What We’re Reading

Kate Palmer  Worldchanging: A User’s Guide For the 21st Century. If you like the blog, you’ll love this book. Mark I. Levenstein Lebanon’s Shiites Grapple With the New Feeling of Power by Anthony Shadid in the Washington Post. Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006. An interesting, if not exhaustive, modern history of Shiites in Lebanon. The New ...

By , a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
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605616_bookwithgreenfade5.jpg

Kate Palmer 

Kate Palmer 

Mark I. Levenstein


Blake Hounshell

State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future by the The Worldwatch Institute.

Tibet, Now by Joshua Kurlantzick in Sunday’s New York Times. Better make that life-altering trip to Lhasa before hordes of tourists ruin it.

Banker to the Poor, the autobiography of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Unfortunately, he’s a better micro-banker and salesman than writer.

 Carolyn O’Hara

  • The 6th Annual Year in Ideas by the New York Times Magazine. It’s always amusing to read about the researcher who alleges that being hungry makes you smarter, the reverse graffiti artist who “clean tags” city streets, and the guy who came up with the equation for the perfect female ass. This year, the round-up also flagged a few items you could have read about on Passport months ago, including why wearing a bike helmet puts you at more risk and why the number of parking tickets that diplomats in NYC accumulate correlates to corruption levels in their home country.

Christine Y. Chen

  • Emma’s War by Deborah Scroggins. A book about 1990’s Sudan that tells the story of Westerners in Africa by profiling a 27-year-old British aid worker in Sudan who ends up marrying a rebel leader and “goes native,” so to speak.


Thomas Stec

Jeff Marn

Diyana Ishak

  • Ethical Food and Voting with Your Trolley, The Economist. Just when you thought you could feel good about responsible shopping, The Economist seriously calls into question arguments for fair trade, organic farming, and local produce.

Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.

More from Foreign Policy

The USS Nimitz and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and South Korean Navy warships sail in formation during a joint naval exercise off the South Korean coast.
The USS Nimitz and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and South Korean Navy warships sail in formation during a joint naval exercise off the South Korean coast.

America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose

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A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, during a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. People sit and walk on the grass lawn in front of the protester and barricades.
A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, during a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. People sit and walk on the grass lawn in front of the protester and barricades.

The West’s Incoherent Critique of Israel’s Gaza Strategy

The reality of fighting Hamas in Gaza makes this war terrible one way or another.

Biden dressed in a dark blue suit walks with his head down past a row of alternating U.S. and Israeli flags.
Biden dressed in a dark blue suit walks with his head down past a row of alternating U.S. and Israeli flags.

Biden Owns the Israel-Palestine Conflict Now

In tying Washington to Israel’s war in Gaza, the U.S. president now shares responsibility for the broader conflict’s fate.

U.S. President Joe Biden is seen in profile as he greets Chinese President Xi Jinping with a handshake. Xi, a 70-year-old man in a dark blue suit, smiles as he takes the hand of Biden, an 80-year-old man who also wears a dark blue suit.
U.S. President Joe Biden is seen in profile as he greets Chinese President Xi Jinping with a handshake. Xi, a 70-year-old man in a dark blue suit, smiles as he takes the hand of Biden, an 80-year-old man who also wears a dark blue suit.

Taiwan’s Room to Maneuver Shrinks as Biden and Xi Meet

As the latest crisis in the straits wraps up, Taipei is on the back foot.