International Politics

From the earliest days of his dictatorship, Saddam Hussein had vowed to destroy Israel. So, when France sold Iraq a top-of-the-line nuclear reactor in 1975, the Israelis were justifiably concerned, especially when they discovered that Iraqi scientists had already formulated a secret program to extract weapon-grade plutonium from the reactor, a first critical step in creating an atomic bomb.

A circus performer turned superspy is caught up in a Cold War web of conspiracy and death when the body of a murdered CIA agent is discovered in a Hawaiian marine park. By any definition, Ringling Wallenda Grove is an extraordinary man. The son of expatriate Russian former circus owners, he mastered the arts of acrobatics, animal training, and magic at a young age; distinguished himself as an officer in World War II; and went on to amass a fortune of several million dollars before going into semiretirement. But there is another side to this man that few know about.

From the number one best-selling author of Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, a provocative, far-reaching account of how the middle class got stuck with the bill for globalization, and how the blowback - from Brexit to Trump to populist Europe - will change the developed world.

The Third Wave makes startling sense of the violent changes now battering our world. Its sweeping synthesis casts fresh light on our new forms of marriage and family, on today's dramatic changes in business and economics. It explains the role of cults, the new definitions of work, play, love, and success. It points toward new forms of 21st-century democracy.

Politicians and pundits on both sides of the aisle have accused Russia of interfering with our elections and our intelligence agencies. But the war Russia is waging against America is very different from anything you have heard in the press, as Russian-born US intelligence expert Rebekah Koffler reveals. In Putin’s Playbook, Koffler details how Vladimir Putin is orchestrating a wide-ranging, multifaceted campaign to retake his country’s role as a superpower and to defeat America in the process.

There is no better guide than Paul Krugman to basic economics, the ideas that animate much of our public policy. Likewise, there is no stronger foe of zombie economics, the misunderstandings that just won’t die. In Arguing with Zombies, Krugman tackles many of these misunderstandings, taking stock of where the United States has come from and where it’s headed in a series of concise, digestible chapters. Drawn mainly from his popular New York Times column, they cover a wide range of issues, organized thematically and framed in the context of a wider debate.

It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump’s inauguration as president of the US. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than 20 years ago with the massive bailout of a string of Trump hotel and casino failures. This book confirms the most incredible American paranoias about Russian malevolence.

In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. At the time John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator.

Meet Denver, raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana until he escaped the “Man” in the 1960’s by hopping a train. Untrusting, uneducated, and violent, he spends 18 years on the streets of Dallas and Fort Worth. Meet Ron Hall, a self-made millionaire in the world of high-priced deals—an international arts dealer who moves between upscale New York galleries and celebrities. It seems unlikely that these two men would meet under normal circumstances, but when Deborah Hall, Ron's wife, meets Denver, she sees him through God's eyes of compassion.

As President Barack Obama's adviser on Russian affairs, Michael McFaul helped craft the United States' policy known as "reset" that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of US-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president.

It's a mission that only Striker - the military arm of Op-Center - can handle: capture an Islamic cleric who is stirring up a rebellion against the Indian government. But when the border between India and Pakistan erupts, the Striker team gets caught in the crossfire. Now America's most proficient covert team is trapped in a full-fledged war. Their fate rests in the hands of a devious NSA double agent whose own agenda is unknown - a man who could just as easily sell them out as set them free. This book is an implicit profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology....

Crime world fixer Levi gets mixed up with a widow who believes her husband was murdered - and the police are covering it up. A riveting thriller about power, corruption, and deadly politics. Levi is a fixer for one of the New York Mafia families. However, things take an unexpected turn for this mafioso when Rivka Cohen walks into his life. The police are calling her husband's death a suicide even though she has evidence that he's been murdered.

In June 1992, Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not—as other British colonies over the decades—for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. Over the next five years, he kept this diary, which describes in detail how Hong Kong was run as a British colony and what happened as the handover approached. The book gives unprecedented insights into negotiating with the Chinese.

Le Secret des Présidents suit la quête de l’ex-journaliste James Bradford et de Brooke Harris, arrière-petite-fille de Miller Harris, un conseiller politique de l’ombre de John F. Kennedy. Ils sont à la recherche d’un Codex secret qui s’avère intimement lié à leur histoire familiale et à celle des Présidents des États-Unis.

Martin Cruz Smith has written nine previous novels featuring Arkady Renko, one of modern detective fiction’s most popular characters. These novels, beginning with 1981’s international sensation Gorky Park, have collectively traced Russia's evolution over the last half-century. Now, with Independence Square, Smith focuses on the fraught and frenzied days leading up to Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.

As the Cold War faded into history, it appeared to have been replaced by a new conflict—between Islam and the West. Or so we are told. After the events of 9/11 and the advent of the 'war on terror', this narrative seemed prophetic. But, as Peter Oborne reveals in this masterful new analysis, the concept of an existential clash between the two is a dangerous and destructive fantasy.

Élevée dans un orphelinat de Moscou, puis recrutée par le service de renseignements de Russie, Ekaterina Yegorova, vingt-cinq ans, étudie à l’Université McGill, à Montréal, sous le nom de Nina Palester. Bien que ses parents adoptifs, Dimitri et Irina, l’aient formée pour qu’elle devienne elle aussi une agente, Ekaterina se demande parfois quelle cause sert cette vie de mensonges et de fausses identités. Son entraînement prend tout son sens lorsqu’une première mission leur est confiée, à elle et Yuri, son copain officiel.

A top negotiator in countless high-stakes missions to free Americans captured abroad and held in the world's scariest prisons takes listeners inside the dramatic and shadowy world of international hostage rescue.

For more than half a century, the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing, as in the Cuban missile crisis, to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. Now the Bush administration is intensifying this process, driving us toward the final frontiers of imperial control, toward a choice between the prerogatives of power and a livable Earth.

Two young lovers treat themselves to a once-in-a-lifetime holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. He’s an austere tutor at Oxford. She’s a sparky rising London barrister. Their native Britain is floundering in debt. On the second day of their holiday they encounter a rich, charismatic fifty-something Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula, wears a diamond-encrusted Rolex watch, has a tattoo on the knuckle of his right thumb and wants a game of tennis.