The best geopolitics books

The Death of the French Atlantic examines the dramatic decline of France’s Atlantic empire in the Age of Revolution, showing how three major forces – war, revolution and anti-slavery – created instability and led to the loss of her richest Caribbean colony, Saint-Domingue, to insurrection and revolution. The book underlines the importance of slaving to the prosperity of France’s west-coast ports and relies heavily on individual testimony as it follows merchants, planters and ships’ captains as they criss-crossed the Atlantic world.  It concludes by examining the uneasy memory of these years in port cities such as Nantes, Bordeaux and La Rochelle, a memory that has left an indelible mark on race relations in France today.

When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, revolutions, and technological advances. But how has the Earth itself determined our destiny? How has our planet made us? Geological forces drove our evolution in East Africa; mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece; and today voting behaviour in the United States follows the bed of an ancient sea. The human story is the story of these forces, from plate tectonics and climate change, to atmospheric circulation and ocean currents.

Explore through millennia of human history, and billions of years into our planet’s past, to see the vast web of connections that underwrites our modern world - the ultimate origin story.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine shows that the international order defined by liberal globalization is under severe strain. Will it survive, and if not, what will replace it? In The New Twenty Years' Crisis 1999-2019, Philip Cunliffe shows that the decline of our liberal international order began in 1999. In contrast to claims that the order has been undermined by authoritarian hegemonic challengers such as Putin’s Russia, Cunliffe argues that the primary drivers of the crisis are internal. In search of a solution, this book argues that breaking through the current impasse will require pushing past the fear that the twenty-first century will repeat the mistakes of the twentieth. Only then can we finally escape the twenty years crisis that perpetually bedevils liberal international order.

Red Flags is about how China’s unique experience of economic development came to pass, and how and why it has run up against increasingly strong headwinds that pose huge challenges in the coming years. 

Foremost among these are weaning itself off an addiction to debt, rapid population aging, the stall in productivity growth, a sharp leftward lurch in politics and governance, and all taking place in the harshest external environment China has experienced since Mao. Many of these problems of course are of China’s own making and will determine what sort of adversary or threat China will be in the 2020s and after.

This clear and comprehensive text explores the past thirty years of Soviet/Russian international relations, comparing foreign policy formation under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Medvedev, and Putin. Challenging conventional views of Moscow’s foreign policy, Andrei Tsygankov shows that definitions of national interest depend on visions of national identity and is rooted both in history and domestic politics. Yet the author also highlights the role of the external environment in affecting the balance of power among competing domestic groups. Drawing on both Russian and Western sources, Tsygankov shows how Moscow’s policies have shifted under different leaders’ visions of Russia’s national interests. He gives an overview of the ideas and pressures that motivated Russian foreign policy in different periods.

This clear and comprehensive text explores the past thirty years of Soviet/Russian international relations, comparing foreign policy formation under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Medvedev, and Putin. Challenging conventional views of Moscow’s foreign policy, Andrei Tsygankov shows that definitions of national interest depend on visions of national identity and is rooted both in history and domestic politics. Yet the author also highlights the role of the external environment in affecting the balance of power among competing domestic groups. Drawing on both Russian and Western sources, Tsygankov shows how Moscow’s policies have shifted under different leaders’ visions of Russia’s national interests. He gives an overview of the ideas and pressures that motivated Russian foreign policy in different periods.

Set against the backdrop of a CIA operation in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, The Haze follows CIA agent Hector Kane as he finds his career and marriage at stake when he receives a phone call from a Saudi prince who claims that Hector’s wife is a Chinese spy.

India is a federal union with 28 states and 8 union territories. The states of India are all-encompassing—they cover every inch of land and hold every single person that makes up India. States give every Indian a home and an identity. Every time a new state is created or an old one altered, India and Indians are remade, recreated, reborn. When India completed its journey of independence on 15 August 1947, its states began their individual processes of formation. And while India’s modern history of independence and partition is much recounted, the history of its constituent parts—its states—is hardly known, even to its residents. This book tells the stories of the states of India, which are also the story of India.

For years economists have spoken of 'Africa rising', and despite the global financial crisis, Africa continues to host some of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Africa's Shadow Rise however argues that the continent's apparent economic 'rise' is essentially a mirage, driven by developments elsewhere - most particularly the expansion in China's economy. While many African countries have experienced high rates of growth, much of this growth may prove to be unsustainable, and has contributed to environmental destruction and worsening inequality across the continent. Similarly, new economic relationships have produced new forms of dependency. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in southern Africa, Africa's Shadow Rise reveals how the shifting balance of global power is transforming Africa's economy and politics, and what this means for the future of the region.

In Qing Colonial Enterprise, Laura Hostetler shows how Qing China (1636-1911) used cartography and ethnography to pursue its imperial ambitions. She argues that far from being on the periphery of developments in the early modern period, Qing China both participated in and helped shape the new emphasis on empirical scientific knowledge that was simultaneously transforming Europe—and its colonial empires—at the time.

Although mapping in China is almost as old as Chinese civilization itself, the Qing insistence on accurate, to-scale maps of their territory was a new response to the difficulties of administering a vast and growing empire. Likewise, direct observation became increasingly important to Qing ethnographic writings, such as the illustrated manuscripts known as "Miao albums" (from which twenty color paintings are reproduced in this book).