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Welcome to PS Book Recommendations, your weekly source of reading inspiration, provided by PS contributors. This week’s edition features Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, and John Andrews, a former editor and foreign correspondent for The Economist.
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By Kurt Weyland
“In this magisterial study, Weyland analyzes when and how democracies withstand the threat of populist authoritarianism. Weyland’s comprehensive analysis is a must-read for all those interested in the prospects for democracy around the world, including for students of American politics who will see recent US experiences set in global perspective.” – Professor Frances Lee, Princeton University
Sponsored by Cambridge University Press
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Kishore Mahbubani Recommends...
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By Martin Wolf
Mahbubani says: "There is no question that many Western societies are struggling. When strong democracies like the United States and the United Kingdom elect irresponsible leaders like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, something has clearly gone wrong. No one explains the problem better than Martin Wolf, one of the West’s wisest commentators. As he puts it, 'The health of our societies depends on sustaining a delicate balance between the economic and the political, the individual and the collective, the national and the global. But that balance is broken.'”
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Don’t miss our PS Say More interview with Mahbubani on the US-China rivalry, Asian security risks, and more. Read now.
"During its own rise, the United States fought wars, expelled other powers from countries where it sought a foothold, and acquired distant territories. China has done none of these things."
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By Kanti Bajpai
Mahbubani says: "Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once observed, 'The world is large enough to accommodate the growth ambitions of both India and China.' He was right. Yet the two Asian powers have a complex, neurotic relationship, which Kanti Bajpai illuminates through an insightful examination of history. That relationship plunged to a new low in 2020, when China and India clashed, yet again, in the Himalayas. If bilateral relations don’t improve, a dark cloud will continue to hang over Asia. But if each side endeavors to understand the other better – including, perhaps, by reading this book – they could pave the way to a better future."
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PS Contributors' Perspectives
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By John Andrews
The trite answer to the question of why empires fall is that they become victims of their own success, growing too large, too corrupt, and too exhausted to fend off energetic newcomers. Whether this will be America's fate has become an urgent issue in today's increasingly unstable, multipolar world. Read the Longer Read.
By Nandini Das
Andrews says: This "wonderfully researched book" focuses on "the very beginnings of the British Empire and its covetous reach into what was then the Mughal Empire in India."
By Lawrence James
Andrews says: "James, a prolific historian of the UK’s role in world affairs, follows Britain’s relations with China from the nineteenth-century Opium War until the return of Hong Kong and today’s tensions over Taiwan."
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Courting India:
The Lion and the Dragon – Britain and China:
