Politics & Society

What will the next global conflict look like? Two of America's leading defence experts, P W Singer and August Cole, turned to science fiction to explore the prospect of a future war, and how existing technology might be used in one. Here, they choose five novels depicting a fictional World War Three that served as inspiration.

Current UK higher education policies, which treat students as consumers, are not only killing thinking but also likely to lead to a financial crisis. And yet, academia is a beautiful vocation, with the power to transform lives year in, year out. University of London professor, Les Back, picks the best books on academia.

One out of every 122 people in the world today is displaced by conflict. David Miliband, president of the IRC, chooses five books to help us think constructively about refugees and the causes of the current crisis.

We all know how children should be brought up, and rarely question the cultural norms that underly that certainty. But what does that mean for the policies we try to impose on the developing world? Jo Boyden, professor of international development at Oxford University and director of its Young Lives study, picks books that question our assumptions about how to successfully raise a child.

The concept of 'race' is misleading and inaccurate, argues Kurt Barling, Professor of Journalism at the University of Middlesex and author of The R Word: Racism and Modern Society. He recommends the best books to think about racism.

The author chooses his top five books on boyhood and growing up, major themes of his Booker-nominated debut The Fishermen.

National borders are fertile territory for fiction, says literature professor Claudia Sadowski-Smith. She recommends five novels about migration and border crossings.

The author and journalist describes how racism, violence, and corruption became entrenched in police departments across America. He picks five books describing a stark reality, and suggests a blueprint for change

Katrina was not a natural disaster but an engineering one, says the journalist and author. He chooses the best books on Hurricane Katrina, ranging from a novel to a geographical biography of New Orleans.

Everything we have been told about drugs and drug addiction and how society should deal with them is wrong, says the British author and journalist Johann Hari. He chooses the best books on 'the war on drugs.'