International Relations Theory

In the early 19th century, the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsing port cities to Midwestern farms and Southern plantations, an adolescent nation hailed Latin America's independence movements as glorious tropical reprises of 1776.

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.

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 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.

We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is and what it isn't have a long and contested history, from its fraught origins in republican Rome to debates in early modern Europe to our present day. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war "civil" often depend on whether one is a ruler or a rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider.

One of the most respected national reporters in the field, Gertz examines the still-looming threat of China to the United States, including espionage, military escalation, economic warfare, and diplomatic treachery.

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.

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter pillories American liberals for their views on Republicans and conservative causes. Author of the best-selling anti-Clinton book High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Coulter summons pages of footnotes to support her highly original thesis that most of the media condemn even the most moderate of conservative views.

In The Triumph of Improvisation, James Graham Wilson takes a long view of the end of the Cold War, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 to Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Drawing on deep archival research and recently declassified papers, Wilson argues that adaptation, improvisation, and engagement by individuals in positions of power ended the specter of a nuclear holocaust.

Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.

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.

Debates about U.S. foreign policy have revolved around three main traditions - liberal internationalism, realism, and nationalism. In this audiobook, distinguished political scientist, Henry Nau, delves deeply into a fourth, overlooked foreign policy tradition that he calls "conservative internationalism." This approach spreads freedom, like liberal internationalism; arms diplomacy, like realism; and preserves national sovereignty, like nationalism.

The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 after eight years of fighting, bloodshed, and loss. Yet the terms of the truce that ended the war were effectively identical to what had been offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America and Vietnam thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and they were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.

The Cold War was a crucial conflict in American history. At stake was whether the world would be dominated by the forces of totalitarianism led by the Soviet Union, or inspired by the principles of economic and political freedom embodied in the United States. The Cold War established America as the leader of the free world and a global superpower. It shaped US military strategy, economic policy, and domestic politics for nearly 50 years.

After decades of the Cold War and renewed tensions, in the wake of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, cooperation between the United States and Russia seems impossible to imagine - and yet, as Douglas Smith reveals, it has a forgotten but astonishing historical precedent. In 1921, facing one of the worst famines in history, the new Soviet government under Vladimir Lenin invited the American Relief Administration, Herbert Hoover’s brainchild, to save communist Russia from ruin.

When Barack Obama took office, he brought with him a new group of foreign policy advisors intent on carving out a new global role for America in the wake of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Now the acclaimed author of Rise of the Vulcans offers a definitive, even-handed account of the messier realities they’ve faced in implementing their policies. In The Obamians, acclaimed author James Mann tells the compelling story of the administration’s struggle to enact a coherent and effective set of policies in a time of global turmoil.

An intriguing look behind the congenial facade of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, this work reveals how each leader jealously guarded knowledge from the other in pursuit of separate national interests.

Dissects the aftermath of the war in Southeast Asia, the refugee problem, the Vietnam/Cambodia conflict, and the Pol Pot regime.

When Emma Sky, an intrepid young British woman, volunteered to help rebuild Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, she had little idea what she was letting herself in for: a tour that would last over a decade, longer than that of any senior military or political official. As the only adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Kirkuk and the closest confidante to US General Odierno, Sky was valued for her controversial voice and outsider's point of view.

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of Banzai! Banzai Babe Ruth! The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan.