take advantage of immunity from foreign jurisdiction afforded to them by international law? How does the immunity en...

David Veevers, "The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire" (Ebury Press, 2023)

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s very easy to study the history of the British Empire from the perspective of, well, the British–and to extend the early 20th century version ...

William Bain, "Political Theology of International Order" (Oxford UP, 2020)

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is contemporary international order truly a secular arrangement? Theorists of international relations typically adhere to a narrative that portrays th...

George S. Takach, "Cold War 2.0: Artificial Intelligence in the New Battle between China, Russia, and America" (Pegasus Book, 2024)

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A vivid, thoughtful examination of how technological innovation—especially AI—is shaping the tensions between democracy and autocracy during the n...

Emily Conroy-Krutz, "Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations" (Cornell UP, 2024)

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024) illuminates the crucial place of re...

Marc-William Palen, "Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World" (Princeton UP, 2024)

23 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A new economic history which uncovers the forgotten left-wing, anti-imperial, pacifist origins of economic cosmopolitanism and free trade from the mid...