• China

January

The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World
Hal Brands (W. W. Norton & Company, 320 pp., $29.99, Jan. 14)

Although many in the West think we’re living in the American century, political scientist Hal Brands argues that, in reality, the world is in the middle of a long Eurasian century. In this ambitious book, Brands, who has long written for FP on China and the global order, looks to Eurasia’s strategic geography to explain the nature of great-power politics today.

Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies
Michael Albertus (Basic Books, 272 pp., $30, Jan. 14)

In this wide-ranging book, political scientist Michael Albertus examines how land ownership has defined modern history, from 1500s European colonialism to 20th-century collectivization in the Soviet Union and China. What we do with the land, Albertus argues, dictates our societies in more ways than we realize—and could hold the key to present-day change.

House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company
Eva Dou (Portfolio, 448 pp., $34, Jan. 14)

How did Huawei, once a little-known telecom company, become one of the world’s most successful technology empires? This is the question Eva Dou, a Washington Post technology reporter, explores in House of Huawei, which aims to peel back the curtain on the company and its reclusive founder, Ren Zhengfei.

Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
Tao Leigh Goffe (Doubleday, 384 pp., $35, Jan. 21)

In this sweeping history, Tao Leigh Goffe, a professor of literary theory and cultural history, examines the Caribbean as a “dark laboratory” of Western experimentation and extraction, urging readers to reconsider the relationship between racism, colonialism, and environmental crisis both past and present.

Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis
Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 224 pp., $31, Jan. 28)

Robert D. Kaplan, one of America’s preeminent foreign-affairs writers, looks to history, politics, philosophy, and literature—with a particular focus on Weimar-era Germany—to explain why the world has entered an era of constant crisis and consider where it might be headed.

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning
Peter Beinart (Knopf, 192 pp., $26, Jan. 28)

In his latest book, journalist and political commentator Peter Beinart considers the narratives that are central to Jewish communal life and urges Jews to reexamine the question of what it means to be Jewish in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.

February

Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War
Lyndal Roper (Basic Books, 544 pp., $35, Feb. 11)

The German Peasants’ War of 1524-25 was the biggest uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution—and according to Lyndal Roper, the first woman to hold the Regius chair of history at Oxford University, it transformed the continent. In the first history of the rebellion for a generation, Roper makes an argument for how the war revolutionized Europe.

The World After Gaza: A History
Pankaj Mishra (Penguin Press, 304 pp., $28, Feb. 11)

The global response to Israel’s war in Gaza has been sharply polarized. In his latest book, Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra argues that this reflects two competing stories about the past century—the global north’s triumph over totalitarianism after the Holocaust and the global south’s narrative of freedom and decolonization—and explores how these histories shape the current conflict.

Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History
Rich Benjamin (Pantheon, 320 pp., $29, Feb. 11)

A few weeks after the author’s grandfather, Daniel Fignolé, became Haiti’s president in 1957, the liberal labor leader lost power in a CIA-backed coup. In this memoir, cultural anthropologist Rich Benjamin reconstructs his family’s—and Haiti’s—history and offers a meditation on the human cost of Washington’s interventions abroad.

The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine
Alexander Vindman (PublicAffairs, 304 pp., $30, Feb. 25)

Alexander Vindman, the former director for European affairs on the White House’s National Security Council, draws on his military, diplomatic, and government experience in his latest book, arguing that Washington’s foreign policy has emboldened Moscow and offering a new paradigm for containing Russian expansionism.

Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare
Edward Fishman (Portfolio, 560 pp., $40, Feb. 25)

Edward Fishman, a former top U.S. State Department sanctions official, provides an insider’s look at how Washington has upended conventional geopolitics as it has pioneered a new form of economic warfare in the past two decades to address national security threats and counter China, Russia, and Iran.

Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments
Kenneth Roth (Knopf, 448 pp., $30, Feb. 25)

In a behind-the-scenes memoir, Kenneth Roth, who led Human Rights Watch for nearly 30 years and has often contributed to FP, reflects on his decades of fighting to protect human rights—from China to Rwanda to the United States—and suggests strategies that have effectively pressured autocrats to stop abuses.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad (Knopf, 208 pp., $28, Feb. 25)

When Omar El Akkad, an Egyptian American novelist and journalist, came to the West as a teenager, he believed that it stood for justice and freedom. Now, after two decades of reporting on Western foreign policy and international affairs, he has penned a “breakup letter” with the West, which he argues has betrayed its values at home and abroad.

March

Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men
Patricia Owens (Princeton University Press, 432 pp., $35, March 11)

Many believe that international relations is a field that was mostly built by white men—but that’s inaccurate, Patricia Owens writes. Owens, a professor of international relations, reveals how women thinkers who shaped the discipline since its beginnings in the early 20th century were marginalized and later erased from the historical record.

How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food
Vaclav Smil (Viking, 272 pp., $30, March 4)

Vaclav Smil, a Czech Canadian scientist and policy analyst, draws on his interdisciplinary background to refute common misconceptions about the global food system and puts forward solutions to fix it and eliminate hunger.

Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China
Emily Feng (Crown, 304 pp., $29, March 18)

What happens to those who fail to conform in Xi’s China? NPR correspondent Emily Feng believes that this question is central to understanding the nature of the modern Chinese state. In this deeply reported book, Feng shares the stories of individuals who are fighting back, from members of a Uyghur family to a Hong Kong fugitive.

Abundance
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 320 pp., $30, March 18)

Many of society’s problems, from housing shortages to a lack of clean-energy infrastructure, come from a scarcity mindset—and could be solved by transitioning to a mindset of abundance, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson argue in their new book.

April

The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West
Amitav Acharya (Basic Books, 464 pp., $32.50, April 8)

Many fear the West’s decline on the global stage, but political scientist Amitav Acharya writes that a dominant West is not necessary for rules-based global order—and that rising multipolarity could be an opportunity to establish a more just international system.

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other
Viet Thanh Nguyen (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 144 pp., $26.95, April 8)

What is the role of the outsider in literary writing? And how can communities build global solidarity amid war, imperialism, and violence? Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, turns to literary, political, and historical analysis in his quest to answer these questions in six essays originally delivered as the prestigious Norton Lectures.

Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age
Vauhini Vara (Pantheon, 352 pp., $30, April 8)

In this essay collection, Vauhini Vara, a tech journalist-turned-novelist, examines how corporate-owned technologies, from social media to ChatGPT, are transforming what it means to be human as they both fulfill and commodify individuals’ longing for connection.

More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
Adam Becker (Basic Books, 384 pp., $32, April 22)

Today’s Silicon Valley billionaires have grand visions about what the future will look like. But journalist and astrophysicist Adam Becker argues that these technology- and AI-powered fantasies aren’t grounded in science—and distract us from tackling critical problems such as the climate crisis.

Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America
Michael Luo (Doubleday, 560 pp., $35, April 29)

New Yorker editor Michael Luo’s Strangers in the Land traces the history of Chinese immigrants in the United States, from the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the mid-19th century, to the late 19th-century exclusionary laws banning Chinese immigrants, to the fight for belonging amid anti-Asian sentiment that persists today.

America, América: A New History of the New World
Greg Grandin (Penguin Press, 768 pp., $35, April 22)

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin has written the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere. Rather than looking to Europe, Grandin examines the relationship between North and South America over five centuries to show that the United States’ political identity was shaped by—and helped shape—that of Latin America.

May

Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company
Patrick McGee (Scribner, 352 pp., $32, May 13)

According to Financial Times journalist Patrick McGee, the world’s most valuable company has become a victim of its own success. McGee tells the story of how Apple, which has anchored its supply chain in China, has helped transform the country into an electronics manufacturing powerhouse—and is now increasingly subject to Beijing’s whims.

June

Breaking the Engagement: How China Won & Lost America
David Shambaugh (Oxford University Press, 424 pp., $29.99, June 12)

After decades of steadily improving relations, why did the U.S.-China relationship go sharply downhill? China expert David Shambaugh considers what happened to the U.S. engagement strategy with China and the role that Washington’s expectations may have had in this shift.

Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics
Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis (Oxford University Press, 320 pp., $29.99, June 30)

Political scientists Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis put forward a theory of “authoritarian snapback” in their latest book, which argues that authoritarian regimes have learned how to exploit the same tools and norms that once spread liberalism.

 July

The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century
Tim Weiner (Mariner Books, 336 pp., $35, July 15)

In this successor to his National Book Award-winning Legacy of Ashes, reporter Tim Weiner chronicles the CIA’s drastic transformation over the first quarter of the 21st century, from 9/11, to the so-called war on terror, to the United States’ ongoing spy wars with Russia and China.

 August 

Devils’ Advocates: How Washington Lobbyists Get Rich Enabling Dictators, Oligarchs, and Arms Dealers (While Thwarting Democracy)
Kenneth P. Vogel (William Morrow, 320 pp., $30, Aug. 5)

Washington’s foreign influence industry is often overlooked, but New York Times investigative reporter Kenneth P. Vogel draws on a wide array of sources to show that the billion-dollar industry threatens democracy as it quietly influences U.S. policy on behalf of foreign interests ranging from African dictators to Serbian arms dealers.

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Scott Anderson (Doubleday, 512 pp., $35, Aug. 5)

In this narrative history, Scott Anderson, a veteran war correspondent and contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, argues that the Iranian Revolution was as important to world history as the French and Russian Revolutions.

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide
Howard W. French (Liveright, 512 pp., $39.99, Aug. 26)

Howard W. French, an FP columnist and former New York Times foreign correspondent, weaves the legacy of Ghanaian revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah into a narrative that places the liberation of post-World War II colonial Africa and the U.S. civil rights movement at the forefront of modern history.