Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
by Maggie Haberman, Mudlark £25
Through the Trump presidency, Maggie Haberman of the Recent York Times established herself because the leading Trump-watcher — managing to report unsparingly on the president, while maintaining a relationship with him. Now she steps back to deliver the definitive biography of Trump and his improbable rise from real estate mogul and tv personality to president. Her deep understanding of the Recent York of the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties helps to clarify what makes Trump tick.
The Divider: Trump within the White House, 2017-2021
by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Doubleday £20
With Trump poised to run for the presidency again, this account of the “cartoonish chaos” of his first term in office is perfectly timed. Drawing on testimony from appalled and disillusioned former Trump officials, two journalists paint a portrait of a dangerous and dysfunctional presidency. The account of Trump’s efforts to cling on to power, after losing the 2020 election, is especially vivid and revelatory.
My Fourth Time, We Drowned
by Sally Hayden, Fourth Estate £20
Sally Hayden’s book, which has won the Orwell Prize for political writing, puts a human face on the refugees that European governments are striving to forestall reaching the shores of the EU. She focuses on the brutal migrant-detention centres in Libya and on the hazards and deaths that face African migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean.
Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny within the twenty first Century
by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, Princeton £25
The dictatorships of the twentieth century rested on violence and direct coercion. This book argues that the twenty first century has seen the emergence of a latest type of spin dictatorship — in places as diverse as Hungary, Singapore and Turkey — that adopts the types of democracy while subverting the substance.
Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea
by Katie Stallard, OUP £22.99
Katie Stallard’s book, which was accomplished before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, presciently highlights the way in which wherein Vladimir Putin had elevated memory of the second world war into an official ideology of national heroism — enforced by censorship, lies and the persecution of dissenting historians. As Stallard, a former correspondent in Moscow and Beijing, demonstrates on this delightfully readable book — a really similar abuse of history is going down in China and North Korea.
Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine
by Lawrence Freedman, Allen Lane £30
This broad survey of war since 1945 covers a wide range of conflicts from the Korean war to Russia’s wars in Chechnya and Ukraine. It has a latest urgency and relevance, given the outbreak of the most important land war in Europe because the second world war. Lawrence Freedman demonstrates that military commanders also must be expert politicians — who can adapt to the shifting demands of their political masters.
Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine
by Mark Galeotti, Osprey £25
Mark Galeotti, one in all the sharpest observers of Russian security affairs, began writing this book before Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. Still the result, which explores the deeper historical aspects at work in Russia today, is, because the FT reviewer noted, “very timely and compelling”. Had Putin been content with constructing a robust nation inside its own borders, the Russian president would have been remembered as a robust state-building leader, Galeotti argues. As a substitute, Russia now faces a long time of recovery from the lasting damage wrought by hubris, incompetence and imperial over-reach.
Books of the 12 months 2022
All this week, FT writers and critics share their favourites. Some highlights are:
Monday: Business by Andrew Hill
Tuesday: Environment by Pilita Clark
Wednesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Thursday: Fiction by Laura Battle
Friday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Saturday: Critics’ selection
Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology
by Chris Miller, Simon and Schuster £20
If oil was the important thing to the economy of the twentieth century, semiconductors seem like the muse of the twenty first century economy. Swinging American restrictions on semiconductor exports to China were announced inside weeks of the publication of this book. Chris Miller’s book, shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the 12 months, traces the history of the emergence of this vital technology painting vivid portraits of the scientists and corporations involved — and taking the story up to the current day, where semiconductors have change into the centre of a battle for technological and geopolitical dominance.
The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future
by Andrew Small, Hurst £20
Growing geopolitical rivalry between the US and China is disrupting and should even destroy the deep economic integration between the 2 countries. Small provides a history of the events and rivalries which have deepened mistrust between Washington and Beijing — emphasising the struggle for the control of the technologies of the twenty first century.
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention
by Johann Hari, Bloomsbury £20
This can be a book for those of us (all of us?), who feel we’re spending an excessive amount of time gazing our phones — and are losing the capability to pay attention. Johann Hari’s argument takes a political turn because he believes that the large tech firms have deliberately designed their products to addict and distract people and that the deleterious effects are usually not just social and psychological — but additionally political.
How Civil Wars Start: And Find out how to Stop Them
by Barbara F Walter, Viking £18.99
Barbara F Walter, a professor on the University of California, draws on examples resembling Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya and Myanmar to argue that America today ticks lots of the boxes that predict civil conflict. These include a politics of ethnic resentment, democratic decay, widespread gun-ownership, an urban-rural divide and a fearful population. The quantity of interest that this book has aroused within the US because it was published earlier this yr is a disturbing testament to current levels of concern about political division and violence in America.
Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy
by Henry Kissinger, Penguin £25
Now aged 99, Henry Kissinger continues to be writing books. Here he profiles six leaders he has known — Lee Kuan Yew, Konrad Adenauer, Richard Nixon, Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher and Anwar Sadat — and draws general lessons in regards to the character and intellect of leaders who’re in a position to change the world.
Tell us what you think that
What are your favourites from this list — and what books have we missed? Tell us within the comments below
One Party After One other: The Disruptive Lifetime of Nigel Farage
by Michael Crick, Simon and Schuster £25
Nigel Farage has never been elected to parliament but — because the Godfather of Brexit — has claim to be one of the crucial influential politicians in postwar Britain. A full of life, chaotic and sometimes sinister figure (witness his close friendship with Donald Trump and admiration for Viktor Orbán), Farage is a great subject for Michael Crick — one in all Britain’s most experienced and liveliest political journalists.
Liberalism and its Discontents
by Francis Fukuyama, Profile £16.99
Francis Fukuyama has been one of the crucial influential political theorists within the west for greater than 30 years. Here he looks on the growing challenges to the classical liberalism that he believes in — including identity politics, a neoliberalism that has led to rising inequality and the worldwide revival of authoritarianism. The book recommends ways to revive the liberal cause.
Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath
by Bill Browder, Simon and Schuster £20
The writer has been attempting to get the west to take the threat from Vladimir Putin’s Russia seriously for a few years. In return, the Putin regime has pursued him all over the world. Bill Browder’s latest book recounts this struggle and is part-thriller, part-policy prescription. Within the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine it has deservedly gone to the highest of the bestseller lists.
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