A List of Recommended Books
Discover a curated list of recommended books on history and political science, featuring standout titles like David Frum's An End to Evil, Robert D. Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy, and Mark Bowden's Guests of the Ayatollah—essential reading for insightful analysis.
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Guests of the Ayatollah
by Mark Bowden
From the best-selling author of Black Hawk Down comes a definitive account of the Iran hostage crisis during which fifty-two Americans were held hostage in the Tehran embassy for 444 days, offering insights into the event from the perspective of the hostages, soldiers sent to free them, the radical captors, and diplomats trying to end the crisis. Reprint. 150,000 first printing.
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An End to Evil
by David Frum
An End to Evil charts the agenda for what’s next in the war on terrorism, as articulated by David Frum, former presidential speechwriter and bestselling author of The Right Man, and Richard Perle, former assistant secretary of defense and one of the most influential foreign-policy leaders in Washington. This world is an unsafe place for Americans—and the U.S. government remains unready to defend its people. In An End to Evil, David Frum and Richard Perle sound the alert about the dangers around us: the continuing threat from terrorism, the crisis with North Korea, the aggressive ambitions of China. Frum and Perle provide a detailed, candid account of America’s vulnerabilities: a military whose leaders resist change, intelligence agencies mired in bureaucracy, diplomats who put friendly relations with their foreign colleagues ahead of the nation’s interests. Perle and Frum lay out a bold program to defend America—and to win the war on terror. Among the topics this book addresses: • why the United States risks its security if it submits to the authority of the United Nations • why France and Saudi Arabia have to be treated as adversaries, not allies, in the war on terror • why the United States must take decisive action against Iran—now • what to do in North Korea if negotiations fail • why everything you read in the newspapers about the Israeli-Arab dispute is wrong • how our government must be changed if we are to fight the war on terror to victory—not just stalemate • where the next great terror threat is coming from—and what we can do to protect ourselves An End to Evil will define the conservative point of view on foreign policy for a new generation—and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond. With a keen insiders’ perspective on how our leaders are confronting—or not confronting—the war on terrorism, David Frum and Richard Perle make a convincing argument for why the toughest line is the safest line.
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The Coming Anarchy
by Robert D. Kaplan
Robert Kaplan, bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts, offers up scrupulous, far-ranging insights on the world to come in a spirited, rousing, and provocative book that has earned a place at the top of the reading lists of the world's policy makers. The end of the Cold War has not ushered in the global peace and prosperity that many had anticipated. Volatile new democracies in Eastern Europe, fierce tribalism in Africa, civil war and ethnic violence in the Near East, and widespread famine and disease—not to mention the brutal rift developing as wealthy nations reap the benefits of seemingly boundless technology while other parts of the world slide into chaos—are among the issues Kaplan identifies as the most important for charting the future of geopolitics. Historical antecedents in Gibbon's Decline and Fall and in the legacies of statesmen such as Henry Kissinger contribute to this bracingly prophetic framework for addressing the new global reality. Bold, erudite, and profoundly important, The Coming Anarchy is a compelling must-read by one of today's most penetrating writers and provocative minds.
