Like most academics, I stockpile books like a doomsday prepper stockpiles Spam and bullets, but I rarely have time to review what is on my shelves in light of the current moment in global affairs. A recent downsizing provided an opportunity to do just that. Much went into storage, but much that remained on my shelf deserved a careful re-read.
With the fall semester around the corner and one eye on recent headlines—AI agents going rogue, a simmering Middle East conflict, a world on fire—I gravitated toward neglected volumes that I felt were indispensable for young students to make sense of the world they are inheriting. All of the gems I suggest below are eminently readable, suitable for freshman or upper-division college classes, and touch on key messages that professors of world affairs might well convey as part of a liberal arts education worth paying for.
Richard Haass, “The Bill of Obligations.” Haass, a veteran diplomat and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote this book to answer a journalist’s question as to what keeps him up at night. His answer: the increasing democratic deficit among Americans, at a time when the United States’ power remains unprecedented.