Best Foreign Policy Books of 2017

Science & Technology Dec 15, 2017 Capsule Review

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The Undoing Project

Yuen Foong Khong

Strategy & Conflict Dec 15, 2017 Capsule Review

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Democracy: A Case Study

Suzanne Mettler

Business Dec 15, 2017 Capsule Review

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After Piketty

Melissa S. Kearney

Globalization September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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Aftershocks: Great Powers and Domestic Reforms in the Twentieth Century

G. John Ikenberry

Pre-1932 Administration November/December 2017 Capsule Review

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Power Without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist Experiment

G. John Ikenberry

U.S. Foreign Policy May/June 2017 Capsule Review

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The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World

Traditionally, global politics has been understood as a grand competition among states—a chessboard on which statesmen play games of power politics and grand strategy....

G. John Ikenberry

Business September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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What We Owe: Truths, Myths, and Lies About Public Debt

Richard N. Cooper

Finance September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought

Richard N. Cooper

Economics March/April 2017 Capsule Review

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The Innovation Illusion: How So Little Is Created by So Many Working So Hard

It has become common to hear warnings that in the near future, automation will destroy jobs and technological advances will accelerate economic and social turbulence....

Richard N. Cooper

Security November/December 2017 Capsule Review

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The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight

Lawrence D. Freedman

Western Europe March/April 2017 Capsule Review

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Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War

Olson celebrates the heroism of people from occupied Europe who helped the Allies win World War II, challenging the view that their efforts counted for little in the...

Lawrence D. Freedman

Security January/February 2017 Capsule Review

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How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales From the Pentagon

The great strength of this book is that it manages to be thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time, challenging the way readers think about war but doing so...

Lawrence D. Freedman

Trump Administration November/December 2017 Capsule Review

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Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency

In the history of U.S. politics, few meteors have burned as hot or hit as hard as Steve Bannon.

Walter Russell Mead

Clinton Administration January/February 2017 Capsule Review

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Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post–Cold War Order

In his most ambitious and accomplished book yet, Brands upends the conventional wisdom on both the right and the left with an insightful perspective on the ways in...

Walter Russell Mead

Economics March/April 2017 Capsule Review

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The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream

Cowen’s timely and well-written book points to a central feature of contemporary American life: since the 1980s, U.S. society has become less dynamic and more risk...

Walter Russell Mead

Politics & Society September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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Exception Taken: How France Has Defied Hollywood’s New World Order

Andrew Moravcsik

Human Rights September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law

Andrew Moravcsik

Europe May/June 2017 Capsule Review

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The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815–1914

Everything about The Pursuit of Power affirms a traditional approach to history. Written by one of the most eminent historians of Germany, it imposes a coherent schema...

Andrew Moravcsik

South America May/June 2017 Capsule Review

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Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution

Now a professor of international relations at Brown University, Andreas recalls his extraordinary childhood travels in Chile and Peru with his mother, Carol, a radical...

Richard Feinberg

Central America & Caribbean January/February 2017 Capsule Review

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Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life

Toussaint Louverture was born a slave in 1743, but at the zenith of his power, he ruled all of Hispaniola, the Caribbean island that consists of present-day Haiti and...

Richard Feinberg

South America January/February 2017 Capsule Review

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Viva la Revolución: Hobsbawm on Latin America

Hobsbawm, an eminent historian who passed away in 2012, was one of the United Kingdom’s leading public intellectuals, widely respected for his erudition and literary...

Richard Feinberg

Economics Dec 15, 2017 Capsule Review

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Russia in Revolution

Robert Legvold

Russian Federation September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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Gorbachev: His Life and Times

Robert Legvold

Russian Federation January/February 2017 Capsule Review

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The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen

If you read only one book related to Russia this year, this should be it. Kelly’s magisterial intellectual biography of Alexander Herzen not only creates a complete...

Robert Legvold

Terrorism & Counterterrorism September/October 2017 Capsule Review

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Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea

John Waterbury

Terrorism & Counterterrorism Dec 15, 2017 Capsule Review

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The Way of the Strangers: Encounters With the Islamic State

John Waterbury

U.S. Foreign Policy March/April 2017 Capsule Review

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America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State

In a detailed look at the nexus of American academic expertise on the Middle East and Washington’s diplomatic and intelligence power centers, from the Wilson era...

John Waterbury

Japan November/December 2017 Capsule Review

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Samurai to Soldier: Remaking Military Service in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Jaundrill’s impressively researched study traces the origin of the modern Japanese military to the 1840s, when one martial arts teacher introduced a more westernized...

Andrew J. Nathan

Pakistan November/December 2017 Capsule Review

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Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities

Andrew J. Nathan

China Dec 15, 2017 Capsule Review

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How China Escaped the Poverty Trap

Andrew J. Nathan

Malawi May/June 2017 Capsule Review

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A Fraught Embrace: The Romance and Reality of AIDS Altruism in Africa

Swidler and Watkins spent the better part of two decades studying foreign aid programs in Malawi, especially those addressing the country’s HIV/AIDS crisis.

Nicolas van de Walle

Somalia March/April 2017 Capsule Review

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The Mayor of Mogadishu: A Story of Chaos and Redemption in the Ruins of Somalia

With the end of the Islamist militia al Shabab’s control of Mogadishu in 2011, the establishment of a new federal constitution in 2012, and the significant decline in...

Nicolas van de Walle

Africa March/April 2017 Capsule Review

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Beyond Ethnic Politics in Africa

The ethnic violence that has marred recent elections in African countries, such as Kenya and Nigeria, has reinforced the notion that African politics is structured by...

Nicolas van de Walle

Foreign Affairs Anthology Series

The Best of Books 2017

Table of Contents

Editor's 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