Politics & Society
Last updated: September 07, 2024
We have a wide range of interviews recommending books on politics and society. Some cover international affairs, US foreign policy, US imperialism, US interventionism, global power and the EU; others take a more theoretical view of the world, looking at justice and the law, feminism, gender politics, the sociology of inequality, effective altruism, anarchism, and transitional justice to name a few. All recommend the very best political books.
We also have interviews dedicated to sex and society, climate change, women’s suffrage, constitutional arrangements on both sides of the Atlantic, espionage and covert action, millennials, free speech, and the psychology of war.
Nested within our politics and society sections are subcategories recommending books on US politics, British politics, Chinese politics, international development, conflict and war, gender, human rights, journalism, migration, and terrorism among others.
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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
by Nathan Thrall -
Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
by Cat Bohannon -
Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence
by Yaroslav Trofimov -
The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq
by Steve Coll -
The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain
by Matthew Longo
The Best Politics Books of 2024: The Orwell Prize for Political Writing
The Best Politics Books of 2024: The Orwell Prize for Political Writing
The Orwell Prizes are the UK’s most prestigious prizes for writing about politics, awarded annually to books and articles that best meet George Orwell’s own ambition “to make political writing into an art.” The nonfiction books that made the 2024 shortlist ranged from evolution to political philosophy, from memoir to the Middle East.
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In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
by Bernard Williams -
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A Treatise of Human Nature
by David Hume -
3
Justice Among the Nations: A History of International Law
by Stephen Neff -
4
Legitimacy in International Society
by Ian Clark -
5
Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power
by Xuetong Yan
The best books on Geopolitics and Global Commerce, recommended by Paul Tucker
The best books on Geopolitics and Global Commerce, recommended by Paul Tucker
For centuries humanity has struggled with how to build an international order based on law and agreed principles, rather than force and the threat of war. In today’s multi-polar world understanding how such an order might and could be shaped has taken on a renewed urgency. Here, Paul Tucker, a fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, chooses five books on geopolitics and global commerce.
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Against Elections
by David Van Reybrouck -
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The Government of Chance: Sortition and Democracy from Athens to the Present
by Yves Sintomer -
3
The End of Politicians: Time for a Real Democracy
by Brett Hennig -
4
Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century
by Hélène Landemore -
5
De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies
edited by Min Reuchamps, Julien Vrydagh and Yanina Welp
The best books on Citizens’ Assemblies, recommended by Hugh Pope
The best books on Citizens’ Assemblies, recommended by Hugh Pope
Around the world, democracies are struggling with angry populations who are fed up with politicians who don’t seem to represent them effectively. Fortunately, there’s an alternative. Hugh Pope—a veteran reporter on the Middle East who also spent 15 years working for International Crisis Group—introduces us to the growing movement for ‘citizens’ assemblies’, where ordinary people get together to decide what’s best for the community. He argues that these assemblies have already been used effectively on important issues that are difficult for politicians to tackle and reveals how the French president, Emmanuel Macron, came to find out about them.
The Best Political Novels of 2023, recommended by Boyd Tonkin
The Orwell Prizes are the UK’s most prestigious prizes for writing about politics, awarded annually to books and articles that best meet George Orwell’s own ambition “to make political writing into an art.” Boyd Tonkin, chair of this year’s judges, talks us through the books shortlisted for the 2023 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
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The Fire of the Dragon: China’s New Cold War
by Ian Williams -
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Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival
by Luke Harding -
3
Who Cares: The Hidden Crisis of Caregiving, and How We Solve It
by Emily Kenway -
4
The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy
by Philippe Sands -
5
The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule
by Angela Saini
The 2023 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, recommended by Martha Lane Fox
The 2023 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, recommended by Martha Lane Fox
The Orwell Prizes are the UK’s most prestigious prizes for writing about politics, awarded annually to books and articles that best meet George Orwell’s own ambition “to make political writing into an art.” Martha Lane Fox, chair of this year’s judging panel, talks us through the shortlist of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, awarded annually to a nonfiction book.
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Language, Thought, and Reality
by Benjamin Lee Whorf -
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The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality
by Karl Popper -
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The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
by David Deutsch -
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Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe
by Hugo Mercier -
5
The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't
by Julia Galef
The best books on Language and Post-Truth, recommended by Nick Enfield
The best books on Language and Post-Truth, recommended by Nick Enfield
The word ‘post-truth’ may only have entered the Oxford English Dictionary in the last decade, but the phenomenon it describes is much older and deeper, connected not so much to the latest internet trend as the fundamentals of human cognition and communication. Here, linguistic anthropologist Nick Enfield, a professor at the University of Sydney and a member of its fighting truth decay research node, introduces the best books to get thinking about the complex relationship between language and reality.
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The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World
by Larry Diamond -
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Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency
by Larry Diamond -
3
How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future
by Daniel Ziblatt & Steven Levitsky -
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Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition
by Robert Dahl -
5
Democracy in America
by Alexis de Tocqueville
The best books on Liberal Democracy, recommended by Francis Fukuyama
The best books on Liberal Democracy, recommended by Francis Fukuyama
Even some of the world’s most authoritarian rulers continue to pay lip service to democracy and people’s right to vote for their leaders, but the days when many social scientists believed that all countries at a certain level of prosperity would eventually turn to liberal democracy are over, says Francis Fukuyama, now a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute. Here, he recommends books to better understand liberal democracy, and what those of us lucky enough to live in one can do to protect our form of government.
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Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe
by Hans-Georg Betz -
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Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain
by Matthew Goodwin & Robert Ford -
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The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean
by Ruth Wodak -
4
The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany
by Cynthia Miller-Idriss -
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Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort
by Chip Berlet & Matthew N. Lyons
The best books on The Far Right, recommended by Cas Mudde
The best books on The Far Right, recommended by Cas Mudde
There’s nothing new about the far right and the unpleasant views that its supporters espouse. What’s changed is that some of those views have been embraced by the political mainstream and are now viewed as normal. Political scientist Cas Mudde, Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor at the University of Georgia, talks us through the best books on the far right.
The best books on African Politics, recommended by Evan Lieberman
Despite their enormous variety, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa share some common challenges when it comes to politics and governance. Here, political scientist Evan Lieberman talks about the struggles for democracy in the continent and some of the specific obstacles African countries face in state-building and administration.
Books on Italy, Italian Politics & History, recommended by Alan Rhode
“You may have the universe, if I may have Italy,” goes the Verdi opera. Italy has had a profound influence on everything from art and food to religion and organized crime. Anglo-Italian journalist Alan Rhode recommends books to better understand Italian politics and history—and the Italians themselves.