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Mugabe’s violent drive for absolute power and the earlier failure to forge a liberal middle way still haunt the country today
A timely account of how Beijing is expanding its influence makes for sober reading
Middle age is miserable — but for most it’s a passing phase, say official data
Gideon Rachman selects his mid-year reads
Shashi Tharoor’s latest book explores India’s belief systems and the dangers that lie ahead
Julian Jackson’s masterful life of Charles de Gaulle holds timely warnings about the concentration of authority in the Élysée
The compelling story of the president’s bid to revive France and Europe
A welcome dose of scepticism on the techniques used by firms such as Cambridge Analytica
A hard-headed realpolitik now governs the battle for influence between China, the US and India
An account of how estranged Londoners found a way to answer back is well-timed
A candid expert account suggests little will change under the current leadership
A prison monastery on the White Sea was both a place of terror and great culture
Chozick’s book reveals how Clinton team believed Trump’s run was ‘gift from heaven’
Warnings of the demise of liberalism are a familiar distraction
Today’s angry political climate compels us to re-examine the meaning of democracy
Once central to the country’s identity, France’s thinkers and philosophers have lost touch
As populist leaders test the limits of their power, the warnings from historians and political scientists are growing louder
We live in a time of openness, globalisation — and walls. A study of the world’s fraught borderlands seeks to explain why
Is China’s turn to harder authoritarianism compatible with continued robust growth?
A French philosopher seeks to piece together the world views of Russia’s president and France’s National Front leader
A rhapsodic and provocative collection of essays on race, class, sexuality and identity in America
Amy Chua argues that both left and right are to blame for the rise of rancorous identity politics
A stylish history of the 1940s effort to rebuild Europe is a case study in far-sighted statesmanship
A journalist sees a national identity crisis in Britain’s failure to come to terms with its colonial past
Martin Wolf on an analysis of Europe’s populist upsurge that places the blame squarely on liberals
