International Relations Theory

Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form.

The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against "failed states" around the globe. In this much-anticipated sequel to his international best seller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, charging the United States with being a "failed state", and therefore a danger to its own people and the world.

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.

The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the former Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.

Analyzing Haiti, Latin America, Cuba, Indonesia, and even packets of the Third World developing in the United States, Noam Chomsky draws parallels between the genocide of colonial times and the murder and exploitation associated with modern-day imperialism.

Susan Butler's brilliantly listenable audiobook firmly places FDR where he belongs, as the American president engaged most directly in diplomacy and strategy, who not only had an ambitious plan for the postwar world but had the strength, ambition, and personal charm to overcome Churchill's reluctance and Stalin's suspicion to bring about what was, in effect, an American peace and to avoid the disastrous consequences that followed the botched peace of Versailles in 1919.

One fateful week in June 1967 redrew the map of the Middle East. Many scholars have documented how the Six-Day War unfolded, but little has been done to explain why the conflict happened at all. As we approach its 50th anniversary, Guy Laron refutes the widely accepted belief that the war was merely the result of regional friction, revealing the crucial roles played by American and Soviet policies in the face of an encroaching global economic crisis and restoring Syria's often overlooked centrality to events leading up to the hostilities.

In the late 1970s, the United States often seemed to be a superpower in decline. Battered by crises and setbacks around the globe, its post–World War II international leadership appeared to be draining steadily away. Yet just over a decade later, by the early 1990s, America's global primacy had been reasserted in dramatic fashion. The Cold War had ended with Washington and its allies triumphant; democracy and free markets were spreading like never before.

Conflicts over specific rules lie at the heart of the disputes, which are about much more than sovereignty over islands and rocks in the South and East China Seas. Instead, the main contests concern the strategic maritime space associated with those islands. To consolidate control over this vital maritime space, China's leaders have begun to implement "China's law of the sea": building domestic legal institutions, bureaucratic organizations, and a naval and maritime law enforcement apparatus to establish China's preferred maritime rules on the water and in the diplomatic arena.

From Michael Beschloss, one of America's most respected historians, The Conquerors reveals one of the most important stories of World War II. As Allied soldiers fought the Nazis, Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Harry Truman fought in private with Churchill and Stalin over how to ensure that Germany could never threaten the world again.

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.

It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and if your anxiety about it is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today.

"Grand strategy" is one of the most widely used and abused concepts in the foreign policy lexicon. In this important book, Hal Brands explains why grand strategy is a concept that is so alluring - and so elusive - to those who make American statecraft. He explores what grand strategy is, why it is so essential, and why it is so hard to get right amid the turbulence of global affairs and the chaos of domestic politics.

In 1961, Thomas Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict used game theory to radically reenvision the US-Soviet relationship and establish the basis of international relations for the rest of the Cold War. Now, Anne-Marie Slaughter - one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers from 2009 to 2012, and the first woman to serve as director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning - applies network theory to develop a new set of strategies for the post-Cold War world.

In Doomed to Succeed, Ross takes us through every administration from Truman to Obama, throwing into dramatic relief each president's attitudes toward Israel and the region, the often tumultuous debates between key advisers, and the events that drove the policies and at times led to a shift in approach.

In this long-awaited successor to his #1 best seller The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam describes in fascinating human detail how the shadow of Cold War Vietnam still hangs over American foreign policy, and how domestic politics have determined our role as a world power.

A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the 20th century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as US secretary of state. A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, 'is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.'

A CIA station chief, later Jordan's lawyer in Washington, reveals the secret history of a lost peace.

Jack O'Connell possessed an uncanny ability to be at the center of things. On his arrival in Jordan in 1958, he unraveled a coup aimed at the young King Hussein, who would become America's most reliable Middle East ally. Over time, their bond of trust and friendship deepened. His narrative contains secrets that will revise our understanding of the Middle East.

In this all new collection of conversations, Noam Chomsky explores the most immediate and urgent concerns: Iran’s challenge to the United States, the deterioration of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of China, and the growing power of the left in Latin America, as well as the Democratic victory in the U.S. midterm elections and its ramifications for the future.

Recalling the classic warnings against militarism, from George Washington's farewell address to Dwight Eisenhower's denunciation of the military-industrial complex, Johnson explores the trend of militarism that is bankrupting the United States and creating conditions for a new century of virulent blowback.