书单｜《外交事务》2024年度政经史书单

评语：This crisply written, deeply researched, and clearly argued book examines what Heathershaw, Prelec, and Mayne dub the United Kingdom’s “corruption services industry,” whose activities make the country a major force in sustaining global networks of corruption closely linked to violent and repressive autocrats.

评语：In a story told with verve, Sands chronicles 40 years of efforts to restore the Chagos island archipelago to Mauritius from the United Kingdom. He presents the complex legal issues and diplomatic wrangling as adeptly as he explains the emotional attachment of the islanders to the archipelago.

评语：Yeebo explores the far-fetched tale of John Ackah Blay-Miezah, a Ghanaian grifter responsible for a truly massive con, to paint a vivid picture of the early years of post-independence Ghanaian society and government.

评语：Shatz discusses the life of the anticolonial revolutionary Frantz Fanon, showing how Fanon’s ideas about race relations, colonialism, and the purpose of violence emerged from the political ferment of his time.

评语：This historiographic plum pudding is full of delights, ranging from memories of Chatterji’s childhood in a multigenerational compound in West Bengal to a deep history of the violent politics of division that separated Pakistan from India in 1947 and Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971. Her book demonstrates how much South Asians have always had in common, even as their politicians tried to construct national identities by making enemies of each other’s peoples.

评语：In her judicious survey of Japan’s economics and politics over the last three decades, Solís argues that the country has left stagnation behind to emerge as a regional power, particularly thanks to the leadership of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

评语：替代《The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy》

评语：Thrall’s powerful and moving portrayal of the quotidian frustrations of life under Israeli occupation is both a painful reminder of the costs of conflict and, in its insistence on the humanity of its protagonists, both Israeli and Palestinian, a glimmer of hope.

评语：A stunningly lyrical evocation of the marshes of southern Iraq and the people who call them home, this book follows the life of an irrigation engineer whose story traces the arc of modern Iraqi history. It weaves together poetry and environmental science, political analysis and ancient history, mythology and hydrology in an edifying and captivating tale about a region threatened yet again by human failures, now in the form of climate change.

评语：Based on vast archival material, Klots’s book offers an insightful analysis of how the Soviet state struggled with the issue of domestic service even as it pledged to do away with inequality and exploitation.

评语：Shuster began to cover Volodymyr Zelensky shortly before his election as president of Ukraine, in 2019, and therefore had unique access to him when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. In this illuminating and gripping book, he lauds Zelensky’s amazing bravery and improbable transformation from showman to wartime national leader—and points out the Ukrainian leader’s intolerance of political competition.

评语：Shuster began to cover Volodymyr Zelensky shortly before his election as president of Ukraine, in 2019, and therefore had unique access to him when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. In this illuminating and gripping book, he lauds Zelensky’s amazing bravery and improbable transformation from showman to wartime national leader—and points out the Ukrainian leader’s intolerance of political competition.

评语：Drawing from an archive of diaries, memoirs, and correspondence, Reid writes about the ill-fated intervention of Western countries, primarily France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in Russia following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

评语：In his spirited narrative, Taylor shows how the destinies of the three North American powers—Canada, Mexico, and the United States—became forever intertwined as the forces of aristocratic hierarchy, republican liberalism, and indigenous communalism collided across the continent in the nineteenth century.

评语：Arana’s book is a sweeping, celebratory history of the diverse Latino contributions to American life, shot through with the complex tensions between the imperatives of assimilation and maintaining one’s cultural identity.

评语：In this beautifully crafted biography, Grindle sheds light on the work of Zelia Nuttall, a pioneering anthropologist whose many contributions included decoding a giant Aztec calendar, in Mexico in the lead-up to the 1910 revolution.

评语：Kuisz, a policy analyst and scholar, seeks to explain the rise of Law and Justice, the populist far-right party that ruled Poland from 2015 through 2023. Detailing the wide array of factors that have contributed to the success of the extreme right, his book remains the best English-language guide to the last decade of Polish politics.

评语：Stewart’s memoir is both a remarkably candid eyewitness account of an embarrassing era in British politics and the poignant tale of his realization that political hypocrisy and ignorance will thwart his efforts to achieve concrete policy results. It is a sobering admonition for anyone tempted to choose politics as a vocation or who expects much from those who do.

评语：Slotkin explores the foundational myths of American history, including the frontier, the founding of the country, the Civil War, and World War II—and then uses this lens to examine the culture wars of the last 50 years and the roots of the appeal of Donald Trump.

评语：Making rich use of primary sources, Roll’s exciting and insightful history deals with the last years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, the transition to Harry Truman’s leadership, and Truman’s emergence as a president with his own priorities, policies, and national standing. The volume is a dramatic, deeply researched telling of an immensely consequential era.

评语：Judis and Teixeira examine why the Democratic Party has hemorrhaged the support of white working-class and lower-middle-class voters—and argue that the party now badly needs to take a hard look at itself.

评语：Ryback’s detailed and persuasive account of Adolf Hitler’s final ascendance to power follows the twists and turns of German politics from the July 1932 election, in which Hitler’s Nazi Party won the largest share of the votes but not a majority, to his appointment as chancellor at the end of January 1933.