Reading List for School

As some of you may have noticed by now, I am a grad student! I graduated last month with my MA in International Security. Grad school comes with endless reading, constant writing, and many exhausted days but I am studying something I find completely fascinating and so it brings me great joy.

I decided to share the two books that I had to read for one of my favorite courses. First, the class was about emerging powers in the international system and how shifts in the system can alter world order. We focused on many different countries that are rising in power and influence, but I always gravitated towards writing about and researching Russia. If you're new here, Russian culture and language are sort of my passion.

So here are two books that we read and a few notes on them if you're interested in international relations or any related fields. And just because I have read these books does not mean that I agree with the authors' views. Political Science involves exposure to many different views and evaluating them on your own.

Title: World Order
Author: Henry Kissinger
Page Count: 374
Younger Readers: Just note that this was read for a graduate level course. Content was not graphic in any way but it could be difficult for a child to comprehend both the vocabulary and scope of the subject matter.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Henry Kissinger offers in World Order a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global disorder. Drawing on his experience as one of the foremost statesmen of the modern era—advising presidents, traveling the world, observing and shaping the central foreign policy events of recent decades—Kissinger now reveals his analysis of the ultimate challenge for the twenty-first century: how to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historical perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.

There has never been a true “world order,” Kissinger observes. For most of history, civilizations defined their own concepts of order. Each considered itself the center of the world and envisioned its distinct principles as universally relevant. China conceived of a global cultural hierarchy with the Emperor at its pinnacle. In Europe, Rome imagined itself surrounded by barbarians; when Rome fragmented, European peoples refined a concept of an equilibrium of sovereign states and sought to export it across the world. Islam, in its early centuries, considered itself the world’s sole legitimate political unit, destined to expand indefinitely until the world was brought into harmony by religious principles. The United States was born of a conviction about the universal applicability of democracy—a conviction that has guided its policies ever since.

Now international affairs take place on a global basis, and these historical concepts of world order are meeting. Every region participates in questions of high policy in every other, often instantaneously. Yet there is no consensus among the major actors about the rules and limits guiding this process, or its ultimate destination. The result is mounting tension.

Grounded in Kissinger’s deep study of history and his experience as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, World Order guides readers through crucial episodes in recent world history. Kissinger offers a unique glimpse into the inner deliberations of the Nixon administration’s negotiations with Hanoi over the end of the Vietnam War, as well as Ronald Reagan’s tense debates with Soviet Premier Gorbachev in Reykjavík. He offers compelling insights into the future of U.S.–China relations and the evolution of the European Union, and examines lessons of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Taking readers from his analysis of nuclear negotiations with Iran through the West’s response to the Arab Spring and tensions with Russia over Ukraine, World Order anchors Kissinger’s historical analysis in the decisive events of our time.

Provocative and articulate, blending historical insight with geopolitical prognostication, World Order is a unique work that could come only from a lifelong policymaker and diplomat.  


Title: The Second World- How Emerging Powers are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-First Century
Author: Parag Khanna
Page Count: 341
Younger Readers: This one would be easier to grasp than World Order with easier concepts and language. However, references to prostitution and other illegal activity might not be appropriate for young children. High school age should be fine, perhaps some mature middle school aged children.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In The Second World, scholar Parag Khanna, chosen as one of Esquire’s 75 Most Influential People of the Twenty-First Century, reveals how America’s future depends on its ability to compete with the European Union and China to forge relationships with the Second World, the pivotal regions of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East, and East Asia that are growing in influence and economic strength.

Informed, witty, and armed with a traveler’s intuition for blending into diverse cultures, Khanna depicts second-world societies from the inside out, observing how globalization divides them into winners and losers–and shows how China, Europe, and America use their unique imperial gravities to pull the second-world countries into their orbits. Along the way, Khanna explains how Arabism and Islamism compete for the Arab soul, reveals how Iran and Saudi Arabia play the superpowers against one another, unmasks Singapore’s inspirational role in East Asia, and psychoanalyzes the second-world leaders whose decisions are reshaping the balance of power.