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A Life in the American Century BY JOSEPH s. NYE, JR. Polity, 2024, 254 pp. Nye is best known for his theory of 'soft power,' which explains why a country's [...]

Geopolitics and Democracy: The Western Liberal Order From Foundation to Fracture BY PETER TRUBOWITZ AND BRIAN BURGOON. Oxford University Press, 2023,264 pp. In this groundbreaking study, Trubowitz and Burgoon argue [...]

For over a century, people around the world have lived through an American era: a period dominated by U.S. power, wealth, institutions, ideas, alliances, and partnerships. But many now believe [...]

The Real Liberal Bet Most observers would agree with John Mearsheimer that the liberal bet on China did not work out ('The Inevitable Rivalry,' November/December 2021). Welcoming the country into [...]

Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present BY FAREED ZAKARIA. Norton, 2024, 400 pp. Zakaria tells the epic story of the upheavals, breakthroughs, backlashes, and transformations [...]

The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works--and When It Backfires BY ROCHELLE TERMAN. Princeton University Press, 2023, 216 pp. Human rights have grown in importance in world politics, [...]

Tyranny of the Minority BY STEVEN LEVITSKY AND DANIEL ZIBLATT. Crown, 2023, 384 pp. Why has American democracy come so close to a breaking point while other Western democracies appear [...]

Degenerations of Democracy BY CRAIG CALHOUN, DILIP PARAMESHWAR GAONKAR, AND CHARLES TAYLOR. Harvard University Press, 2022, 368 pp. Many scholars have traced the crisis of Western liberal democracy to the [...]

This article provides summaries of four recent books on political and legal topics. The first book, "A Life in the American Century" by Joseph S. Nye Jr., is a memoir that explores the author's experiences in academia and policymaking, highlighting the importance of both hard and soft power in shaping American influence. The second book, "Indirect Rule: The Making of U.S. International Hierarchy" by David A. Lake, examines the historical foundations of the U.S.-led world order, focusing on the alliances formed between the United States and local elites in subordinate countries. The third book, "The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order" by John M. Owen IV, argues that the fate of American democracy is interconnected with the health and welfare of other democracies. The fourth book, "The End of Empires and a World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization" by Martin Thomas, explores the end of European empires and the struggle for decolonization, emphasizing the role of globalization in shaping these processes. [Extracted from the article]

The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization BY HAROLD JAMES. Yale University Press, 2021, 368 pp. In this masterful exercise in 'intellectual decluttering,' James cuts through the tangled terminological [...]

The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives BY BROOK MANVILLE AND JOSH OBER. Princeton University Press, 2023, 312 pp. Manville and Ober urge defenders of liberal democracy to take the long [...]

The Great Transformation BY KARL POLANYI. Farrar & Rinehart, 1944,305 pp. The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations BY EDWARD HALLETT CARR. Macmillan, 1939,312 [...]

Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State BY MELISSA M. LEE. Cornell University Press, 2020, 264 pp. In advanced countries, the state's capacity to govern sovereign territory within its [...]

The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries BY CHARLES s. MAIER. Harvard University Press, 2023, 528 pp. The history of the twentieth century [...]

Decades after they were supposedly banished from the West, the dark forces of world politics--illiberalism, autocracy, nationalism, protectionism, spheres of influence, territorial revisionism--have reasserted themselves. China and Russia have dashed [...]

A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism BY ADAM GOPNIK. Basic Books, 2019, 272 pp. In this spirited manifesto, Gopnik paints a sweeping portrait of modern liberalism's founding [...]

Liberalism and Its Discontents BY FRANCIS FUKUYAMA. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022, 192 pp. In this learned work, Fukuyama shows that liberalism's great advantage over rival ideologies in the modern [...]

"The Concertation Impulse in World Politics" by Andrew F. Cooper explores the role of informal groupings of states, such as the G-7 and G-20, in fostering order and cooperation in world politics. Cooper argues that these informal clubs play a crucial and often overlooked role alongside formal intergovernmental institutions like the International Monetary Fund. By examining historical examples like the Concert of Europe and modern groupings like the G-20, Cooper suggests that informal governance structures will become increasingly important in addressing global crises in the future. [Extracted from the article]

"Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World" by Anne Applebaum and "World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order" by Rita Abrahamsen et al. provide insights into the interconnected world of autocracy and radical conservatism. Applebaum examines the alliances among hardcore autocratic regimes like China, Russia, and Iran, while Abrahamsen et al. focus on the global network of nationalist and populist movements. Both books highlight the growing influence of illiberal states and their efforts to challenge Western democratic norms and institutions. The authors emphasize the need for Western democracies to address their role in enabling the spread of autocracy and radical conservatism through various means like offshore banking and ideological support. [Extracted from the article]