Top 10 Books: the International Affairs summer reading list 2018

Leah de Haan

Summer is the perfect time to enjoy a great book. Now there are of course countless books to choose from, but if you are looking for something to get you up to date on some of the biggest events of the past year, then we have some great suggestions that have featured in our book reviews section.

Russia

Russia: the story of war. By Gregory Carleton. Cambridge, MA, and London: Belknap Press.

It would be hard to talk about 2018 without mentioning Russia. The Skripal attack, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the World cup have dominated many conversations. If you are hoping to get a better understanding of Russia’s position or attitude towards the international sphere, Gregory Carleton’s Russia: the story of war would be a great place to start. In his book, Carleton highlights how the historical developments that have taken place within Russia have created a national myth of exceptionalism, which influences all of the country’s international interactions.

Read the full review here.

Orders to kill: the Putin regime and political murder. By Amy Knight. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Next to this, Amy Knight’s Orders to kill is a particularly interesting read in light of the Skripal attack. Knight discusses the deaths of the most prominent of President Vladimir Putin’s alleged victims. While, of course, she stresses that she cannot prove Putin’s involvement in any of these murders, Knight makes it very clear that a familiar pattern of death has emerged since Putin arrived at the Kremlin. The book is a chilling reminder that the Skripal attack is not the first curious case laid at the Kremlin’s door.

Read the full review here.

Climate change

International climate change law. By Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée and Lavanya Rajamani. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The images of the wildfires just outside of Athens and the current flooding in Kerala highlight that the effects of climate change are being keenly felt across the world. This is especially worrying given the actions of the current US administration in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. In their book, International climate law, Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée and Lavanya Rajamani discuss the difficulty of legislating for climate change at the international level. They highlight that climate change law has not followed the traditional pathway of international environmental law and has only really had a modest amount of success. The book is the ideal starting place if you want to learn more about the way in which climate change is being tackled at the international level, and the challenges these efforts are facing.

Read the full review here.

Clean power politics: the democratization of energy. By Joseph P. Tomain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Key to the debate on tackling climate change is the issue of power, as fossil fuels remain central to many countries’ economies. Thus Joseph P. Tomain’s Clean power politics highlights a key discussion as it shows exactly what steps will need to be made in order to ensure the world’s transition to clean power. Tomain stresses the importance of identifying alternative sources of power and government-funded research, but also highlights the importance of the US getting on board — something which is looking increasingly unlikely.

Read the full review here.

Terrorism

Tribes and global jihadism. Edited by Virginie Collombier and Olivier Roy. London: Hurst.

Another thread which, sadly, has been running through 2018 so far is the threat of terrorism, having caused over 4,000 deaths already this year, primarily in the Middle East. Virginie Collombier and Olivier Roy’s edited volume Tribes and global jihadism is an incredibly interesting analysis of the connection between tribalism and jihad — highlighting that ‘when looking at a map of the local Islamic emirates pledging allegiance to either al-Qaeda (AQ) or Islamic State (IS) … [it appears that] they are all situated in tribal areas’. In order to discuss tribalism’s vulnerability to jihad, the book contains seven fascinating case studies which look at the Helmand province, Afghanistan, the Sinai, Egypt and Sirte, Libya, among others.

Read the full review here.

Does terrorism work? A history. By Richard English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This book approaches the topic of terrorism from a different point of view and asks one of the key questions: does terrorism actually work? The book is particularly intriguing because it takes a historical approach and examines the terrorist campaigns conducted by four different organizations: the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Hamas, Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA) and Al-Qaeda. In this manner, the book both goes to the heart of the discussion on terrorism — by examining the effects of terrorist activity and the state’s response to terrorism — and provides an interesting account of the histories of four very different terrorist campaigns.

Read the full review here.

#MeToo Movement

Rape loot pillage: the political economy of sexual violence in armed conflict. By Sara Meger. New York: Oxford University Press.

On a more positive note, the efforts of people who are challenging widespread sexual harassment and assault have meant that these issues are currently at the forefront of political discussions. These efforts are also reflected in Sara Meger’s Rape loot pillage, which questions exactly why conflict-related sexual violence is so prolific and what processes cause it to occur. By looking at both local attitudes to gender and the global influences on a conflict, Meger questions the ‘gendered forms of insecurity during times of conflict’.

Read the full review here.

Equal opportunity peacekeeping: women, peace, and security in post-conflict states. By Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley. New York: Oxford University Press.

Another book which feeds into the #MeToo movement’s dynamics is Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley’s Equal opportunity peacekeeping. This work highlights both the importance of female peacekeepers and the role they play in preventing sexual harassment and abuse, as well as the importance of changing the culture — from one of militarized masculinities to one of gender equality — to improve peacekeeping efforts.

Read the full review here.

The future of liberal democracy

Grave new world: the end of globalization, the return of history. By Stephen D. King. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.

There is more and more talk about the rise of populism, the weakening of democratic processes and institutions, and the dismissal of liberal values. Stephen D. King’s Grave new world asserts that these occurrences will lead to a period of turmoil and disintegration. King stresses that the problems of migration, inequality and the negative aspects of cyberspace are dislodging the institutions key to our world.

Read the full review here.

Frustrated democracy in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. By Audrey L. Altstadt. New York: Columbia University Press.

Audrey L. Altstadt’s Frustrated democracy in post-Soviet Azerbaijan provides a very different perspective of these troubling occurrences by highlighting the difficulty of establishing democratic processes and institutions when a country’s people are socialized in a completely contrary way. Altstadt describes how Soviet ‘hard wiring’ in combination with the government crackdowns and human rights abuses mean that change is likely to continue to be very slow.

Read the full review here.

To read more from the International Affairs book reviews section, explore our latest issue here.