With its passion for neoliberal ideology, the US uses its economic weight clumsily in terms of foreign policy, says former state department official and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Jennifer M. Harris. Here she picks the best books for understanding the vital area of geoeconomics.

The Harvard academic talks about changing power in the 21st century – and how whose story wins matters as much as whose army wins

Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis points to research showing that, contrary to widespread belief, Mao was regularly briefed on the famine he had caused