List of Books articles
Books
The latest reviews and excerpts for global readers.

FP’s Books of the Summer
The biggest releases in foreign affairs, history, and economics.

If AUKUS Is Toast, What Should Australia Do Next?
Amid Elbridge Colby’s review of the submarine deal, three books consider the future of the alliance itself.

When the Threat Is Inside the White House
What CIA insiders make of the MAGA moles and toadies now in charge of U.S. national security.

The Novels We’re Reading in July
From a Salvadoran multiverse to queer life in contemporary Nigeria.

The Expedition That Launched a Century of Panda-Mania
A new book details how the United States helped create a truly political animal.

The Forgotten Stories of the Chinese in America
‘Strangers in the Land’ illuminates a dark, enduring period of U.S. history.

The Fate of the World’s Forgotten Wars
A new book raises questions about Russia’s bygone fight in Chechnya—and the future legacy of conflicts today.

Can the U.S. Be a Great Power Without Harvard?
Trump’s attacks on American universities come as China seeks to dominate higher education.

Xi Jinping’s Family Fortunes
A new biography explores the tangled politics of a revolutionary father.

The Novels We’re Reading in June
Peculiar forms of criminality, as seen from front-line Ukraine and Lagos.

Karl Marx’s American Boom
A new book looks at the history of the communist thinker’s reception in the capitalist United States.

The Secret Newspapers That Helped Defeat Fascism
The women behind Italy’s underground press during World War II offer important lessons for democracies today.

How FDR Invented National Security
A presidential speech in 1937 marked an unexpected turn in U.S. strategic thought.

How China Captured Apple
A giant firm and a superpower have become deeply entangled.

Can Friedrich Merz Save Conservatism?
Germany’s new chancellor is in a race to change Germany so it has a chance to remain the same.

Where Have All the Geostrategists Gone?
The life and meaning of Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Elon Musk Was Donald Trump’s Useful Idiot
It’s looking increasingly likely that the world’s richest man got played.

A Thousand Ways of Being Chinese
Emily Feng’s “Let Only Red Flowers Bloom” delves into identity in Xi’s China.

What Abundance Lacks
A bestselling progressive book gets its policy all wrong.

The Novels We’re Reading in May
From the Gulf as a modern Wild West to sisterhood in Singapore.

The Morass of the French Left
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, one of France’s most hated politicians, casts a shadow over the left at a critical juncture.

The Kleptocrat’s Sidekick
In Britain, legions of professionals are happy to help shadowy elites stash their wealth.

A Dialogue With Russia’s Dark Side
A new book tries to understand the once-idealistic Russian journalists who now propagandize for Putin.

China’s Chandeliers Are Full of Anacondas
Perry Link’s essay collection finds meaning in silences.

Hong Kong’s Warning Signs for America
A graphic novel plays out a nightmarish scenario of authoritarianism in the hopes of waking us up.

Who Is Viktor Bout, Really?
An investigative journalist heads to Moscow to hear from the “merchant of death” himself.

The Novels We’re Reading in April
Two head-spinning rides through a globalized world.

The Latino Far Right Is Living in a MAGA Fantasy
Centuries of colonialism have spawned magical thinking about race and assimilation.

The Novels We’re Reading in March
From a killing in the West Bank to horror in a postapocalyptic convent.

The Forgotten Bombing
Eighty years on, the focus on the atomic bombs overlooks the impact of the Tokyo air raid.

Is Protest Dead?
Why global resistance movements have failed and where they go from here.

A Hopeful Pope Francis Won’t Be Silenced
In his autobiography, the pontiff pleads for a world that no longer exists.

How Gaza Shattered the West’s Mythology
The war has exposed post-World War II illusions of a common humanity.

America’s Economic Warfare Is Sowing Its Own Demise
A new book provides insight into the unintended consequences of U.S. sanctions.

The Novels We’re Reading in February
From a British techno-dystopia to Berlin’s underground.

The Clash Over Civilizations
A recent book reveals the premodern world as one of mobility and interaction—but it was not without parochialism.

How Great-Power Rivalry Hurts Ordinary Americans
Fighting with China won’t bring jobs home.

Don’t Talk About the War
The German political establishment has no idea what war looks like today—and doesn’t want to know.

Welcome to Weimar 2.0
Today’s global powers are running a strange simulation of the weak and wobbly republic that governed Germany before World War II.

The 20th Century’s Lessons for Our New Era of War
Once again, Eurasian autocracies seek to upend the balance of power.

The Lessons of South Africa’s Stolen Land
Transfers of territory are central to the country’s efforts at racial reconciliation.

What Cancel Culture Was and Wasn’t
How a moral panic went global—and then began to go away.

When the World Closed Its Doors
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the ease with which governments shut borders offers worrisome lessons.

Europe Is Still Trying to Pretend Putin’s Threat Isn’t Real
NATO leaders aren’t ready for a post-U.S. world.

The Novels We’re Reading in January
From dystopian Korea to colonial Taiwan.

The Most Anticipated Books of 2025
The biggest releases in foreign affairs, history, and economics.

FP’s Holiday Book List
Our columnists and staff writers recommend their top reads for the end of the year.

Hungary’s Descent Into Dictatorship
How Viktor Orban pulled off the unthinkable.

The Novels We’re Reading in December
Stories about houses and the meaning of home, from Cape Cod to Kolkata.

How the Cold War Forged India’s Intelligence Setup
A new book depicts a period of spy history—and U.S.-India cooperation—that bears some resemblance to our own.

The Only Way to Achieve Lasting Peace in Ukraine
History shows that security arrangements alone will not be enough.

Alan Moore Wants You to Invent Your Own God
An acclaimed English author offers his take on creativity and magic.

Noam Chomsky Has Been Proved Right
The writer’s new argument for left-wing foreign policy has earned a mainstream hearing.

How Technology Ruined Democracy
Two new books issue fresh warnings about Silicon Valley ahead of the U.S. election.

The Novels We’re Reading in November
From a modern twist on “The Magic Mountain” to Ethiopian American family secrets.

What Will a Post-Xi China Look Like?
Kevin Rudd on the fragility of Xi’s long-term ideological project.

How the Dollar Became a Double-Edged Sword
Washington’s hands-off currency policy has produced a dominant dollar—and collateral damage at home and abroad.

How Modi’s Rise Divided India’s Young People
Devika Rege’s debut novel “Quarterlife” captures political truths about 21st-century India.

Why CIA Conspiracy Theories Won’t Go Away
As long as the agency carries out needlessly covert operations, the public will suspect the worst.

How Lula’s Party Reshaped Brazil
The left-wing leader created a political cathedral for labor unions and progressive intellectuals.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Not-So-Radical Departure
The author’s decision to write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shouldn’t come as a surprise to his longtime readers.

The World Still Needs French Theory
Postmodernism is dead. Long live postmodernism.

The Novels We’re Reading in October
Familial wealth and intrigue, from Japan to Palestine.

‘On the Edge’ Puts Its Bets in the Wrong Places
Nate Silver offers a disjointed paean to gambling and venture capitalists.

Silicon Valley Hasn’t Revolutionized Warfare—Yet
The Pentagon is warming up to commercial technologies, but it has a long way to go.

The Novels We’re Reading in September
From Sicilian psychodrama to Qaddafi’s Libya.

When a Love Triangle Meets Economics
Beneath the sex, a madcap novel about an art heist lays bare the realities of globalization.

Peter Hessler’s ‘Rivers’ Have Been Damned by the Chinese Government
A sequel to the acclaimed “River Town” can’t quite find its course.

The Art of Punishing Putin
A new book offers a masterful glimpse into the world of economic warfare.

The Return of Paul Nitze—and His Dangers
For better and worse, one of America’s important grand strategists was singularly focused on military strength.

How to Get Kim Jong Un’s Email
A South Korean presidential memoir reflects on tough diplomatic choices.

The Many Faces of Abiy Ahmed
Ethiopia’s leader is both messianic and Machiavellian—and his reputation as a Nobel-winning peacemaker has been tainted by the brutal Tigray war.

Roosevelt, Yalta, and the Origins of the Cold War
How a terminally ill U.S. president negotiated the deal that cemented Soviet control over half of Europe.

The Young and the Westless
New centers of power are emerging as a new generation in the global south looks beyond Washington and former European colonizers.

The World Bank Is Failing and Needs a Restart
Global poverty and income divergence are set to rise again—a brutal indictment of the institution’s work.

Salman Rushdie’s Next Act
In his life-affirming memoir “Knife,” the writer shows how society must respond to untrammeled hatred.

The Anti-Authoritarian Handbook
Today’s autocrats have formed a global network. Those fighting them will have to do the same.

The Novel That Explains Britain’s Far-Right Riots
The politics of xenophobic violence is fueled by a psychology of racialized fear.

The Stubborn Legend of a Western ‘Coup’ in Ukraine
Ten years on, there is still confusion over what, exactly, transpired on the last days of the Maidan.

The 1960s Novella That Got AI (Mostly) Right
An Italian sci-fi book buzzes with many issues that society still grapples with today.

The Rise and Fall of the Economic Pivot to Asia
Washington has switched from economic offense to defense.

Modi’s Long Game
New restraints on the prime minister’s mandate can’t undo his transformation of India.

The Olympics Have a Dirty History—Literally
But a green sports movement is pushing for change, eager to see if Paris will be different.

The Hidden History of China’s Post Office
What the making of a national mail system reveals about the country’s push for modernization.

America’s Democracy Was Never That Healthy
Since its founding, the country has been in a perpetual state of division.

Foreign Policy’s Summer Reading List
Our columnists and reporters’ top picks, from a history of China’s tattooed soldiers to an ambitious modern epic.

In ‘Caledonian Road,’ the U.K. Is Living on Thin Ice
A sweeping state-of-the-nation novel fails to convince the reader.

The Contradictions of America’s Communist Party
Its members were the country’s original illiberal democrats—before imploding into irrelevance.

What We Can Learn From America’s First Diplomat
Benjamin Franklin leveraged a soft touch—and humor—to further U.S. goals.

Revisiting Chinese Empire
A new book explores parallel lives spent on its periphery.

Modi Still Has Great-Power Ambitions for India
A new book traces the evolution of New Delhi’s quest for elusive global status.

Will Taiwan’s Future Be Settled in Washington?
‘The Boiling Moat’ is more interested in American arguments than the country itself.

Germany’s Far-Right Surge Isn’t New
The country’s failure to confront deadly extremists in the early 2000s should be a warning.

The British Countryside’s Forgotten History of Slavery
Britons tend to downplay the empire’s slave-trading history. But its links to Virginia tobacco are all over the landscape.

Are We Really Toiling in Amazon’s Fields?
A critique of “technofeudalism” loses the plot.

Are Putin’s Nuclear Threats Working?
A new book examines the past and present of Russian thinking on deterrence.

The U.S. Needs a New Purpose in the Middle East
It’s time to ditch both romantic ideals of remaking the region and the policy of retrenchment.