Review

The bestselling book “Caste” brilliantly frames racial hierarchies in the United States but largely ignores the horrors of India’s caste structure.

The TV drama “Ertugrul” reveals how neo-Ottoman fantasies are finding an enthusiastic audience in a country that struggles with Saudi and Western influence.

‘Under Beijing’s Shadow’ lays out in compelling detail how China is working to dominate the region.

The most persuasive portrait of Angela Merkel’s decision-making five years ago is featured in a new television film.

“The Madman Theory” hands Trump a foreign-policy report card.

Anne Applebaum wants to understand rising illiberalism but is clinging to a Cold War moral framework that no longer applies.

A murder mystery is an indictment of Australia’s draconian immigration policy that has left many legitimate asylum-seekers detained, deported, or dead.

A historian explores how Beijing has tackled its statistical woes over the years.

A new book advances a robust defense of the U.S. system of alliances. A post-pandemic world requires adaptation and renewed coordination against common threats.

Megha Majumdar’s bestselling novel “A Burning” begins with a train in flames. But what really gets torched is the Indian Dream.

An important new book details the carefully calculated rise of a modern-day tsar.

The former national security advisor wrote a book about an ignorant president—but refuses to learn anything himself.

Catastrophes like the pandemic or the president shape the past as much as the future.

“Burn-In” fascinated and scared me as a cop, spy, writer, and citizen.

A new book recounts the inspiring story of how India’s constitution introduced democracy to people who had never experienced it before. Those freedoms are now in jeopardy.

Thomas Piketty’s new book argues that rising inequality is explained by politics, not economics, and offers some radical solutions.

FP staff review recent releases on Chinese industrial espionage, the dissent channel in American diplomacy, and British anti-colonialism.

Former British Prime Minister Theresa May’s top advisor wants to remake conservatism. Instead he’s written a rousing defense of Little England xenophobia.

What we’re reading, watching, playing, and listening to as we muddle through social distancing.

A rare book treats the region’s residents as empowered individuals who can shape their collective future, rather than portraying them as geopolitical pawns.

A new book chronicles the Faustian bargain that Russians—from holy men to human rights activists—have made with Vladimir Putin’s government.

As the government cracks down on Holocaust remembrance, the country’s Jewish art scene is thriving like never before.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister has disbanded Africa’s largest political party in an effort to reinvent the country’s politics—but some powerful players stand to lose, and they won’t go quietly.

John Le Carré’s latest protagonist bridges his old and new heroes, contending with the question of loyalty to a liberal society in crisis.

A new book on the West’s declinist anxiety is a welcome antidote to Islamophobic alarmism, but it could go further in debunking misguided notions of “us” and “them.”

A new book lays out the Chinese leader’s stark worldview.

What it means to brand today’s right-wing leaders with the F-word—and why you probably shouldn’t.

The Spanish government just moved a step closer to disinterring the remains of Francisco Franco. But as the country heads for yet another election, a new book shows that voters have other priorities.