Politics Books

Iraqi academic May Witwit tells of the horrors of US-occupied Iraq: "We were being shot at, and for three days a body lay at my front gate and nobody dared to move him"

The graduate of West Point Military Academy, fluent Arabic speaker and Iraq war veteran, talks about the books that inspired him to take a stand against the US military's regressive Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy

Keith Slotter has been an FBI Agent for the past 23 years. He chooses five books about crime and says that legalising abortion cuts crime – because the criminals remain unborn

Having served as the International Co-Prosecutor of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia, Andrew Cayley QC draws on his firsthand experience to nominate the best books on war crimes.

Marshalling one of the first ever televised coups, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's legacy is fraught. While some apologists try to justify the dictatorship on economic grounds, his time in office saw innumerable human rights abuses. Alan Angell, Emeritus Fellow in Latin American Politics at the University of Oxford, considers the regime of "a very cruel man."

Emeritus professor at the LSE's Mannheim Centre for the Study of Criminology & Criminal Justice tells us about the consequences of mass incarceration and a breakdown in social and moral cohesion

The Iraqi poet chooses books on civil and human rights. "I want to spread the word. I want people to get more involved in the political process here in Iraq"

The author and activist talks about medical ethics and selects her five top books on the subject. She raises questions as to whether we own our bodies, and the ethics behind selling human organs.

The international relations professor tells us about the special relationship between America and Israel – how it came about, what it means, and how it should change

The Editor of The Times Literary Supplement discusses the changing history of the Newspaper Editor. Suggests further reading and highlights Peter Forster's The Spike as the most accurate depiction of an editor's work.