New Books in Diplomatic History

Jeremy Black, "How the Army Made Britain a Global Power: 1688-1815" (Casemate, 2021)

19 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the new book, How the Army Made Britain a Global Power: 1688-1815, published by Casemate, acclaimed historian and commentator Professor Jeremy Bla...

Jeremy Black, "Strategy and the Second World War: How the War Was Won, and Lost" (Robinson, 2021)

18 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A concise, accessible account of strategy and the Second World War, Strategy and the Second World War: How the War Was Won, and Lost (Robinson, 2021...

Tom Phuong Le, "Japan's Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century" (Columbia UP, 2021)

18 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since the end of World War II, Japan has not sought to remilitarize, and its postwar constitution commits to renouncing aggressive warfare. Yet many i...

Bogdan C. Iacob et al., "1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

16 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The collapse of the Berlin Wall has come to represent the entry of an isolated region onto the global stage. On the contrary, this study argues that c...

Margarita M. Balmaceda, "Russian Energy Chains: The Remaking of Technopolitics from Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union" (Wilson Center, 2021)

13 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Margarita Balmaceda’s Russian Energy Chains: The Remaking of Technopolitics from Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union (Columbia University Pre...

Jonathan Haslam, "The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II" (Princeton UP, 2021)

12 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II (Princeton UP, 2021), looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots o...

Ian Ona Johnson, "Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War" (Oxford UP, 2021)

10 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

German Ambassador Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau believed that Germany and the Soviet Union were locked together in a Schicksalgemienshaft, or “comm...

Nina Trige Andersen, "Labor Pioneers: Economy, Labor, and Migration in Filipino-Danish Relations, 1950-2015" (Ateneo de Manila UP, 2019)

06 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happened to the Filipinas who migrated to Denmark to staff iconic new international hotels in the 1960s and 1970s? Why did the Philippine governm...

James E. Lindsay and Suleiman Mourad, "Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period: An Anthology" (Hackett, 2021)

04 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the West, the study of the phenomenon known as the Crusades has long been dominated by European concerns: European periodization, European selectio...

Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler, "Women's International Thought: A New History" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

04 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Women’s International Thought: A New History (Cambridge University Press, 2021) is the first cross-disciplinary history of women's international t...

Brendan Goff, "Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism" (Harvard UP, 2021)

03 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 2021), Professor Brendan Goff traces the history of Rotary...

Brian Masaru Hayashi, "Asian American Spies: How Asian Americans Helped Win the Allied Victory" (Oxford UP, 2021)

03 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Spies deep behind enemy lines; double agents; a Chinese American James Bond; black propaganda radio broadcasters; guerrilla fighters; pirates; smuggle...

Chris Miller, "We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin" (Harvard UP, 2021)

29 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Russia’s position between Europe and Asia has led to differing conceptions of “what Russia is” to its leaders. Russia’s vast holdings east of ...

Riaz Dean, "Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies & Maps in 19th Century-Central Asia, India and Tibet" (Casemate, 2019)

29 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“A map is the greatest of all epic poems, its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.” --Gilbert Grosvenor The Great Game raged thr...

David Veevers, "The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

28 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. In The Origins of the British Emp...

Michal Kšiňan, "Milan Rastislav Štefánik: The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia" (Routledge, 2021)

27 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Michal Kšiňan’s Milan Rastislav Štefánik: The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia is the first scientific biography of Mil...

Tonio Andrade, "The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China" (Princeton UP, 2021)

22 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On January 10th, 1795, a very tired caravan arrives in Beijing. The travelers have journeyed from Canton on an accelerated schedule through harsh terr...

Phillip T. Lohaus, "Power and Complacency: American Survival in an Age of International Competition" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

21 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why has the United States, the world’s premier military and economic power, struggled recently to achieve its foreign policy desiderata? How might A...

Benjamin Allen Coates, "Legalist Empire: International Law and American Foreign Relations in the Early Twentieth Century" (Oxford UP, 2019)

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It might seem somewhat paradoxical that in the Wars of 1898 and their aftermath—the era in which the United States expanded its imperial reach deep ...

Ruth Ahnert et al., "The Network Turn: Changing Perspectives in the Humanities" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

14 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We live in a networked world. Online social networking platforms and the World Wide Web have changed how society thinks about connectivity. Because of...

Nick Lloyd, "The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918" (Liveright, 2021)

09 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dir...

Cees Heere, "Empire Ascendant: The British World, Race, and the Rise of Japan, 1894-1914" (Oxford UP, 2020)

07 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1902, the British government concluded a defensive alliance with Japan, a state that had surprised much of the world with its sudden rise to promin...

Susan Eisenhower, "How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions" (Thomas Dunne, 2020)

05 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower, nor has one person had to make such a varied range of them. From D-Day to Little Rock, from...

Sinja Graf, "The Humanity of Universal Crime: Inclusion, Inequality, and Intervention in International Political Thought" (Oxford UP, 2021)

01 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We often hear or read the phrase “crimes against humanity” when we learn about the Holocaust, or genocide in places like Rwanda or Serbia. And jus...

Christopher Grey, "Brexit Unfolded: How No One Got What They Wanted (and Why They Were Never Going To)" (Biteback, 2021)

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2020-21, the UK left first the EU and then the 30-nation European Economic Area. Much of the impact has been masked by the coronavirus pandemic but...

Marie Favereau, "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World" (Harvard UP, 2021)

29 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Mongols are widely known for one thing: conquest. Through the ages, word "horde" has entered the English lexicon with a negative connotation, conj...

Giovanni Mantilla, "Lawmaking Under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict" (Cornell UP, 2020)

25 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Giovanni Mantilla’s new book, Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict (Cornell University Press, 2020...

Philip Zelikow, "The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917" (PublicAffairs, 2021)

24 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During a pivotal few months in the middle of the First World War all sides-Germany, Britain, and America-believed the war could be concluded. Peace at...

Sean McMeekin, "Stalin's War: A New History of World War II" (Basic Books, 2021)

23 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was ...

Ecological Civilization: Chinese Dream or Global Strategy?

18 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How seriously should take the Chinese government’s discourse about ‘ecological civilization’? Mette Hansen argues that whatever the shortcomings...

Gender and Diplomacy in the Time of COVID-19

16 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people indoors and has moved even important businesses and interactions online. Diplomatic interactions are no except...

Colin Calloway, "The Chiefs Now in This City: Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America" (Oxford UP, 2021)

15 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the years of the Early Republic, prominent Native leaders regularly traveled to American cities--Albany, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, Mont...

Andrei P. Tsygankov, "Russia and America: The Asymmetric Rivalry" (Polity, 2019)

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In recent times, US-Russia relations have deteriorated to what both sides acknowledge is an “all time low.” Russian interference in the 2016 US pr...

William A. Callahan, "Sensible Politics: Visualizing International Relations" (Oxford UP, 2020)

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How can we theorize international relations by looking at how nose sizes are depicted in Asian art and literature? Why are Vietnamese immigration offi...

Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty, "Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees" (Oxford UP, 2021)

07 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

States face choices when people forced to leave their states due to persecution or violence seek refuge. They may assert their sovereignty by either g...

Jeremy Black, "To Lose an Empire: British Strategy and Foreign Policy, 1758-90" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bringing strategy, foreign policy, domestic and imperial politics together, this book challenges the conventional understanding as to why the British ...

R. J. B. Bosworth, "Mussolini and the Eclipse of Italian Fascism: From Dictatorship to Populism" (Yale UP, 2021)

25 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A new and incisive account of how Mussolini pioneered policies which we would not label ‘populism’ in reaction to Hitler’s rise to power in 1933...

Christoph Brumann, "The Best We Share: Nation, Culture and World-Making in the UNESCO World Heritage Arena" (Berghahn, 2021)

25 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely cov...

How China Loses: A Discussion with Luke Patey

17 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Western media accounts often suggest that China is rising inexorably as a global economic and political powerhouse. A new book by Luke Patey offers a ...

Odd Arne Westad, "Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations" (Harvard UP, 2021)

07 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Being arguably each side’s most enduring international bond, the China-Korea relationship has long been of great practical and symbolic importance t...

Shivshankar Menon, "India and Asian Geopolitics" (Brookings, 2021)

03 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A clear-eyed look at modern India's role in Asia and the broader world. One of India's most distinguished foreign policy thinkers addresses the many ...

Stella Ghervas, "Conquering Peace: From the Enlightenment to the European Union" (Harvard UP, 2021)

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Stella Ghervas's Conquering Peace: From the Enlightenment to the European Union (Harvard University Press, 2021) is a bold new look at war and dipl...

John Ferris, "Behind the Enigma: The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For more than a hundred years, Britain’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, has played a central role in the conduct of British statecraft. But the ...

Erik Grimmer-Solem, "Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The First World War marked the end point of a process of German globalization that began in the 1870s, well before Germany acquired a colonial empire ...

Douglas M. O'Reagan, "Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)

23 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science After the Second World War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), Dou...

David Hosaflook (trans.), "The Siege of Shkodra: Albania's Courageous Stand Against Ottoman Conquest, 1478" (2017)

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mehmet the Conqueror shook Europe to its foundations when he captured Constantinople in 1453 and, over the next decades, the Ottoman sultan continued ...

Stefano Marcuzzi, "Britain and Italy in the Era of the First World War: Defending and Forging Empires" (Cambridge UP, 2020).

14 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is a reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Max Weber Fellow at the European Uni...

Anne Searcy, "Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange" (Oxford UP, 2020)

09 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the Cold War, cultural diplomacy was one way that the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union tried to cultivate goodwill towards...

Christopher R. Dietrich, "A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present" (John Wiley & Sons, 2020)

08 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The field of US foreign-relations history is not what it used to be, and that’s a good thing. Earlier historians narrowly defined the field as diplo...

Elisabeth Piller, "Selling Weimar: German Public Diplomacy and the United States, 1918-1933" (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2020)

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the decade after World War I, German-American relations improved swiftly. While resentment and bitterness ran high on both sides in 1919, Weimar Ge...

Oya Dursun-Özkanca, "Turkey–West Relations: The Politics of Intra-alliance Opposition" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

22 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do we make sense of Turkey’s recent turn against the West – after decades of Turkish cooperation and desire to be integrated into the European...

Tansen Sen and Brian Tsui, "Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s-1960s" (Oxford UP, 2020)

22 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What were the stories of modern China-India relations in the age of empires? How did India and China engage with each other beyond pan-Asianist and an...

T. G. Otte, "Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey" (Penguin, 2020)

08 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

'The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time.' The words of Sir Edward Grey, looking out from the window...

Philip Mansel, "King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV" (U of Chicago Press, 2019).

03 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Mansel, a trustee of the Society for Court Studies and President of the Research Center of the Chateau de Versailles, has written a one-volume ...

Alexander Morrison, "The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

02 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander Morrison’s study of the conquest of Central Asia offers new perspectives on a topic long obscured by misleading grand narratives. Based on...

Fiona Greenland, "Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Raiders, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy" (U of Chicago Press, 2021)

26 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Fiona Greenland, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, to talk about her new book, Ruling Culture: ...

John D. Wilsey, "God's Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles" (Eardmans, 2021)

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1945. President Eisenhowe...

Rachel Applebaum, "Empire of Friends: Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold War Czechoslovakia" (Cornell UP, 2019)

23 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends: Soviet Po...

Stephen Wall, "Reluctant European: Britain and the European Union from 1945 to Brexit" (Oxford UP, 2020)

15 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, the voters of the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union. The majority for 'Leave' was small. Yet, in more than 40 years of EU me...

Michael R. Auslin, "Asia's New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific" (Hoover Institution Press, 2020)

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is the Indo-Pacific already the most dominant in terms of global power, politics, and wealth? In his newest book, Michael R. Auslin considers the k...

Amit Bein, "Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East: International Relations in the Interwar Period" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

To better understand the lasting legacy of international relations in the post-Ottoman Middle East, Amit Bein's Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East:...

Frank L. Jones, "Sam Nunn: Statesman of the Nuclear Age" (UP Kansas, 2020)

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In a 2012 opinion piece bemoaning the state of the US Senate, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank cited a “leading theory: There are no giants in...

Steven Press, "Rogue Empires: Contracts and Conmen in Europe's Scramble for Africa" (Harvard UP, 2017)

02 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Steven Press is an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. His marvelous first book, Rogue Empires: Contracts and Conmen in Europe’s...

Thomas C. Field, "From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era" (Cornell UP, 2014)

29 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do ideologies of development shape the perceptions of security threats of US foreign policymakers and the political and military leaders of develo...

Bill Sewell, "Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun, 1905-45" (UBC Press, 2019)

25 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happens to everyday-life in a city when it becomes subsumed into an empire? Who becomes responsible for the everyday building and management of t...

Vanessa Mongey, "Rogue Revolutionaries: The Fight for Legitimacy in the Greater Caribbean" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)

20 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The University of Pennsylvania describes Mongey's work as follows. "When we think of the Age of Revolutions, George Washington, Robespierre, Toussain...

Jeremy Pressman, "The Sword is Not Enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the Limits of Military Force" (Manchester UP, 2020)

07 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Pressman is Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of Middle East Studies at the University of Connecticut. Jeremy is the au...

Vernon Bogdanor, "Britain and Europe in a Troubled World" (Yale UP, 2019)

06 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is Britain a part of Europe? The British have been ambivalent on this question since the Second World War, when the Western European nations sought to...

Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, "War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-right Circle of Global Power Brokers" (Dey Street Books, 2020)

28 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

An explosive and unprecedented inside look at Steve Bannon's entourage of global powerbrokers and the hidden alliances shaping today's geopolitical up...

Mark Cornwall, "Sarajevo 1914: Sparking the First World War" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. This key event in 20th-century history continues to fascin...

Heather L. Dichter, "Soccer Diplomacy: International Relations and Football since 1914" (UP of Kentucky, 2020)

15 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Heather Dichter, Associate Professor of Sports History and Sports Management at DeMontfort University and fellow at the interna...

Alan McPherson, "Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet's Terror State to Justice" (UNC Press, 2019)

15 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On September 21, 1976, a car bomb exploded in Washington DC, killing a former Chilean diplomat named Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni...

Eric Zolov, "The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties" (Duke UP, 2020)

09 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties (Duke UP, 2020), Professor Eric Zolov retells the history of 1960s Mexico by focusing on th...

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

08 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Oluwakemi M. Balogun, "Beauty Diplomacy: Embodying an Emerging Nation" (Stanford UP, 2020)

04 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Even as beauty pageants have been critiqued as misogynistic and dated cultural vestiges of the past in the US and elsewhere, the pageant industry is g...

Michael Brenes, "For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump campaigned on a great many things in 2016, but one of the issues he used to criticize Democrats was their role in supporting sequestratio...

Covell F. Meyskens, "Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

01 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1964, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a momentous policy decision. In response to rising tensions with the United States and Soviet Union, a...

Charles A. Kupchan, "Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World" (Oxford UP, 2020)

01 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the past few years isolationism, which had long been derided in the national discourse, has been making a comeback as a political force. In Isolat...

Jeremy Black, "Geopolitics and the Quest for Dominance" (Indiana UP, 2016)

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

History and geography delineate the operation of power, not only its range but also the capacity to plan and the ability to implement. Approaching sta...

Paul Jankowski, "All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and the Origins of the Second World War" (Harper, 2020)

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest monograph, All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and The Origins of the Second World War (Harper, 2020), Professor Paul Jankowski (...

Victoria Phillips, "Martha Graham's Cold War: The Dance of American Diplomacy" (Oxford UP, 2019)

24 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Victoria Phillips adeptly tells the story of Martha Graham's role as diplomat, arts innovator, and dancer. Her book Martha Graham's Cold War: The...

Sebastian Strangio, "In the Dragon's Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century" (Yale UP, 2020)

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries Southeast Asia has enjoyed a relatively pleasant relationship with China, its massive neighbor to the north. While Chinese merchants and...

J. E. Peterson, "The Emergence of the Gulf States: Studies in Modern History" (Bloomsbury, 2016)

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Emergence of the Gulf States: Studies in Modern History (Bloomsbury, 2016) offers an overview of the history of Saudi Arabia and the five Persian/...

Luke A. Nichter, "The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War" (Yale UP, 2020)

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the grand-son of Woodrow Wilson’s senatoria...

Christopher J. Lee, "Making a World After Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives" (Ohio UP, 2019)

17 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1955, twenty-nine countries from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East came together for a diplomatic conference in Bandung, Indonesia, intending...

Daniel Deudney, "Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity" (Oxford UP, 2020)

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Space is again in the headlines. E-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are planning to colonize Mars. The Trump Administration has created a "Space ...

Southeast Asian Performance, Ethnic Identity and China’s Soft Power: A Discussion with Dr Josh Stenberg

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From glove puppets of Chinese origin and Hakka religious processions, to wartime political theatre and contemporary choirs and dance groups, the diver...

Joanne Paul, "Counsel and Command in Early Modern English Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

While it has often been recognized that counsel formed an essential part of the political discourse in early modern England, the precise role that it ...

Ken Tully and Chad Leahy, "Jerusalem Afflicted: Quaresmius, Spain, and the Idea of a 17th-century Crusade" (Routledge, 2019)

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On Good Friday, 1626, Franciscus Quaresmius delivered a sermon in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem calling on King Philip IV of Spain to ...

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

10 Nov 2020

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...

Agnès Delahaye, "Settling the Good Land: Governance and Promotion in John Winthrop’s New England" (Brill, 2020)

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Agnès Delahaye’s new book, Settling the Good Land: Governance and Promotion in John Winthrop’s New England (Brill, 2020), is the story of John Wi...

Ian Buruma, "The Churchill Complex" (Penguin Press, 2020)

30 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From one of its keenest observers, The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, from Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit (Penguin Press) is a br...

Robert Zoellick, "America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy" (Twelve, 2020)

29 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ranging from Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and James Baker, America in the World: A H...

Martyn Rady, "The Habsburgs: To Rule the World" (Basic Books, 2020)

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Habsburgs: To Rule the World (Basic Books, 2020), Martyn Rady, Masaryk Professor of Central European History at University College London, te...

Michael Walzer, "A Foreign Policy for the Left" (Yale UP, 2018)

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In my old age, I try to argue more quietly, though I still believe that sharp disagreement is a sign of political seriousness. What engaged citizens t...

Chris Fenton, "Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business" (Post Hill Press, 2020)

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For seventeen years, Chris Fenton served as the president of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group, a multi-billion-dollar global media company headq...

Denise E. Bates, "Basket Diplomacy: Leadership, Alliance-Building, and Resilience among the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, 1884-1984" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)

02 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Before the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana became one of the state’s top private employers—with its vast landholdings and economic enterprises—they...

Lorenz M. Lüthi, "Cold Wars: Asia, the Middle East, Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

25 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What was the Cold War that shook world politics for the second half of the twentieth century? Standard narratives focus on Soviet-American rivalry as ...

Learning from Rwanda: How 100 Days of Mass Killing Finally Led to International Reform (Part 2)

23 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Rwanda witnessed a 100-day mass genocide back in 1994, when the ethnic Hutu government and its supporters led a campaign that left around 800,000 peop...

Justin Q. Olmstead, "The United States' Entry into the First World War: The Role of British and German Diplomacy" (Boydell Press, 2019)

22 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The complicated situation which led to the American entry into the First World War in 1917 is often explained from the perspective of public opinion, ...