Politics Books

"If we come to understand the human value and dignity of people from different backgrounds, we can do a bit to deflect inequality in our everyday interactions," says Harvard Professor and winner of the 2017 Erasmus Prize Michèle Lamont. Here, she recommends five books that illuminate the sociology of inequality.

The foreign affairs commentator explains why US presidents have less room to manoeuvre on foreign policy than they think, and why President Obama had to set aside his “minimalist” inclinations.

Experts versus populists, bureaucracy versus democracy: Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England and a fellow at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government, chooses books that wrestle with central dilemmas of today's liberal political order

Renowned foreign policy expert Anne Marie-Slaughter looks at the increasingly complex networks in which 21st century states find themselves.

The sociologist Will Davies discusses five of the best books about moral economy: the study of norms, values, principles and ethics within the space of the economy.

Sometimes vilified, often misunderstood, rarely taught in universities, anarchism is a political philosophy and social movement that's far removed from today's mainstream politics. But it was and remains a powerful motivator. Political theorist Ruth Kinna talks us through the best books to read to get a better understanding of anarchism.

Should America have intervened in Libya? Done more? Done less? Done it differently? The editor of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Rose, explains the tension that lies at the heart of every American foreign policy decision.

The Harvard University Professor Joseph Nye talks about changing power in the 21st century – and how whose story wins matters as much as whose army wins.

Through the writing of political novels, writers might hope to speak against their time, says the American author Joshua Cohen. Here he selects five books in which the protagonist undergoes a political education.

How did the concept of United States immigration being a 'melting pot' of diverse nationalities come to be? In this interview, Stanford historian Ana Raquel Minian explores America's complex, highly racialized history of immigration and recommends five of the books on the subject that have most influenced her.