Leap of Faith is the first comprehensive and objective history of the decision to invade Iraq. Based on nine years of research, over 100 interviews with participants in the drama, and information from hundreds of U.S. and British declassified documents, Mike Mazarr shows how the most impressive and experienced foreign policy team made the greatest strategic folly of the century. Mazarr reveals that a combination of messianic certainty, cultural deference, and administrative infighting and incompetence allowed the decision to be made without any examination of the ways in which it could unravel. So when it did, no one had any answers. Leap of Faith is a parable of how good intentions can go wrong, and a cautionary tale about any international entanglement.

The world is at a turning point. While globalization benefited many, it produced extremes with drastic wealth inequality, indebtedness, and political volatility among the most important. As the ground underneath globalization undergoes tectonic shifts, noisy, chaotic, and disorderly events--such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump--are the first harbingers of a world being turned upside down. In this book, Michael O'Sullivan shows the many ways the levelling of the twenty-first century will unfold: The levelling-out of wealth between rich and poor countries; of power between nations and regions; of political accountability and responsibility between political leaders and "the people"; and of institutional power--away from central banks and defunct twentieth-century institutions such as the WTO and IMF. The Levelling comes at a crucial time in the rise and fall of nations and has special importance for Americans as our place in the world undergoes radical change--the ebbing of our influence, profound questions over our economic model, the apparent decay in our society, and turmoil in our public life-- before our very eyes.

Political risk - the probability that a political action could significantly affect an organisation - is changing fast, and it's more widespread than ever before. In the past, the chief concern used to be whether a foreign dictator would nationalise the country's oil industry or impose onerous new regulations. Today, political risk stems from a widening array of political agents, from Twitter users and terrorists to local officials, transnational activists, hackers and insurgents. What's more, the very institutions and laws that are supposed to reduce uncertainty and risk often increase it instead. This means that in today's globalised world there are no 'safe' bets. Political risk affects companies and organisations of all sizes, operating everywhere from London to Lahore, even if they don't know it. Political Risk investigates and analyses this shifting landscape, suggests what businesses can do to navigate it, and explains how all of us can better understand and deal with these rapidly changing geopolitical dynamics.

When is it permissible to move an issue out of normal politics and treat it as a security issue? How should the security measures be conducted? When and how should the securitization be reversed? Floyd offers answers to these questions by combining security studies' influential securitization theory with philosophy's long-standing just war tradition, creating a major new approach to the ethics of security: 'Just Securitization Theory'. Of interest to anyone concerned with ethics and security, Floyd's innovative approach enables scholars to normatively evaluate past and present securitizations, equips practitioners to make informed judgements on what they ought to do in relevant situations, and empowers the public to hold relevant actors accountable for how they view security.

We are inclined to see terrorist attacks as an aberration, a violent incursion into our lives that bears no intrinsic relation to the fundamental features of modern societies. But does this view misconstrue the relation between terror and modernity? In this book philosopher Donatella Di Cesare takes an historical approach and argues that terror is not a new phenomenon, but rather one has always been a key part of modernity. Discussion of ideological wars between Islamic fundamentalism and Western ideals or the portrayal of terrorists as nihilists distracts from the fact that, at its most basic level, terrorism is about the struggle for power and sovereignty. The growing concentration of power in the hands of the state, which is a constitutive feature of modern societies, sows the seeds of terrorism, which is deployed as a weapon by those who are exposed to the violence of the state and feel that they have no other recourse. Illustrating her argument with wide-ranging examples including the Red Brigades, 9/11, the attacks in Paris, the rise of ISIS and the case of Edward Snowden, Di Cesare provides a sophisticated analysis of modern terrorism. This work will appeal to anyone wishing to understand contemporary terrorism more deeply, as well as students and scholars of philosophy and political theory.

The notion of the 'end' has long occupied philosophical thought. In light of the horrors of the 20th century, some writers have gone so far as to declare the end of philosophy itself, emphasising the impossibility of thinking after Auschwitz. In this book the distinguished philosopher Alain Badiou, in dialogue with Giovanbattista Tusa, argues that we must renounce the 'pathos of completion' and continue to think philosophically. To accept the atrocities of the 20th century as marking the end of philosophy is intolerable precisely because it buys into the totalising doctrines of the perpetrators. Badiou contends that philosophical thinking is needed now more than ever to counter the totalizing effects of globalised capitalism, which prescribes no objective for human life other than integration into its system, giving rise to a widespread sense of hopelessness and nihilism. To resist this degradation of human life, Badiou calls for a renewal of the idea of communism: the creation of new forms of collective organisation capable of challenging the logic of capitalism and enabling individuals to become self-determining subjects. This volume consolidates much of Badiou's thinking over the years and will appeal to the many followers of his philosophical project, as well as all those interested in contemporary philosophy and radical political theory.

An illuminating history of Marx's thought and intellectual influence from a leading historian of socialism Why was Marx so successful as a thinker? Did he have a system and if so, what does it consist of? How did Marxism develop in the twentieth century and what does it mean today? Karl Marx remains the most influential and controversial political thinker in history. The movements associated with his name have lent hope to many victims of tyranny and aggression but have also proven disastrous in practice and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of millions. If after the collapse of the Soviet Union his reputation seemed utterly eclipsed, a new generation is reading and discovering Marx in the wake of the recurrent financial crises, growing social inequality and an increasing sense of the injustice and destructiveness of capitalism. Both his critique of capitalism and his vision of the future speak across the centuries to our times, even if the questions he poses are more difficult to answer than ever. In this wide-ranging account, Gregory Claeys, one of Britain's leading historians of socialism, considers Marx's ideas and their development through the Russian Revolution to the present, showing why Marx and Marxism still matter today.

Trump Saves America is the story of the unlikeliest of heroes who emerged from the unlikeliest of places to take up the impossible cause of a truly forgotten people. They are people who love their country, trust their higher God, obey laws and will do anything for their family and neighbors. They are the very people the Founders envisioned when they hatched the radical idea of self-governance. This is the story of a Leviathan government - the most powerful political force in the history of mankind - that has become dangerously unmoored from the people it represents. It is the story of how elites and the politically comfortable controlling both parties in Washington have utterly lost touch. They don't even realize how much the people they represent despise the uncontrollable Leviathan. The establishment has tried their best to ignore Donald Trump-except to brand him as a racist, a xenophobe, an isolationist, and a dangerous, violence-inciting war monger. All standards of reporting vanished. In the era of Trump, no sort of criticism was off-limits. They openly mocked his looks, ridiculed his private business accomplishments, pilloried his family and children and made fun of his foreign-born wife for her accent! The Leviathan has grown untamable. Democrats and Republicans run for office year after year on promises they have no intention of keeping. Neither side wants to fix a single problem. The whole thing has become one giant ungovernable, corrupt Ponzi scheme that - one day - will come crashing down. Charles Hurt advocates for the "Nuclear Option" for dealing with this mess: just blow the whole damned thing up. Whatever is presidential or diplomatic, let's try the opposite. Whatever these people in Washington find most horrifying, let's try that. Finally, the multi-headed Leviathan swamp monster has met the perfect dragon slayer in Donald Trump. Trump Saves America examines each corrupt head of this Leviathan, and why Donald Trump is the only good answer to fixing it.

Football is the most popular sport on the planet partly because it's so simple to play - but as philosopher, novelist and avid fan Stephen Mumford shows, behind the straightforward rules of the game there lurks a world of intriguing complexity. Mumford considers the intellectual basis upon which football rests, guiding readers through a number of issues at the heart of the game. How can a team be greater than the sum of its individual players? What is the essential role of chance? Should we want to win at all costs? What does it mean to control space? And can true beauty be found in football? Rich with colourful examples from football's past and present, Mumford's book is both a love letter to football and a reflection on its enduring capacity to enthral and excite.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The funny, sad, super-honest, all-true story of Chelsea Handler’s year of self-discovery—featuring a nerdily brilliant psychiatrist, a shaman, four Chow Chows, some well-placed security cameras, various family members (living and departed), friends, assistants, and a lot of edibles

A SKIMM READS PICK

“This will be one of your favorite books of all time.”—Amy Schumer

In a haze of vape smoke on a rare windy night in L.A. in the fall of 2016, Chelsea Handler daydreams about what life will be like with a woman in the White House. And then Donald Trump happens. In a torpor of despair, she decides that she’s had enough of the privileged bubble she’s lived in—a bubble within a bubble—and that it’s time to make some changes, both in her personal life and in the world at large.

At home, she embarks on a year of self-sufficiency—learning how to work the remote, how to pick up dog shit, where to find the toaster. She meets her match in an earnest, brainy psychiatrist and enters into therapy, prepared to do the heavy lifting required to look within and make sense of a childhood marked by love and loss and to figure out why people are afraid of her. She becomes politically active—finding her voice as an advocate for change, having difficult conversations, and energizing her base. In the process, she develops a healthy fixation on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and, through unflinching self-reflection and psychological excavation, unearths some glittering truths that light up the road ahead.

Thrillingly honest, insightful, and deeply, darkly funny, Chelsea Handler’s memoir keeps readers laughing, even as it inspires us to look within and ask ourselves what really matters in our own lives.

How to handle Russia? This question has become ever more prominent as the Euro-Atlantic community's relations with Russia languish in deep in systemic crisis, with dialogue suspended, reciprocal sanctions in place and proxy wars raging. The wars in Ukraine and Syria, accusations of Russian interference in domestic politics and the attempted assassination of the Skripals on UK soil have all contributed to soaring tension in the relationship. Yet faced with this array of serious challenges, Euro-Atlantic thinking about Russia remains stuck in twentieth-century rhetoric, trapped by misleading abstract labels and unsure whether to engage Moscow in dialogue or enhance deterrence and collective defence. Instead of thinking in these terms, leading Russia expert Andrew Monaghan argues that we must devise a new grand strategy for dealing with the Russians. Examining the ongoing Euro-Atlantic debate over Russia and framing Moscow's own position towards the West, he sets out the foundations of a forward-looking strategy; one that can accommodate the many complex challenges presented by this new era of competition between Russia, Europe and the United States.

Americans aren't fighting just a war on terrorism ... they are fighting, and losing, a war of ideas.

This riveting collection of original essays by some of the best political minds in America argues that the post–September 11 era has put American democracy itself on trial. In short, defeating terrorism requires us to live up to our own ideals. In The Fight Is for Democracy, nine leading writers take a hard, and at times personal, look at American life and America's role in the world. These pieces share a belief in the need for liberal reform at home and abroad. Power alone is not enough to win hearts and minds around the world. The war against terrorism should be a war for democracy.

Edited and with an Introduction by George Packer, The Fight Is for Democracy pushes the national debate in provocative new directions with essays on:

• Domestic politics and foreign policy -- Michael Tomasky, political columnist for New York magazine
  
  
• Human rights and intervention -- Laura Secor, Boston Globe staff writer
  
  
• Secularism -- Vijay Seshadri, author and professor at Sarah Lawrence College
  
  
• Patriotism -- Todd Gitlin, author and professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University
  
  
• Politics in the Arab World -- Kanan Makiya, author and professor at Brandeis University
  
  
• Intellectuals and American culture -- Susie Linfield, associate director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University
  
  
• Globalization -- William Finnegan, staff writer at The New Yorker
  
  
• Economic inequality -- Jeff Madrick, editor of Challenge magazine
  
  
• Liberalism and terror -- Paul Berman, contributing editor of The New Republic

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. `We have declared before that it is not only expedient but necessary for a prince to take care his foundations be good, otherwise his fabric will be sure to fail.' Considered one of the first works of modern philosophy, Machiavelli's The Prince is an intense study on the nature of power and the course it should take when ruling a country and expresses the author's strong and unyielding ideals and beliefs on using force rather than law to achieve your aims. Responsible for the widely-used phrase `Machiavellian', with all of its negative connotations, his extreme treatise remains a classic text to this day.

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers First Women and The Residence, an intimate, news-making look at the men who are next in line to the most powerful office in the world-the vice presidents of the modern era-from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden to Mike Pence. Vice presidents occupy a unique and important position, living partway in the spotlight and part in the wings. Of the forty-eight vice presidents who have served the United States, fourteen have become president; eight of these have risen to the Oval Office because of a president's death or assassination, and one became president after his boss's resignation. John Nance Garner, FDR's first vice president, famously said the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (later cleaned up to "warm spit"). But things have changed dramatically in recent years. In interviews with more than two hundred people, including former vice presidents, their family members, and insiders and confidants of every president since Jimmy Carter, Kate Andersen Brower pulls back the curtain and reveals the sometimes cold, sometimes close, and always complicated relationship between our modern presidents and their vice presidents. Brower took us inside the lives of the White House staff and gave us an intimate look at the modern First Ladies; now, in her signature style, she introduces us to the second most powerful men in the world, exploring the lives and roles of thirteen modern vice presidents-eight Republicans and five Democrats. And she shares surprising revelations about the relationship between former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama and how Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump interact behind closed doors. From rivals to coworkers, there is a very tangible sense of admiration mixed with jealousy and resentment in nearly all these relationships between the number two and his boss, even the best ones, Brower reveals. Vice presidents owe their position to the president, a connection that affects not only how they are perceived but also their possible future as a presidential candidate-which is tied, for better or worse, to the president they serve. George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had a famously prickly relationship during the 1980 primary, yet Bush would not have been elected president in 1988 without Reagan's high approval rating. Al Gore's 2000 loss, meanwhile, could be attributed to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and Bill Clinton's impeachment. Current Vice President Mike Pence is walking a high-stakes political tightrope as he tries to reassure anxious Republicans while staying on his boss's good side. This rich dynamic between the president and the vice president has never been fully explored or understood. Compelling and deeply reported, grounded in history and politics, and full of previously untold and incredibly personal stories, First In Line pierces the veil of secrecy enveloping this historic political office to offer us a candid portrait of what it's truly like to be a heartbeat away.

This book examines all major aspects of the highest court in the nation, from the selection of justices and agenda creation to the decision-making process and the Court's impact on government and U.S. society. Delving deeply into personalities and procedures, author Lawrence Baum provides a balanced explanation of the Court's actions and the behaviour of its justices as he reveals its complexity, reach, and influence. This new edition gives particular attention to current developments such as the impact of political polarization on the Court, the justices' increasingly public roles, and recent rulings on same-sex marriage and health care.

Military force transforms political institutions, branches of government continually battle for power and position, leaders rise and leaders fall, but the key to the dynamics of these phenomena-the psychology of our political leaders, and that underlying most political processes-remains one of the most understudied aspects of political life. New political forces, such as the trend toward globalization, have resulted in an ever growing need to understand the relationship between psychology, culture and politics.

Demands for redress of historical injustice are a crucial component of contemporary struggles for social and transnational justice. However, understanding when and why an unjust history matters for considerations of justice in the present is not straightforward. Alasia Nuti develops a normative framework to identify which historical injustices we should be concerned about, to conceptualise the relation between persistence and change and, thus, conceive of history as newly reproduced. Focusing on the condition of women in formally egalitarian societies, the book shows that history is important to theorise the injustice of gender inequalities and devise transformative remedies. Engaging with the activist politics of the unjust past, Nuti also demonstrates that the reproduction of an unjust history is dynamic, complex and unsettling. It generates both historical and contemporary responsibilities for redress and questions precisely those features of our order that we take for granted.

'Brilliant, bold and beautifully told ... A profound piece of political thinking' Ben Judah, author of This Is London In this original and timely book, Bruno Macaes argues that the best word for the emerging global order is 'Eurasian', and shows why we need to begin thinking on a super-continental scale. While China and Russia have been quicker to recognise the increasing strategic significance of Eurasia, even Europeans are realizing that their political project is intimately linked to the rest of the supercontinent - and as Macaes shows, they will be stronger for it. Weaving together history, diplomacy and vivid reports from his six-month overland journey across Eurasia from Baku to Samarkand, Vladivostock to Beijing, Macaes provides a fascinating portrait of this shifting geopolitical landscape. As he demonstrates, we can already see the coming Eurasianism in China's bold infrastructure project reopening the historic Silk Road, in the success of cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, in Turkey's increasing global role and in the fact that, revealingly, the United States is redefining its place as between Europe and Asia. An insightful and clarifying book for our turbulent times, The Dawn of Eurasia argues that the artificial separation of the world's largest island cannot hold, and the sooner we realise it, the better.

This book examines Israeli-Jordanian relations from the end of the 1967 war until the 1994 signing of the Treaty of Peace, with a special emphasis on the 1967-1988 period. Its underlying theme is that, despite the formal state of war between them, the two countries engaged in functional cooperation resulting from a perception of shared interests. The paradoxical-type of relationship between adversaries is not uncommon in international relations.

'Smart. Informative. Overdue' Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google Political risk - the probability that a political action could significantly affect an organisation - is changing fast, and it's more widespread than ever before. In the past, the chief concern used to be whether a foreign dictator would nationalise the country's oil industry. Today, political risk stems from a widening array of agents, from Twitter users and terrorists to hackers and insurgents. What's more, the very institutions and laws that are supposed to reduce uncertainty and risk often increase it instead. This means that in today's globalised world there are no 'safe' bets. Political risk affects companies and organisations of all sizes, operating everywhere from London to Lahore, even if they don't know it. Political Risk investigates and analyses this shifting landscape, suggests what businesses can do to navigate it, and explains how all of us can better understand these rapidly changing geopolitical dynamics.

The period since the reunification of Germany has been the most tumultuous since the end of World War II. Uneasy relations between East and West, new immigrants and native Germans, left and right, and labor and business mark this phase of German history. As Kohl's Christian Democrats yield power after sixteen years, Germany's destiny is in a state of flux.

The Federal Republic of Germany at Fifty makes sense of these dizzying changes. Twenty-six essays by leading scholars deal with topics such as the role of the Greens, women in the new German intellectual and literary scene, and the effects of political and cultural change on German national identity.

Contributors include Christopher J. Anderson, Thomas A. Baylis, Gerard Braunthal, William M. Chandler, Clay Clemens, Kenneth H. F. Dyson, Werner J. Feld, E. Gene Frankland, Arthur B. Gunlicks, M. Donald Hancock, Jutta Helm, Michael G. Huelshoff, Karl H. Kahrs, Gerald R. Kleinfeld, Henry Krisch, Gregg Kvistad, Peter H. Loedel, Joyce M. Mushaben, Helmut Norpoth, Ann L. Phillips, Robert Rohrschneider, Marilyn Rueschemeyer, James Sperling, and Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.

The period since the reunification of Germany has been the most tumultuous since the end of World War II. Uneasy relations between East and West, new immigrants and native Germans, left and right, and labor and business mark this phase of German history. As Kohl's Christian Democrats yield power after sixteen years, Germany's destiny is in a state of flux.

The Federal Republic of Germany at Fifty makes sense of these dizzying changes. Twenty-six essays by leading scholars deal with topics such as the role of the Greens, women in the new German intellectual and literary scene, and the effects of political and cultural change on German national identity.

Contributors include Christopher J. Anderson, Thomas A. Baylis, Gerard Braunthal, William M. Chandler, Clay Clemens, Kenneth H. F. Dyson, Werner J. Feld, E. Gene Frankland, Arthur B. Gunlicks, M. Donald Hancock, Jutta Helm, Michael G. Huelshoff, Karl H. Kahrs, Gerald R. Kleinfeld, Henry Krisch, Gregg Kvistad, Peter H. Loedel, Joyce M. Mushaben, Helmut Norpoth, Ann L. Phillips, Robert Rohrschneider, Marilyn Rueschemeyer, James Sperling, and Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.

The concept of community is one heavily burdened by the events of the 20th century, frequently appropriated by totalitarian regimes for the purposes of exclusion and oppression. In this dialogue with Peter Engelmann, philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy attempts to free the concept from these associations, rethinking it in such a way that it can serve as a valuable starting point for a new reflection on democracy. Throughout his work Nancy has advocated a fundamental reconceptualization of politics, centred on the idea of community. He starts from the observation that all our interactions with one another are in some way shared experiences, demonstrating that a common sense of life precedes our existence as individuals. This means that we can only truly make sense of life in a plurality. Though democracy is typically concerned with establishing political unity, its greater task should therefore lie in community: creating a space in which sense can realise itself and circulate. This stimulating conversation with one of France's foremost thinkers will be of great interest to all readers of contemporary philosophy and political theory.

For most of the twentieth century, social thinkers devoted their attention mainly to the issues of economic class. They generally dismissed the more primordial bonds of racial, ethnic, and national identities as irrational anachronisms that either communism or the liberal frameworks of democracy would dissolve.

Today, communism is nearly dead and liberalism is on the wane. At the same time, older ethno-racial tribalisms, along with some newly invented ones, have shattered our illusions of a rationally manageable world. They find expression in chauvinistic nationalisms, multiculturalist ideologies, vicious civil wars, "ethnic cleansing" of whole regions, intensified racial and ethnic strife, a resurgence of prejudice, scapegoating, hate groups, and nativism, as well as new group-based challenges to the individualistic focus of Western liberalism.

Bringing together prominent historians, sociologists, and political scientists, New Tribalisms examines early conceptions of racial and ethnic pluralism in the United States. The volume also confronts some of the causes, implications, and possible outcomes of resurgent tribalisms in the country and around the world.