Books

But a green sports movement is pushing for change, eager to see if Paris will be different.

What the making of a national mail system reveals about the country’s push for modernization.

Since its founding, the country has been in a perpetual state of division.

Our columnists and reporters’ top picks, from a history of China’s tattooed soldiers to an ambitious modern epic.

A sweeping state-of-the-nation novel fails to convince the reader.

Its members were the country’s original illiberal democrats—before imploding into irrelevance.

Benjamin Franklin leveraged a soft touch—and humor—to further U.S. goals.

A new book explores parallel lives spent on its periphery.

The rodent’s reputation, revamped.

China’s sovereign funds are huge, powerful—and clumsy.

A new book traces the evolution of New Delhi’s quest for elusive global status.

‘The Boiling Moat’ is more interested in American arguments than the country itself.

The country’s failure to confront deadly extremists in the early 2000s should be a warning.

Britons tend to downplay the empire’s slave-trading history. But its links to Virginia tobacco are all over the landscape.

A critique of “technofeudalism” loses the plot.

A new book examines the past and present of Russian thinking on deterrence.

It’s time to ditch both romantic ideals of remaking the region and the policy of retrenchment.

A new history offers a sharp but limited critique.

Doomism robs people of the agency and incentive to participate in a solution to the climate crisis.

British politics may be bad, but they’re not unusual.

How our economy and culture became ever less mediated—and corroded our collective life.

A powerful new book challenges conventional wisdom about the role of the state in Beijing’s rise.

A new psychological analysis of Soviet leaders fundamentally alters 20th-century global history.

The pair are dangerously close to the edge of nuclear war over Taiwan—again.

In the Navy, you can do as you please.

Religions aren’t just spiritual communities. They’re also businesses.

The band leader broke new ground in U.S. cultural diplomacy even as he faced racism at home.

Two new books turn a spotlight on how the colonial past lives on in unacknowledged ways.

The pipeline bringing Russian gas to Europe was once seen as a triumph for borderless business—but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine put an end to that fantasy.

International agreements have not balanced our freedoms in the way that they should.

The underlying reason for the West’s democratic crisis may be a lost sense of open-ended time.

A new book unwittingly makes the case that they can’t.

Cyberspace has upended the old world order.

Is the world’s most populous country booming or broken?

What the bestselling novels of Amor Towles reveal about global nostalgia—and American anxieties.

In a new book, Fareed Zakaria explores how much the times are a-changin’. At risk, he says, is the entire global system.

The canny marketing of imports from vodka to basketballs transformed the U.S.-China trade relationship.

A landmark translation of a Ukrainian novel explores a nation caught between the jaws of empire.

A new book provides a detailed account of the colonial bureaucrats who made up the first generation of the Indian Foreign Service.

Britain’s center-left is descending into recriminations ahead of this year’s election—just like it always has.

What the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war teaches us about Ukraine today.

The idea of a special Chinese model rings increasingly hollow.

A new book accidentally puts forward a provocative thesis on the country’s entropy.

“Daybreak” is a nightmarish romance about the horrors of war.

A new political history reveals the dark side of foreign assistance.

Jade McGlynn’s books paint an unsettling picture of ordinary Russians’ support for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine.

The CCP uses manpower, not just technology, to limit speech.

Three books explore the failures of regulators—and sometimes journalists.

Dale C. Copeland’s new history of commerce is magisterial—and prescient.

Europe’s tumultuous year of 1848 is often forgotten, but a new book argues that it could teach us a lot about politics today.

Fanon is a global anti-colonial icon, but he could never truly embody the revolution he supported.

The U.S.-South Korea alliance perfectly illustrates the limits of independent action in an unstable world.

There’s no magic fix for Democrats at the ballot box.

Ex-spy Valerie Plame on the “secret history” of women in the agency.

The biggest releases in foreign affairs, history, and economics.

Our favorite book reviews of 2023.

As Congolese citizens go to the polls, Stuart Reid’s ‘Lumumba Plot’ reminds the world of a crime that reshaped the country’s future.

A new book looks at how Julius Caesar’s legacy informs the strongmen of today.

How one of the greatest scam artists of all time used Ghana’s colonial past to get rich.

A provocative history questions the relationship between the state, its secrets, and the people.

Espionage law hasn’t changed much since William Howard Taft—yet recent presidents have wielded it as a cudgel more than ever before.

A new book argues the Austrian capital produced the intellectual basis of much of the modern West—for better and sometimes for worse.

Our columnists and staff writers recommend their top reads for the end of the year.

Even experienced journalists got suckered by Sam Bankman-Fried.

One of the defining features of modern supply chains is a distinct lack of human beings.

For better and worse, he represents how change happens in our current society.

Timothy Garton Ash’s latest book traces what went wrong—and holds some lessons for the continent’s future.

Billionaire Mathias Döpfner’s plan to fight autocracy is a dead end.

Ten reads that offer insight into the origins of today’s conflict—and what may come next.

A new book profiles the possible future leader of North Korea.

A new novel claws back history from a family that would otherwise have it disappear.

Thirty-three years after reunification, the country’s wounds are rawer than many would like to admit.

A new book argues countries are de-globalizing yet again. But was there ever such a thing as globalism to begin with?

It may be in their own self-interest.

A recent book makes the case for collaboration in an increasingly competitive industry.

As a new book shows, it’s not always about strategy.

The British writer aimed to be the liberal intellectual of his generation—and ended up a victim of his own repressed dogmas.

Beijing has learned to use Russian-style disinformation.

The United Kingdom needs to examine its own bigotries.

Oliver Eagleton’s book on the Labour leader blends leftist critique with biography, presenting a comprehensive account of a deeply ambiguous figure.

Karl Schlögel re-creates a lost world of long lines and shared spaces.

A new history of Russia’s ruble highlights the reciprocal relationship between autocracy and monetary policy.

“Follow the Money” traces an economy in crisis.

Your vacation (hopefully) awaits. And here are the best books to pair with it.

The West needs to engage with the rulers of Kabul—and disillusion them.

Robert Lighthizer wants total decoupling from China—without thinking through the consequences.

Our columnists and reporters’ top picks, from a 16th-century treatise to a ’90s fantasy novel.

Modi’s party is intent on demonizing Nehru, the country’s first prime minister. A new book adds nuance to the debate.

A joyful and tragicomic novel has been given extra weight by Russia’s invasion.

As authoritarian capitalism gains credibility, free societies must overcome their internal weaknesses.

Ten years after Egypt’s coup, Washington has yet to learn that authoritarian stability is an illusion.

Beijing’s strategy isn’t always black and white—except when it is.

A new book charts the troubled path of the U.K. Conservative Party in the wake of Brexit.

Today’s brilliant strategist is tomorrow’s headstrong fool.

‘This is Europe’ lets the continent’s residents tell their own tales.

Washington missed the boat to shape the global maritime order. Beijing is stepping in.

Historical records show that dropping atomic bombs was the least bad option.

A new book overplays the domestic roots of Sino-U.S. confrontation and underestimates its geopolitical logic.

The German philosopher’s “Grundrisse” is an indispensable guide to our current chaos—from AI to the rise of China.

A new generation of Russians glorifies war, death, and Vladimir Putin.