The Best of Books 2016

Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

The Rise and Fall of American Growth

Some experts think that the current global economic slowdown is a temporary blip in longterm growth; others are more pessimistic. Chief among the doomsayers is Robert...

Tyler Cowen

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Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome confronted many of the same challenges that United States faces today—from distant wars against poorly understood enemies to controversies over which...

Michael Fontaine

This article is paywall-free.

Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran

Laura Secor’s Children of Paradise is a vibrant panorama of contemporary Iran that doubles as a thorough intellectual and political history of the country’s...

Ervand Abrahamian

This article is paywall-free.

U.S. Foreign Policy September/October 2016 Capsule Review

War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft

Geoeconomics, the use of economic instruments to advance foreign policy goals, has long been a staple of great-power politics. In this impressive policy manifesto,...

G. John Ikenberry

This article is paywall-free.

Law & Institutions November/December 2016 Capsule Review

Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire

G. John Ikenberry

This article is paywall-free.

Law & Institutions January/February 2016 Capsule Review

The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire

In this major new study, Pedersen portrays the League of Nations as an awkward and conflicted undertaking that nonetheless put in motion the decline of imperialism and...

G. John Ikenberry

This article is paywall-free.

Economics January/February 2016 Capsule Review

Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception

This book's central message is that the concept of the competitive market as a socially optimal arrangement, as conveyed by the typical college-level economics...

Richard N. Cooper

This article is paywall-free.

Economics September/October 2016 Capsule Review

The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy

King, who served as the United Kingdom’s top central bank official from 2003 until 2013, reflects on what the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath revealed about...

Richard N. Cooper

This article is paywall-free.

Economics November/December 2016 Capsule Review

The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan

In his nearly two decades as chair of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan—“the maestro,” as he was known in his heyday in the 1990s—became the most influential...

Richard N. Cooper

This article is paywall-free.

Security January/February 2016 Capsule Review

The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes

Military analysts and historians have long held that variations in political systems can affect military effectiveness. For example, authoritarian systems tend to be...

Lawrence D. Freedman

This article is paywall-free.

Strategy & Conflict January/February 2016 Capsule Review

Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945

Pike’s book is an extraordinary achievement; it is as definitive as any single-volume history of the Pacific War can be. As the title suggests, Pike does not let...

Lawrence D. Freedman

This article is paywall-free.

War & Military Strategy September/October 2016 Capsule Review

Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story

There was a time when military memoirs focused on climactic battles of great historic importance. But like other contemporary additions to the genre, Friedman’s...

Lawrence D. Freedman

This article is paywall-free.

United States November/December 2016 Capsule Review

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Vance’s account of his childhood and adolescence in a self-described “hillbilly” family in a languishing Ohio mill town opens a window onto a world that Americans need...

Walter Russell Mead

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Race & Ethnicity January/February 2016 Capsule Review

Between the World and Me

In one of the most riveting and heartfelt books to appear in some time, Coates reflects on the state of black America in the form of a letter to his adolescent son.

Walter Russell Mead

This article is paywall-free.

FD Roosevelt Administration September/October 2016 Capsule Review

His Final Battle: The Last Months of Franklin Roosevelt

Among the many paradoxes of Franklin Roosevelt’s extraordinary career was the degree to which the most famous man in the United States managed to keep the truth about...

Walter Russell Mead

This article is paywall-free.

Foreign Policy January/February 2016 Capsule Review

The EU’s Human Rights Dialogue With China: Quiet Diplomacy and Its Limits

Western governments and many prominent Western academics buy the idea that the best way to influence China’s human rights policies is through informal diplomatic...

Andrew Moravcsik

This article is paywall-free.

Western Europe January/February 2016 Capsule Review

New Old World: An Indian Journalist Discovers the Changing Face of Europe

Aiyar is an Indian journalist who moved to Brussels in 2009 with her family when her husband, who is Spanish, took a position with the European Commission. This...

Andrew Moravcsik

This article is paywall-free.

Western Europe November/December 2016 Capsule Review

Towards an Imperfect Union: A Conservative Case for the EU

It is puzzling that so many American and British conservatives are vocal critics of the eu. The union’s Brussels-based institutions employ fewer bureaucrats than a...

Andrew Moravcsik

This article is paywall-free.

Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

Latin America Confronts the United States: Asymmetry and Influence

Richard Feinberg

This article is paywall-free.

Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

Nicaragua and the Politics of Utopia: Development and Culture in the Modern State

Richard Feinberg

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South America November/December 2016 Capsule Review

Aspirational Power: Brazil on the Long Road to Global Influence

Over the past 20 years, prescriptions for Brazil’s foreign policy have tended to swing wildly between two extremes. When the economy is strong, as it was in the first...

Brian Winter

This article is paywall-free.

Ukraine January/February 2016 Capsule Review

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

Readers who seek to know more about the complex, crosscutting influences that have shaped eastern Europe over the millennia can find no better place to turn than...

Robert Legvold

This article is paywall-free.

Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism

Robert Legvold

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Central Asia September/October 2016 Capsule Review

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

This new entry into the exclusive circle of big, brassy histories of the world focuses on inner Asia, from the Aegean Sea to the Himalayas.

Robert Legvold

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Lebanon March/April 2016 Capsule Review

The Sunni Tragedy in the Middle East: Northern Lebanon From al-Qaeda to ISIS

Rougier masterfully guides readers deep into the complex terrain of northern Lebanese politics. He argues that the convoluted politics of the Sunni-dominated northern...

John Waterbury

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Terrorism & Counterterrorism May/June 2016 Capsule Review

Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection Between Violent Extremism and Education

In their examination of individuals involved in violent extremism of all kinds, Gambetta and Hertog find engineers to be massively overrepresented in right-wing...

John Waterbury

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Middle East September/October 2016 Capsule Review

The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East

The problem with the Arab Spring was Washington’s traditional allies in the region: Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states.

John Waterbury

This article is paywall-free.

May/June 2016 Capsule Review

The Most Wanted Man in China: My Journey From Scientist to Enemy of the State

Fang’s memoir is a bildungsroman of dissent, a story of the political education of a Chinese scientist: his youth as a loyal Communist in the early 1950s, his gradual...

Timothy Cheek

This article is paywall-free.

Pakistan March/April 2016 Capsule Review

The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience

Jaffrelot describes the bewildering forces that tear Pakistan apart and uncovers a central dynamic beneath them: the effort of an aristocratic Urdu-speaking landed...

Andrew J. Nathan

This article is paywall-free.

Asia September/October 2016 Capsule Review

Writers of the Winter Republic: Literature and Resistance in Park Chung Hee's Korea

This beautifully written book analyzes the work of four other authors whose fiction and poetry exposed political oppression and social injustice during the...

Andrew J. Nathan

This article is paywall-free.

Refugees & Migration March/April 2016 Capsule Review

Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine

This book presents a vivid account of Somalis who survived their village’s collapse into ethnic violence and escaped by foot to Kenya, where they spent a decade in a...

Nicolas van de Walle

This article is paywall-free.

Africa September/October 2016 Capsule Review

City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp

The book follows the daily lives of nine individuals in various refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya as they struggle to survive and retain their humanity in an uncertain,...

Nicolas van de Walle

This article is paywall-free.

Dec 9, 2016 Capsule Review

Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa

Nicolas van de Walle

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Foreign Affairs Anthology Series

The Best of Books 2016

Table of Contents

Editors' Picks

Political and Legal

Economic, Social, and Environmental

Military, Scientific, and Technological

The United States

Western Europe

Western Hemisphere

Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Republics

Middle East

Asia and Pacific

Africa

Must-Read Anthologies