International Politics

Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.

In a quiet London pub, Bob Renwick, founder of counter-terrorist agency Interintell, is handed a list of names. The Minus List has been compiled by the ruthless executive of an international munitions firm, engaged in training terrorists and arms dealing, and he intends to remove anyone who might get in his way. To be on the list means death for the target, their friends and family, and Renwick’s name is third. On a desperate mission that takes him from New York to Paris, from Zurich to Djibouti, Renwick must unmask his nemesis to save all that he holds dear.

At a funeral of an old friend, Matt Helm takes a trip down memory lane and sparks a romance that he thought was safely locked in the past. But with old feelings resurfacing, other things Helm thought were buried are coming back to haunt him - a small-time hood in Mexico, a dirty drug deal, and a string of women that lead him into dangerous territory.

Author Jon Pelson explains how America invented cellular technology, taught China how to make the gear, and then handed them the market. Pelson shares never-before-told stories from the executives and scientists who built the industry and describes how China undercut and destroyed competing equipment makers, freeing themselves to export their nation’s network gear - and their surveillance state. He also reveals China’s successful program to purchase the support of the world’s leading political, business, and military figures in their effort to control rival nations’ networks.

The history-making development of the Chinese economy has entered a new phase: China is moving aggressively from a strategy of imitation to one of innovation. Driven both by domestic needs and by global ambition, China is establishing itself at the forefront of technological innovation. Western businesses need to prepare for a tidal wave of innovation from China that is about to hit Western markets, and Chinese businesses need to understand the critical importance of innovation in their future.

Now on audio! The best-selling exposé that ends the decades-old controversy surrounding the infamous and mysterious crash of an unidentified aircraft at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

"Economic hit men," John Perkins writes, "are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder."

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people and infected millions while also devastating the world economy. The consequences of the pandemic, however, go much further: they threaten the fabric of national and international politics around the world. What will be the consequences of the pandemic, and what will a post-COVID world order look like? No institution is better suited to address these issues than Johns Hopkins University, which has convened experts from within and outside of the university to discuss world order after COVID-19.

International security is never out of the headlines. War and peace, military strategy, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and revisionist states remain central to the discussion, but concerns such as climate change, migration, poverty, health, and international terrorism have complicated the field. So what really matters: the traditional prioritization of state security or the security needs of individuals, humanity, and the biosphere?

A brave, unforgettable first-hand account of the Rwandan genocide by a man almost literally haunted by the dead and by the spectre of his mission's failure. Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of this horrific event, this edition includes a new note from Roméo Dallaire.

For Nina O’Connell, a trip round the world was the holiday of a lifetime. Traveling in a group led by the attractive James Kiley and his friend Tony Shawfield, she is surprised when she runs into an old flame on a sunny Amsterdam street. But Robert Renwick, ex-army major attached to NATO, is not there by chance. He is on the hunt for two terrorists who have left a trail of bombings and murder in their wake, and now he must keep Nina safe while trying to discover their next target. Soon Nina is caught up in a grim game of life or death.

This timely book focuses on President Obama's deeply considered strategy toward Iran's nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts. Drawing from more than 75 in-depth interviews with key decision-makers, including Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry, this is the first authoritative account of President Obama's signature foreign policy achievement.

From one of the world’s most prominent thinkers, an urgent warning of the threat that U.S. power poses to humanity’s future as well as a sharp indictment of both American foreign policy and the national myths that support it.

For most of its history, the US avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in European-style power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as the world’s armed superpower and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Wertheim traces America’s transformation to the crucible of World War II, especially in the months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation’s new foreign policy came to believe that the US ought to achieve primacy in international affairs forevermore.

Wolf outlines in this citizen call to action - which is reminiscent of Thomas Paine's revered Common Sense - the real threats to our civil liberties that exist and explains how by working together we can stop the growing threat.

As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.

In London’s MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last?

In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources. It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.

At Slough House - MI5’s London depository for demoted spies - Brexit has taken a toll. The “slow horses” have been pushed further into the cold, Slough House has been erased from official records, and its members are dying in unusual circumstances, at an unusual clip. No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew is feeling paranoid. But are they actually targets? With a new populist movement taking hold of London’s streets and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bidder, the world’s a dangerous place for those deemed surplus.

The world is being shaken by the collision of energy, climate change, and the clashing power of nations in a time of global crisis. The "shale revolution" in oil and gas - made possible by fracking technology, but not without controversy - has transformed the American economy, ending the "era of shortage", but introducing a turbulent new era. Almost overnight, the United States has become the world's number one energy powerhouse - and, during the coronavirus crisis, brokered a tense truce between Russia and Saudi Arabia.