secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Stanford University professor Amy B. Zegart comes an examination of the rapidly evolving state of political risk, and how to navigate it.The world is changing fast. Political risk-the probability that a political action could significantly impact a company's business-is affecting more businesses in more ways than ever before. A generation ago, political risk mostly involved a handful of industries dealing with governments in a few frontier markets. Today, political risk stems from a widening array of actors, including Twitter users, local officials, activists, terrorists, hackers, and more. The very institutions and laws that were supposed to reduce business uncertainty and risk are often having the opposite effect. In today's globalized world, there are no "safe" bets.POLITICAL RISK investigates and analyzes this evolving landscape, what businesses can do to navigate it, and what all of us can learn about how to better understand and grapple with these rapidly changing global political dynamics. Drawing on lessons from the successes and failures of companies across multiple industries as well as examples from aircraft carrier operations, NASA missions, and other unusual places, POLITICAL RISK offers a first-of-its-kind framework that can be deployed in any organization, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.Organizations that take a serious, systematic approach to political risk management are likely to be surprised less often and recover better. Companies that don't get these basics right are more likely to get blindsided.

    But in China: Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere--not in China's astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think--and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with this country a minefield. The paperback edition features a new preface by the author.

    Every day a new blaze seems to ignite: the bloody implosion of Iraq and Syria; the East-West standoff in Ukraine; abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria. Is there some thread tying these frightening international security crises together? In a riveting account that weaves history with fast-moving reportage and insider accounts from the Afghanistan war, Sarah Chayes identifies the unexpected link: corruption.Since the late 1990s, corruption has reached such an extent that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs, bent solely on their own enrichment. These kleptocrats drive indignant populations to extremes—ranging from revolution to militant puritanical religion. Chayes plunges readers into some of the most venal environments on earth and examines what emerges: Afghans returning to the Taliban, Egyptians overthrowing the Mubarak government (but also redesigning Al-Qaeda), and Nigerians embracing both radical evangelical Christianity and the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In many such places, rigid moral codes are put forth as an antidote to the collapse of public integrity.The pattern, moreover, pervades history. Through deep archival research, Chayes reveals that canonical political thinkers such as John Locke and Machiavelli, as well as the great medieval Islamic statesman Nizam al-Mulk, all named corruption as a threat to the realm. In a thrilling argument connecting the Protestant Reformation to the Arab Spring, Thieves of State presents a powerful new way to understand global extremism. And it makes a compelling case that we must confront corruption, for it is a cause—not a result—of global instability.

    Sachs has been at the forefront of international problem solving. But Sachs turns his attention back home in 'The Price of Civilization,' a book that is essential reading for every American. In a forceful, impassioned, and personal voice, he offers not only a searing and incisive diagnosis of our country's economic ills but also an urgent call for Americans to restore the virtue of fairness, honesty, and foresight as the foundations of national prosperity." Inside book cover comments.

    In clear, no-nonsense terms, Woods explains what led up to this economic crisis, who's really to blame, and why government bailouts won't work. Woods will reveal:* Which brave few economists predicted the economic fallout--and why nobody listened* What really caused the collapse* Why the Fed--not taxpayers--should have to answer for the current economic crisis* Why bailouts are band-aids that will only provide temporary relief and ultimately make things worse* What we should do instead, to put our economy on a healthy path to recoveryWith a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work

    The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies.This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation and has been championed as a clean and surgical way of conflict. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fueled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime.

    In the years that followed, he had a ringside view of the country's remarkable transformation. He reported from Beijing for a decade, for the India Today and The Hindu. This gave him a privileged opportunity that few Indians have had - to travel the length and breadth of the country, beyond the glitzy skyscrapers of Shanghai and the grand avenues of Beijing that greet most tourists, to the heart of China's rise. This book is Krishnan's attempt at unpacking India's China challenge, which is four-fold: the political challenge of dealing with a one-party state that is looking to increasingly shape global institutions; the military challenge of managing an unresolved border; the economic challenge of both learning from China's remarkable and unique growth story and building a closer relationship; and the conceptual challenge of changing how we think about and engage with our most important neighbour. India's China Challenge tells the story of a complex political relationship, and how China - and its leading opinion-makers - view India. It looks at the economic dimensions and cultural connect, and the internal political and social transformations in China that continue to shape both the country's future and its relations with India.

    But how could sovereign nations be made to share power and learn to look beyond their own narrow interests? The old monarchs had one idea. Mazzini and the partisans of nationalist democracy had another, and so did Marx and the radical Left. It is an argument that has raged for two hundred years now, and Mark Mazower tells its history enthrallingly in Governing the World. With each era, the stakes have grown higher as the world has grown smaller and the potential rewards to cooperation and damage from conflict have increased.As Mark Mazower shows us, each age’s dominant power has set the tune, and for nearly a century that tune has been sung in English. He begins with Napoleon’s defeat, in 1815, when England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia formed the Concert of Europe. Against this, there emerged many of the ideas that would shape the international institutions of the twentieth century–liberal nationalism, communism, the expertise of the scientist and the professional international lawyers. Mazower traces these ideas into the Great War through to the League of Nations. He explains how the League collapsed when confronted by the atrocities of the Third Reich, and how a more hard-nosed approach to international governance emerged in its wake.The United Nations appeared in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, and a war-fighting alliance led by Great Britain and the United States was ultimately what transformed into an international peacetime organization. Mazower examines the ideas that shaped the UN, the compromises and constraints imposed by the Cold War and its transformation in the high noon of decolonization. The 1970s ushered in a sea change in attitudes to international government through the emergence of a vision of globalized capitalism in the 1970s that marginalized the UN itself and utilized bodies like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization—the final acts of Anglo- American institution-building.But the sun is setting on Anglo-American dominance of the world’s great international institutions. We are at the end of an era, Mazower explains, and we are passing into a new age of global power relations, a shift whose outcome is still very much in question.

    This book explains how the system works and where it may be moving.Drawing on Chinese and international sources, on extensive collaboration with Chinese scholars, and on the political science of state analysis, Stein Ringen concludes that under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, the system of government has been transformed into a new regime radically harder and more ideological than the legacy of Deng Xiaoping. China is less strong economically and more dictatorial politically than the world has wanted to believe.By analyzing the leadership of Xi Jinping, the meaning of "socialist market economy," corruption, the party-state apparatus, the reach of the party, the mechanisms of repression, taxation and public services, and state-society relations, "The Perfect Dictatorship" broadens the field of China studies, as well as the fields of political economy, comparative politics, development, and welfare state studies.

    It is in many ways a tougher opponent than the original threat we faced before September 11, and we are not doing what is necessary to make America safe from that threat." No one has more authority to make that claim than Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar for both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The one person who knows more about Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda than anyone else in this country, he has devoted two decades of his professional life to combating terrorism. Richard Clarke served seven presidents and worked inside the White House for George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush until he resigned in March 2003. He knows, better than anyone, the hidden successes and failures of the Clinton years. He knows, better than anyone, why we failed to prevent 9/11. He knows, better than anyone, how President Bush reacted to the attack and what happened behind the scenes in the days that followed. He knows whether or not Iraq presented a terrorist threat to the United States and whether there were hidden costs to the invasion of that country. Most disturbing of all are Clarke's revelations about the Bush administration's lack of interest in al Qaeda prior to September 11. From the moment the Bush team took office and decided to retain Clarke in his post as the counterterrorism czar, Clarke tried to persuade them to take al Qaeda as seriously as had Bill Clinton. For months, he was denied the opportunity even to make his case to Bush. He encountered key officials who gave the impression that they had never heard of al Qaeda; who focused incessantly on Iraq; who even advocated long-discredited conspiracy theories about Saddam's involvement in previous attacks on the United States. Clarke was the nation's crisis manager on 9/11, running the Situation Room -- a scene described here for the first time -- and then watched in dismay at what followed. After ignoring existing plans to attack al Qaeda when he first took office, George Bush made disastrous decisions when he finally did pay attention. Coming from a man known as one of the hard-liners against terrorists, Against All Enemies is both a powerful history of our two-decades-long confrontation with terrorism and a searing indictment of the current administration.

    Still essential and still timely ten years after its original publication, The Shia Revival provides a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis and sheds crucial light on its modern-day consequences. A new epilogue elucidates the rise of ISIS and ongoing tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    Today, as much of the world succumbs to authoritarianism and democracy is undermined from its heart, Germany stands as a bulwark for decency and stability.Mixing personal journey and anecdote with compelling empirical evidence, this is a searching and entertaining exploration of the country many in the West still love to hate. Raising important questions for our post-Brexit landscape, Kampfner asks why Germany has become a model for others to emulate, while Britain still languishes in wartime nostalgia and fails to tackle contemporary challenges. Part memoir, part history, part travelogue, Why the Germans Do It Better is a rich and witty portrait of an eternally fascinating country.

    They would decide how Hong Kong would be handed over to the People’s Republic of China and how Chinese business tycoons Henry Fok and Li Ka-Shing would help Deng Xiaoping realize the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic and global ambitions. That meeting would not only change Vancouver but the world. Billions of dollars in Chinese investment would soon reach the shores of North America’s Pacific coast. B.C. government casinos became a tool for global criminals to import deadly narcotics into Canada and launder billions of drug cash into Vancouver real estate. And it didn't happen by accident. A cast of accomplices - governments hungry for revenue, casino, and real estate companies with ties to shady offshore wealth, professional facilitators including lawyers and bankers, an aimless RCMP that gave organized crime room to grow - all combined to cause this tragedy. There was greed, folly, corruption, conspiracy, and wilful blindness.Decades of bad policy allowed drug cartels, first and foremost the Big Circle Boys - powerful transnational narco-kingpins with ties to corrupt Chinese officials, real estate tycoons, and industrialists - to gain influence over significant portions of Canada’s economy. Many looked the other way while B.C.'s primary industry, real estate, ballooned with dirty cash. But the unintended social consequences are now clear: a fentanyl overdose crisis raging in major cities throughout North America and life spans falling for the first time in modern Canada, and a runaway housing market that has devastated middle-class income earners. This story isn’t just about real estate and fentanyl overdoses, though. Sam Cooper has uncovered evidence that shows the primary actors in so-called “Vancouver Model” money laundering have effectively made Canada’s west coast a headquarters for corporate and industrial espionage by the CCP. And these ruthless entrepreneurs have used Vancouver and Canada to export their criminal model to other countries around the world including Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Cooper finds that the RCMP’s 2019 arrest of its top intelligence official, Cameron Ortis, raises many frightening questions. Could Chinese transnational criminals and state actors targeting Canada’s industrial and technological crown jewels have gained protection from the Mounties? Could China and Iran have insight into Canada's deepest national security secrets and influence on investigations? Ortis had oversight of many investigations into transnational money laundering networks and insight into sensitive probes of suspects seeking to undermine Canada’s democracy and infiltrate the United States, according to the evidence Cooper has found.Wilful Blindness is a powerful narrative that follows the investigators who refused to go along with institutionalized negligence and corruption that enabled the Vancouver Model, with Cooper drawing on extensive interviews with the whistle-blowers; thousands of pages of government and court documents obtained through legal applications; and large caches of confidential material available exclusively to Cooper.The book culminates with a shocking revelation showing how deeply Canada has been compromised, and what needs to happen, to get the nation back on track with its “Five Eyes” allies.“I’m astonished that some Hollywood production company hasn't already signed him for a big-screen treatment of this story. It's a huge story.” - Terry Glavin, National Post

    In this lively, informative and insightful work, the award-winning author and parliamentarian brilliantly demonstrates how Indian diplomacy has become sprightlier since then and where it needs to focus in the world of the 21st century. Explaining why foreign policy matters to an India focused on its own domestic transformation, Tharoor surveys Indias major international relationships in detail, evokes the countrys soft power and its global responsibilities, analyses the workings of the Ministry of External Affairs, Parliament and public opinion on the shaping of policy, and offers his thoughts on a contemporary new grand strategy for the nation, arguing that India must move beyond non-alignment to multi-alignment. His book offers a clear-eyed vision of an India now ready to assume new global responsibility in the contemporary world. Pax Indica is another substantial achievement from one of the finest Indian authors of our times.

    But Robert B. Reich suggests a different reason for the meltdown, and for a perilous road ahead. He argues that the real problem is structural: it lies in the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top, and in a middle class that has had to go deeply into debt to maintain a decent standard of living.Persuasively and straightforwardly, Reich reveals how precarious our situation still is. The last time in American history when wealth was so highly concentrated at the top—indeed, when the top 1 percent of the population was paid 23 percent of the nation’s income—was in 1928, just before the Great Depression. Such a disparity leads to ever greater booms followed by ever deeper busts. Reich’s thoughtful and detailed account of where we are headed over the next decades reveals the essential truth about our economy that is driving our politics and shaping our future. With keen insight, he shows us how the middle class lacks enough purchasing power to buy what the economy can produce and has adopted coping mechanisms that have a negative impact on their quality of life; how the rich use their increasing wealth to speculate; and how an angrier politics emerges as more Americans conclude that the game is rigged for the benefit of a few. Unless this trend is reversed, the Great Recession will only be repeated. Reich’s assessment of what must be done to reverse course and ensure that prosperity is widely shared represents the path to a necessary and long-overdue transformation. Aftershock is a practical, humane, and much-needed blueprint for both restoring America’s economy and rebuilding our society.