Top 5 Books: August

Krisztina Csortea

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International Affairs has the best book review section of any journal in the field. Many people subscribe to it for that reason alone.’

Professor Sir Michael Howard

Every issue of International Affairs features a comprehensive book review section which assesses the latest writing on all facets of international studies. In this, the third in a new blog series, our Book Reviews Editor Krisztina Csortea presents her picks from the July issue. Join the conversation and share your must-read new books on global politics and international relations in the response section below. Enjoy!

1) Burn out: the endgame for fossil fuels

Written by Dieter Helm. Published in New Haven & London by Yale University Press. Available here.

Krisztina says: Dieter Helm is a well-known author on renewable energy who has recently been engaged by the UK government to conduct a review into household energy prices. Burn out is a fascinating examination of the future of the world’s energy usage, predicting the demise of the age of fossil fuels and assessing the geopolitical consequences of this shift.

Read the full International Affairs review here.

2) Ivory: power and poaching in Africa

Written by Keith Somerville. Published in London by Hurst. Available here.

Krisztina says: Ivory looks at the successes and, mainly, failures of anti-poaching policies in a range of African countries. Keith Somerville debunks misconceptions about the causes of poaching, arguing that regulation, not prohibition, is the only way forward for the ivory trade. A comprehensive and important read.

Read the full International Affairs review here.

3) The naked diplomat

Written by Tom Fletcher. Published in London by William Collins. Available here.

Krisztina says: The field of diplomacy has not been untouched by the digital revolution. In the July issue Jack Spence reviewed two books which assess the impact of technology on diplomatic methods. Tom Fletcher, a former UK ambassador, provides a sweeping response to the challenges of the twenty-first century, arguing that we must embrace technology to counter the threats we face. I’d also like to recommend Phillip Seib’s The future of #diplomacy as an excellent companion to Fletcher’s work, with a more direct focus on the power of social media in the diplomatic sphere.

Read the full International Affairs review here.

4) Hong Kong in the shadow of China: living with the leviathan

Written by Richard C. Bush. Published in Washington D. C. by the Brookings Institution Press. Available here.

Krisztina says: Another particularly topical book from this issue looks at Hong Kong since the handover of the territory from the UK to China. With ongoing tension over Hong Kong’s democratic future, Richard Bush provides a timely assessment of how the situation might affect the city’s governance and economic policy.

Read the full International Affairs review here.

5) A history of the Iraq crisis: France, the United States, and Iraq, 1991–2003

Written by Frédéric Bozo and translated by Susan Emanuel. Published in Washington D. C. by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Columbia University Press. Available here.

Krisztina says: Emmanuel Macron received plaudits for the way he managed Donald Trump during the US President’s recent visit to Paris. Frédéric Bozo’s A history of the Iraq crisis provides a riveting retelling of a time when the US-French relationship was more strained, in the period leading up to and during the Iraq War.

Read the full International Affairs review here.


Krisztina Csortea is the Book Reviews Editor for International Affairs.

This blog features her picks from the book reviews section of our July issue, ‘Contentious borders: the Middle East and North Africa post-2011’. To read the reviews in full, click here.

To find out more about new research from International Affairs, click here.

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International Affairs Blog

The official blog of International Affairs, the peer-reviewed journal of Chatham House.