What has happened to American foreign policy? Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke argue that the members of what used to be called the foreign policy establishment are no longer doing the job of keeping our foreign policy informed and rational. Instead, hungry to coin the next Big Idea, they are in the business of advancing simplistic, glib mythologies. The result is that Americans are often presented with a fantasy world of nightmare scenarios rather than with explanations that lead to rati...

Beijing presents a clear and gathering threat to Washington -- but not for the reasons you think. China's challenge to the West stems from its transformative brand of capitalism and an entirely different conception of the international community. In The Beijing Consensus, a leading expert in international relations presents a coherent integration of the many sides of U.S.-China relations.

Tibet's enduring myth, animated by the tales of Himalayan adventurers, British military expeditions, and the novel, Lost Horizon, remains an inspirational fantasy, a modern morality play about the failure of brutality to subdue the human spirit. Tibet also exercises immense "soft power" as one of the lenses through which the world views China. This book traces the origins and manifestations of the Tibetan myth, as propagated by Younghusband, Madam Blavatsky, Himmler, Acheson and R...

From a seasoned advisor, "a meaty, fast-paced portrait of North Korean society, economy, politics and foreign policy" ( Foreign Affairs).In The Impossible State, international-policy expert and former Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council Victor Cha pulls back the curtain on this controversial and isolated country, providing the best look yet at North Korea's history, the rise of the Kim family dynasty, and the obsessive pers...

The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of Buddhist art and learning.In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled wi...

The time was out of joint in a very literal sense of that somewhat hackneyed phrase. Every established institution - political, social, and religious - was shaken and showed the rents and fissures caused by time and by the growth of a new life underneath it. The empire - the Holy Roman - was in a parlous way as regarded its cohesion. The power of the princes, the representatives of local centralised authority, was proving itself too strong for the power of the emperor, the recognised repre...

Genghis Khan was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his demise. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan," he started the Mongol invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties...

[Teach Yourself] Marx - the Key Ideas will quickly familiarize you with the revolutionary thinking of this great man. It will take you through all the essential concepts - from class struggle to dialectical materialism. Expressing Marx's sometimes complex ideas in simple terms, and backed up with references to his own texts, this book gives you everything you need to know.NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.A...

Contrary to the common view that globalization undermines social agency, ‘alter-globalization activists', that is, those who contest globalization in its neo-liberal form, have developed new ways to become actors in the global age. They propose alternatives to Washington Consensus policies, implement horizontal and participatory organization models and promote a nascent global public space.Rather than being anti-globalization, these activists have built a truly global movement that...

The untold story of the nineteenth-century American Quaker who tried to build a kingdom in Afghanistan: "A thrilling real-life yarn." — BooklistIn the year 1838, a young adventurer, surrounded by his native troops and mounted on an elephant, raised the American flag on the summit of the Hindu Kush in the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan. He declared himself Prince of Ghor, Lord of the Hazarahs, spiritual and military heir to Alexander the Great.The t...

The Hawks of Peace. Notes of Russian Ambassador is a unique analytical edition where Russian Deputy Premier Dmitry Rogozin shares his notes on personalities and events that shaped the history of post-Communist Russia, believing that without those it would be impossible to understand the past and envisage the future of his country. Permanent Representative of Russia to NATO until recently, in his political dairy Dmitry Rogozin contemplates on the complex relationship between Russia and the ...

From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy.For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global he...