Geoffrey Parker, "Emperor: A New Life of Charles V" (Yale UP, 2019)
The Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), ruler of Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued many scholars of early modern Europe. But...
27 Sep 201954min
Matthew Hughes, "Britain's Pacification of Palestine" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
In his splendid military history of Britain's pacification of the Arab revolt in Palestine, Britain's Pacification of Palestine: The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936-1939 (C...
24 Sep 201954min
Keir Giles, "Moscow Rules: What Drives Russia to Confront the West" (Chatham House, 2019)
From Moscow, the world looks different. It is through understanding how Russia sees the world—and its place in it—that the West can best meet the new Russian challenge to the existing world order. Mos...
3 Sep 201931min
Jenny Huangfu Day, "Qing Travelers to the Far West: Diplomacy and the Information Order in Late Imperial China" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
Historians in the English-speaking world have long studied how European and American travelers and diplomats conceptualized China, but, especially in recent years, few scholars have attempted to thoro...
29 Aug 201952min
James Tharin Bradford, "Poppies, Power, and Politics: Afghanistan and the Global History of Drugs and Diplomacy" (Cornell UP, 2019)
Afghanistan and the United States have a complicated relationship. And poppies have often been at the center of the problem between the two countries. In James Tharin Bradford's new book, Poppies, Pow...
13 Aug 201934min
Michael Beckley, "Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower" (Cornell UP, 2018)
The United States has been the world's dominant power for more than a century. Now many analysts and commentators believe that other countries such as China are rising and the United States is in decl...
7 Aug 201948min
Robert Crowcroft, "The End is Nigh: British Politics, Power, and the Road to the Second World War" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Few decades have given rise to such potent mythologies as the 1930s. Popular impressions of those years prior to the Second World War were shaped by the single outstanding personality of that conflict...
6 Aug 20191h 15min
Martin Edwards, "The IMF, the WTO and the Politics of Economic Surveillance" (Routledge, 2018)
Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) practice periodic surveillance of member states to ensure they are adopting effective economic policies. Despite the i...
22 Jul 201924min
