Anyone who works on the United Nations or multilateral affairs more generally deserves a very long summer vacation this year. The past six months have wreaked havoc on the U.N. system, as the Trump administration has created enormous financial and political disruption. Many international officials will be heading to the beach unsure of whether they will have jobs by the end of the year due to U.S. funding cuts.
Under the circumstances, most multilateralists are likely to pack some light, escapist novels to while away their breaks. But for those who want to situate their current plight in its historical context, or draw lessons from past periods of diplomatic disruption, here are some useful reads.
Start with Perry Anderson’s “Disputing Disaster,” a survey of how six different historians in different eras explained the origins of World War I. That might sound a little dry, but Anderson—a stalwart of the British New Left now in his 80s—writes remarkably deftly about historians and their craft. Some of his subjects prove to be dicey individuals. Fritz Fischer, a German historian who caused a huge controversy at home and abroad in the early 1960s by blaming the war entirely on Germany, turns out to have had a Nazi past.