Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life, by John Campbell, Jonathan Cape RRP£30

The biography of a centre-left politician who never made it to the top of British politics and operated in a period when the country was in gentle decline might not sound too promising. But Campbell is a superb biographer and he makes Jenkins a fascinating and emblematic figure.

The Contest of the Century: The New Era of Competition with China, by Geoff Dyer, Allen Lane, RRP£20/ Knopf, RRP$26.95

The FT’s Geoff Dyer looks at the emerging US-China rivalry. His widely praised book examines the military, economic and political aspects of the contest – and makes clear how developments in one area will affect others. In particular, both the Chinese and US leaderships face daunting domestic reform challenges.

The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs, by Andrew Hussey, Granta, RRP£25/ Faber, RRP$35

One of the most eye-catching developments in European politics, the rise of France’s far-right National Front, is put in context by Hussey’s study of the growing divisions between mainstream France and an embittered, radicalised section of its Muslim minority. The book argues that the “intifada” is as much about culture as economics.

Danah Boyd
Author of ‘It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens’

Alice Goffman’s On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (University of Chicago Press) brilliantly deciphers the cultural logic of American black men’s relationship with law enforcement, revealing why black communities respond the way they do to policing culture. Today’s poor youth are trying to navigate a system that is unfair and disempowering. The lesson many take away is to trust no one. On the Run is an eye-opening book, full of beauty and sorrow, that challenges most people’s assumptions about policing and inequality in America.

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, by John Mearsheimer, WW Norton, RRP£13.99/$19.95

A classic work of political science, first published in 2001, now reissued with a new chapter on the rise of China. Mearsheimer, a doyen of the gloomy “realist” school of international relations, predicts that relations between the US and China will be characterised by “intense security competition with considerable potential for war”.

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, Allen Lane, RRP£20/ Penguin Press, RRP$27.95

The editor and management guru at the Economist take on a characteristically large subject: the history and future of government. Their book has the characteristic virtues of the Economist: confidence, clarity, a sense of history and a global perspective.

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos, Bodley Head, RRP£20/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, RRP$27

As the New Yorker’s Beijing correspondent, Osnos built up a reputation as one of the finest and most vivid western writers on China. Here he pulls together his reportage to draw a portrait of a country torn between the rise of individualism and an entrenched one-party state.

Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival, by David Pilling, Allen Lane, RRP£20/ Penguin Press, RRP$29.95

Pilling, the FT’s Asia editor, was based in Tokyo for many years. His affection and admiration for Japan shines through in this perceptive account, which stresses Japan’s ability to reinvent itself – and so cuts through much of the fashionable pessimism about the country.

Brazil: The Troubled Rise of a Global Power, by Michael Reid, Yale, RRP£20/ $32.50

Perfectly timed for the World Cup, Reid’s book is highly readable and scholarly. His subtle analysis is captured in a subtitle that makes clear that Brazil is both an emerging world power and a nation with deep-seated problems rooted in its colonial past, slavery and official paternalism.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Reuse this content (opens in new window) CommentsJump to comments section

Follow the topics in this article

Comments