Three more books arrived today. I shouldn’t let this get me down. Obviously, in many ways it’s a very nice aspect of my job that I keep being sent interesting new books - for free. But the pile of unread tomes on my desk is a bit lowering.

One of the British Sunday papers has a quiz that includes the question “what percentage of the books on your shelves have you actually read?” My answer has always been - “about 50%” - and even that is probably charitable. But with new books arriving all the time, my hit rate is going down fast.

The three that arrived today are “Fidel Castro, My Life” (Penguin) by - well - Fidel Castro; “The Powers to Lead”  (Oxford) by Joseph Nye - he of “soft power” fame. And “In Sickness and in Power” (Methuen) - a tome by David Owen, a former British foreign secretary and doctor, about people who fell ill when in power. I have put all three on the pile and I look at them occasionally - and they look back at me, reproachfully.

But before listing all the zillions of books that I haven’t yet got round to reading - or indeed opening - let me mention three good ones that I have read.

I really enjoyed Mark Leonard’s “What Does China Think”. Some Sinologists are a bit sniffy about the book, since Leonard is a generalist and doesn’t speak Chinese. I can see their point. What is the point of learning a fiendish language, if some newcomer can just breeze in and start pronouncing on China - without putting in the hard work first? But the fact is that Leonard’s book would make an excellent primer for anyone with an interest in politics and foreign policy. It is just short enough to get through on a flight to Beijing. And there is a clever idea behind it. The argument is that there is plenty of real debate within China. It is just that it is taking place within the Communist Party and the one-party state system.

By talking to leading Chinese intellectuals and then imposing a pattern on their arguments, Leonard (it seems to me) is able to give a real flavour of the kind of debates that will shape China’s future and its relations with the rest of the world. The arguments include debate between apostles of free-market capitalism and a group that Leonard characterises as the “new left” who worry increasingly about social inequality and the environment. Another big dividing line is between advocates of competitive elections and those who want to develop some sort of internal democracy within the Communist Party. Anyway, its a fascinating read.

Two other books that I’ve enjoyed recently are by Samantha Power. I didn’t read “A Problem from Hell” the first time around - and only picked it up before my recent lunch with Power. But its a very rare example of a serious foreign policy book that is also a real page-turner. Power’s second book - “Chasing the Flame” - a biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello looks like it is going to be less successful. It’s longer, the story is less dramatic and it’s less clear what the thesis is.  But I found it interesting. And - in many ways - it makes sense as a sequel to “A Problem from Hell” - since it is about a man who spent his life trying to bring order and peace to some of the world’s most hellish spots.

Another book that I’m definitely going to have to read - if only because I’m reviewing it - is Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World (Norton). So far it seems pretty good.

Zakaria’s book is about the decline of American hegemony - and that is a theme of a lot of the books that I intend to pick up and read, any day now. There is “The New Asian Hemisphere” by Kishore Mahbubani. And then there is the work by Bill Emmott (my old boss at The Economist) - “Rivals - How the power struggle between China, India and Japan will shape our next decade” (Allen Lane). As the fashionably-massive sub-title implies, Emmott’s book is actually less about the relationship between the US and Asia - and more about rivalries within Asia itself. That - at least - makes a change from the plethora of decline of America titles.

What else? Well, I think I should definitely read Misha Glenny’s “McMafia - Crime without Frontiers” (Bodley Head). It’s an original and important subject - and, I think, as well-researched as anything on that topic is likely to be, given the obvious constraints (not being killed etc…)

Further down the pile, I see Philip Shenon’s “The Commission” (Little Brown), a book on the 9/11 commission, which I’ve been told is really good. Then there is Larry Diamond’s “The State of Democracy” (Times) - perhaps I’ll content myself with the “Foreign Affairs” article by him.

And then there is something that I have been promising myself that I will read for about a year. Its called “Addicted to Oil - America’s Relentless Drive for Energy Security” (IB Tauris). It came to my attention when I wrote a column which - in passing - dismissed the idea that the invasion of Iraq was about oil. The author Ian Rutledge sent me a polite note - begging to differ - and included his book as evidence. I’ve occasionally opened it and flicked through a few pages, and it looks fascinating and well-researched. But I really must sit down and read it from cover-to-cover. Soon. I promise.

With all this unread stuff lying around, this is obviously a foolish question - but what other new books on international relations should I be reading?

April 16, 2008 8:34pm in Uncategorized | Comment