The memoirs of senior UK diplomat Sir Peter Westmacott, former ambassador in Turkey, France and the United States during Barack Obama's presidency.'A highly readable account of a glittering diplomatic career' Tony Blair'One of the most brilliant and consequential diplomats of his generation' Andrew Roberts'A must-read guide to the crucial role for diplomacy in restoring British influence' Philip StephensUrban...

As well as offering an engaging and insightful account of a forty-year career spent in the upper echelons of the diplomatic and political worlds (and which included four years in pre-revolutionary Iran in addition to his fourteen years in Turkey, France and the USA), They Call It Diplomacy sets out to explain what diplomats actually do; mounts a vigorous defence of the continuing relevance of the diplomat in an age of instant communication, social media and special envoys; and details what...

_THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER – NOW WITH A BRAND NEW FOREWORD exploring the fate of the middle powers in a turbulent geopolitical landscape.*'I can't imagine reading a better book this year' Daily MirrorTim Marshall's global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn't changed. But the world ...

A Financial Times Book of the Year'Jaw-dropping' Daily Express'Grimly fascinating' Financial Times'Humane, timely, accessible and well-researched' Irish TimesThe dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a perman...

Six years after vacating his position as the longest-serving Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr returned to politics in his dream job: as Foreign Minister of Australia and a senior federal cabinet minister.For 18 months he kept a diary documenting a whirl of high-stakes events on the world stage – the election of Australia to the UN Security Council, the war in Syria and meetings with the most powerful people on the planet. And they all unfold against the gripping, uncertain dome...

John Pilger is one of the world's pre-eminent investigative journalists and documentary film-makers. His best-selling books of reportage, which include Heroes and Hidden Voices, have in the words of Noam Chomsky 'been a beacon of light in often dark times'.In Freedom Next Time he looks at five countries, in each of which a long struggle for freedom has taken place; in each the people, having shed blood and dreams, are still waiting. In Afghanistan, Iraq a...

The Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia and its five smaller neighbours: the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) have long been governed by highly autocratic and seemingly anachronistic regimes. Yet despite bloody conflicts on their doorsteps, fast-growing populations, and powerful modernising and globalising forces impacting on their largely conservative societies, they have demonstrated remarkable resilience. Obituaries for these traditional monarchies have frequently been ...

A frank and honest memoir by Britain’s former ambassador to Kabul which provides a unique, high-level insight into Western policy in Afghanistan.The West’s mission in Afghanistan has never been far from the headlines. For Sherard Cowper-Coles, our former Ambassador, Britain’s role in the conflict – the vast amount of money being spent and the huge number of lives being lost – was an everyday reality.In Cables from Kabul, Cowper-Coles takes the reader on a journey through th...

John Pilger is one of the world's renowned investigative journalists and documentary filmmakers. In this classic book, with an updated introduction, he reveals the secrets and illusions of modern imperialism. Beginning with Indonesia, he shows how General Suharto's bloody seizure of power in the 1960s was part of a western design to impose a 'global economy' on Asia. A million Indonesians died as the price for being the World Bank's 'model pupil'. In a shocking chapter on Iraq, he delineat...

Taking the Great Rift Valley - the geological fault that will eventually tear Africa in two - as his central metaphor, Alex Perry explores the split between a resurgent Africa and a world at odds with its rise. Africa has long been misunderstood - and abused - by outsiders. Perry travelled the continent for most of a decade, meeting with entrepreneurs and warlords, professors and cocaine smugglers, presidents and jihadis, among many others.Opening with a devastating investigation i...

The departure of the last US troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 left a broken country and a host of unanswered questions. What was the war really about? Why and how did the occupation drag on, while most Iraqis, Britons and Americans desperately wanted it to end? And what of oil, which lies at the heart of Iraqi politics?Now in the first full account of the nine-year war and occupation, Greg Muttitt's gripping and far-reaching investigation takes us behind the scenes to answer som...

'A timely and cogent reminder that history never ends and is about to be made' - Tim Marshall, author of Prisoners of GeographyWith the world already struggling to contain conflicts on several continents, with security and defence expenditure under huge pressure, it's time to think the unthinkable and explore what might happen.As former soldiers now working in defence strategy and conflict resolution, Paul Cornish and Kingsley Donaldson are perfect...