Top 10 books: The International Affairs Christmas reading list 2023
At first glance, the books presented in this year’s Christmas reading list reflect Martin Wright’s pessimism about peace on a global scale. On the one hand, this is intentional — the books below offer a reminder that many conflicts quickly disappear from headlines, even when they are far from over. On the other hand, this selection was carefully chosen by our Book Reviews Editor Mariana Vieira to inspire hope.
The books featured offer lessons from the past, reflect on ongoing developments and chart practical and theoretical paths forward. Covering topics from intelligence to natural resource exploitation, consultancy to international diplomacy, and regions including south America, western Asia and Africa, the books below will confirm that we are not, after all, at the end of history.
1) How to survive a crisis
Written by Sir David Omand. Published in London and Dublin by Viking.
Drawing on his decades of experience working in the British intelligence services, the former GCHQ Director has written the authoritative guide to managing crises. What more, the book makes the moral case for governments to strengthen their societal resilience in the face of these, often unavoidable, crises. As part of our Review Forum on the book, expert academics and practitioners from Canada, the UK and the US, have highlighted the book’s many insights. From Omand’s analytical framework and his command of the case-studies to his valuable lessons and practical recommendations for the future, How to survive a crisis is not to be missed by anyone working in the fields of intelligence, security and politics.
Read the full review here.
2) Eco-emancipation
Written by Sharon K. Krause. Published in Princeton, NJ by Princeton University Press.
In this short and refreshing book, Sharon Krause tackles the issue of the human domination of nature. She highlights how the process of instrumentalizing and exploiting nature creates social hierarchies that further enable some people to dominate others. For Krause, the capitalist economic model is unsustainable and she offers a threefold remedy to it. As a manifesto for the future, the author calls for new political communities that respect the value and agency of nonhuman parts of nature. Eco-emancipation breathes fresh air into political theory and the debate on how to overcome the complicity of different societies when it comes to environmental domination. In the words of our reviewer, this is a ‘book full of hope’.
Read the full review here.
3) Fire and rain
Written by Carolyn Woods Eisenberg. Published in New York by Oxford University Press.
Fire and rain presents a comprehensive re-telling of the conflict that embroiled the United States in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Eisenberg examines the American domestic situation, especially the interplay within and between the Nixon administration, Congress and the media, as well as its diplomatic dealings with the Soviet Union and China. Drawing on a mix of newly declassified documents and interviews, the book illustrates the destabilizing impact of the war on the region, as well as contradictions behind President Richard Nixon’s support for a proxy war against communism while offering significant concessions to Moscow and Beijing when the conflict seemed unwinnable. Even seasoned experts on the Vietnam War will benefit from Eisenberg’s analysis.
Read the full review here.
4) Syria betrayed
Written by Alex J. Bellamy. Published in New York by Columbia University Press.
More than a decade after the civil war in Syria began, the conflict continues to rage on. In Syria betrayed, Alex J. Bellamy shows how multiple peace processes have failed to bring peace to the country or justice to civilians. Bellamy meticulously documents the international community’s inability and unwillingness to protect Syrian civilians against mass atrocities. Pointing to the shadow of past western interventions, Bellamy assesses the positions of different countries as well as the priorities of the United Nations and other international organizations to showcase flaws in the collective response to the conflict and to highlight alternative paths for the future.
Read the full review here.
5) The big con
Written by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington. Published in London by Allen Lane.
The big con offers an indictment of how the consulting industry has negatively impacted contemporary governance models. In this forceful and illuminating account, Marianna Mazzucato and Rosie Collington trace the emergence of consultancy companies and the hollowing-out of governments that has resulted from their dominance. Referencing almost 60 interventions, the authors showcase how consultancies have deployed teams with limited expertise and no context-specific knowledge of the countries they were working in. With examples from disaster relief in Latin America, to delivering structural assistance programmes in Africa, the book compellingly demonstrates that the consulting industry continues to evade scrutiny and undermine democratic processes across the globe. It is a scathing and timely appraisal.
Read the full review here.
6) Visualizing genocide
Edited by Yve Chavez and Nancy Marie Mithlo. Published in Tucson, AZ by University of Arizona Press.
For anyone judging books by their subtitles, this one will not disappoint. Visualizing genocide focuses on ‘Indigenous interventions in art, archives and museums’ to confront existing representations of settler colonialism in Australia, the Caribbean, Europe and North America, from land theft to genocide. The contributors powerfully deploy interdisciplinary approaches and decolonizing methods to deal with questions of agency and justice. The case-studies unapologetically render visible the legacies of colonial violence in the present, as well as the marginalization of Indigenous voices.Combining critique and hopeful strategies for the future, this book will benefit scholars and practitioners working on visuality, memory and genocide studies.
Read the full review here.
7) The war that doesn’t say its name
Written by Jason K. Stearns. Published in Oxford and Princeton, NJ by Princeton University Press.
Just before Christmas Day, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be heading to the polls to elect a new president from over 20 candidates. However, over a million citizens will be unable to participate in the electoral cycle, as ongoing fighting in some provinces has left them without voter cards. In The war that doesn’t say its name, Jason Stearns explains how the civil war, and the suffering that has accompanied it, have remained a feature of DRC society two decades after hostilities officially ceased. Moreover, Stearns deftly identifies the patterns of conflict that inform elite decisions and analyses both international meddling and the involvement of neighbouring countries. Thanks to his commitment to ‘understand Congo on its terms’, Stearns successfully contextualizes widespread concerns over the upcoming elections.
Read the full review here.
8) Hostile homelands
Written by Azad Essa. Published in London and Las Vegas by Pluto Press.
Hostile homelands traces India’s evolving views of the Israel–Palestine conflict. While New Delhi initially opposed Israel’s policies towards Palestine under Jawaharlal Nehru, a bourgeoning camaraderie between Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu has led to a new India–Israel alliance. Azad Essa contextualizes these bilateral ties in terms of a ‘civilizational affinity’ between the ethno-nationalist movements of Hindutva and Zionism. Essa’s multifaceted analysis exposes the lack of accountability for the armed forces in both countries and spotlights how both Zionism and Hindutva spill over internationally, into diaspora communities, thereby generating more international support. This accessible and fascinating book will benefit readers interested in Essa’s account of contemporary forms of settler colonialism and national projects of ‘ethnocracy’.
Read the full review here.
9) Practicing peace
Written by Aarie Glas. Published in Oxford by Oxford University Press.
Why do states in south America and in south-east Asia actively work together to achieve peace despite a history of protracted disagreements? Aarie Glas seeks to explain this paradox with his innovative framework of ‘habitual dispositions’. Practicing peace contributes to constructivist thinking and practice theory in International Relations with an analysis of how habits come to limit state agency. Glas identifies four ‘habitual dispositions’ in south America and seven in south-east Asia which facilitate these peaceful relations, and then contrasts this with states outside of the regions to illustrate how differing expectations influence interstate relations. It is a detailed and compelling contribution to regional perspectives on conflict management.
Read the full review here.
10) New authoritarian practices in the Middle East and North Africa
Edited by Özgün E. Topak, Merouan Mekouar and Francesco Cavatorta. Published in Edinburgh by Edinburgh University Press.
While countless pages have been devoted to understanding the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, this edited volume aims to explain how and why authoritarianism has persisted in their aftermath. The contributors explore ‘new’ digital surveillance techniques while highlighting continuities with traditional surveillance practices. The result is a haunting portrayal of the strategies that states across the region have deployed to suppress dissent and maintain power. Impressively, the book features 17 countries and never loses sight of how a wide range of agents and external partners shape the evolution of authoritarianism within national contexts.
Read the full review here.
Mariana Vieira is the Book Reviews Editor of International Affairs.
Read the review section in our November 2023 issue in full here.
Find more suggestions from the IA Bookshelf series here.
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