s my selections for the Best Books of 2021 went to press at the end of last year, few anticipated Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, or the ripple effects that would be felt across the globe. Indeed, Moscow’s war dominated the news, but also the publishing world as slews of authors (with varying degrees of success) sought to explain the origin of the crisis and what was likely to follow. While the world’s attention was and remains, understandably, on the developments between Moscow and Kyiv, other geopolitical trends and dynamics continued apace (not the least of which was China’s continued, if challenged, rise). I sought to reflect this in my selections for this year’s best reads, as well as highlighting the books that I thought stood out in relation to Russia, Ukraine, and the nature of conflict in the modern world. It was certainly not an easy selection, but then again, it never is. I do hope you appreciated my choices for this year’s best reads and wish you and yours a very happy holiday season.
“Chip War” - Chris Miller
Chris Miller’s “Chip War” makes this year’s Best Books list, and many others, with good reason. It is the fascinating story of the semiconductor, that ubiquitous creation that drives our modern world. But more than just a science or technology history, Miller pens a deeply insightful exploration of the global ecosystem of politics, technology, and economics in which the semiconductor is designed, engineered, and manufactured. Miller’s narrative is compelling and incredibly readable, one that seamlessly blends portraits of engineers with the complexities of technology, and insights into the corridors of power and board rooms, with visions of the geopolitical battlefields of today and tomorrow. It is a supremely timely book with the United States’ passage of the CHIPS Act, and news about domestic investment in semiconductor manufacturing.
“Command” - Sir Lawrence Freedman
Sir Lawrence Freedman’s “Command” was a book I truly savored this year. It is the fascinating exploration of the nexus of politics and military operations across the 20 and 2centuries, and across the globe. Whereas many books are restricted in their focus to the United States or one campaign, Freedman offers a tour de horizon, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to East Pakistan, and from the Congo to Ukraine. This provides a much more vivid mosaic of a central theme of his book: Liberal democratic systems are better at command and control than their authoritarian opposites. The latter are often far more concerned about regime survival or “coup proofing,” creating sclerotic systems delivering only good news to the leadership and bad commands to its lackeys. While anything but perfect, the liberal democracies he surveys are more responsive to changes on the battlefield, and have bettersystemicand institutional tools to assert civilian control over the military.
“Dancing on Bones” - Katie Stallard
In his book “1984” George Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” In her wonderful book “Dancing on Bones,” journalist Katie Stallard shows just how true Orwell’s quote is in Russia, China, and North Korea. It is a fascinating journey through each country’s past and present. Stallard shows how the regimes have weaponized history to ensure their survival. Indeed, the world watched in near real-time as Putin deployed his perverted understanding of Russian and Ukrainian history to justify his expanded invasion. Even today the Kremlin deploys increasingly convoluted narratives to control its population at home and muddy the waters abroad.
“How to Stage a Coup” - Rory Cormac
Taking the most underhanded activities a state can use to influence, suborn, and subvert its allies and friends and making it a delightful and enjoyable read takes skill, and it is just what Rory Cormac does in his book “How to Stage a Coup.” In it, Cormac surveys the global world of covert action, offering a vivid look at an often misunderstood tool. Cormac goes beyond the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia, giving glimpses into how countries around the world seek to use deniable operations to influence, suborn, and subvert in pursuit of a geopolitical edge. He shows that in many cases, the efforts are not, ultimately, successful in and of themselves. Yet, failure is not necessarily an issue (just ask the Russians) and buying time (as in the case of the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear program) is often a goal itself.
“China After Mao” - Frank Dikotter
Frank Dikötter’s “China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower” is a fascinating deep dive into China’s rise through 2012 from the inside out. Dikötter shows the inner complexities of the political and economic disagreements within the Chinese Communist Party. He chronicles how its leadership waged internal battles and struggled to assert its will across the country. In so doing he offers a far richer look at the country’s rise, providing needed nuance and complexity to what is too often assumed to be a linear rise.
“Hybrid Warriors” - Anna Arutunyan
In Freedman’s exploration of the war in Ukraine, he touches upon a key theme that is often overlooked in many of the war’s narratives: the role of non-state actors. This is the central focus of Anna Arutunyan’s superb book “Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers and Moscow's Struggle for Ukraine.” Arutunyan delivers a well-reported, deeply-researched account of the opening salvos of the 2014 war in Eastern Ukraine. “Hybrid Warriors” explores how political entrepreneurs, mercenaries, genuine separatists, and other non-state actors drove the conflict from the bottom-up, a conflict for which Moscow was reluctant to initially accept responsibility, yet for which it eventually took ownership. In divining the conflict’s origin, she offers a far richer picture of Putin’s regime, how it governs at home and acts abroad, and returns agency to the Ukrainians themselves.
“Putin’s Wars” - Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti’s “Putin’s Wars” is indeed as the Times of London wrote “exactly the right book at the right time.” His second major book of the year (the first being his superb “The Weaponisation of Everything”), Galeotti’s book surveys Russia’s post-Soviet wars and shows how the wars influenced Russia’s politics, and how those politics affected military operations and developments. How this current war will affect Russia remains to be seen, but it is clear that the country is heading toward several years of severe economic pain, a domestic political scene that is veering toward greater propaganda and repression, and isolation from the Western world. “Putin’s Wars'' vividly shows how the past affected the present, and offers lessons for the future. In the interest of full disclosure, I was asked to provide an endorsement of “Putin’s Wars'' and after devouring it in a few short days, I was delighted to do so.
“Butler to the World” - Oliver Bullough
Oliver Bullough’s “Butler to the World,” explores how the United Kingdom has become the destination of choice for the world’s kleptocrats, oligarchs, money launderers, and more. Bullough’s book is a timely exploration of the enabling services London and the broader United Kingdom have come to offer, especially as the flows of foreign funds, particularly from Russia, are receiving renewed scrutiny. He makes an interesting argument that London’s pursuit of a post-Suez Crisis role in the world drove many of the individual decisions that made the United Kingdom as attractive as it is today. He ultimately shows that many of the world’s broader security challenges can be tied to illicit finance and the enabling role that the “butlers” of London and elsewhere provide.
“Spies, Lies, & Algorithms” - Amy Zegart
In the run-up to the war in Ukraine, America’s Intelligence Community played an unexpectedly outsized and public role. The White House aggressively used intelligence to convince allies of the imminence of the threat (including Ukraine), attempted to deter Russia (unlikely to ever succeed), and paved the way for mobilizing a response when Moscow did actually invade (which as evidenced on the battlefields of Ukraine, has proven successful). Understanding how this came to be and what it could mean for the future means understanding intelligence, not just in theory, but in practice. Here, Stanford’s Amy Zegart offers what is likely the best single volume on the subject in her book “Spies, Lies, & Algorithms.” Reading very much like a welcome seminar from a true expert in the field, Zegart brings intelligence in from the shadows and offers an illuminating and grounded portrait of this fascinating world, and how it is likely to change in the future.
“Red Carpet” - Erich Schwartzel
An unexpectedly delightful book is a treasure indeed. Erich Schwartzel’s “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy” decidedly falls into this category. Schwartzel charts an underappreciated aspect of strategic competition: cultural competition. He explores how Hollywood sought access to China’s closed markets and embarked on a program of anticipatory self-censorship, avoiding themes that may offend the Chinese Communist Party. He also shows how China itself sought to develop its own indigenous Hollywood, copying the tools and techniques of Hollywood’s studios to recreate its own film industry. Yet, for China, the real playing field is overseas. While Hollywood still chases the China market and the next streaming hit, Beijing seeks to spread its entertainment and, ultimately, influence, further afield in Africa, Latin and South America, and the Indo-Pacific, attempting to out-Hollywood Hollywood.
“Bad Actors” - Mick Herron
The Slough House series by Mick Herron continues to delight. Indeed, I’m on my second read through of his novels about a group of failed MI5 spies. It is a collection that ticks all of my interests from British spies through to Russian skullduggery, all set against the backdrop of my once adopted home, London. In “Bad Actors,” the Slow Horses are tracking a missing super-forecaster from 10 Downing Street (working for a Dominic Cummings-like figure) and attempting to uncover what her connections are to Russian intelligence. Now in its second season on AppleTV+, Herron’s series is brought vividly to life with the peerless acting of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb (the group’s cantankerous head), and the divine Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner (the “first desk” of MI5). Rarely has the casting ever been so on point.
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Our Book Reviewer's Best Reads of 2022
Photo by Glen Noble via Unsplash.
December 10, 2022
Diplomatic Courier’s book reviewer, Joshua Huminski, is back again with his best reads of the year. Here he unveils his top selections from 2022.
A
s my selections for the Best Books of 2021 went to press at the end of last year, few anticipated Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, or the ripple effects that would be felt across the globe. Indeed, Moscow’s war dominated the news, but also the publishing world as slews of authors (with varying degrees of success) sought to explain the origin of the crisis and what was likely to follow. While the world’s attention was and remains, understandably, on the developments between Moscow and Kyiv, other geopolitical trends and dynamics continued apace (not the least of which was China’s continued, if challenged, rise). I sought to reflect this in my selections for this year’s best reads, as well as highlighting the books that I thought stood out in relation to Russia, Ukraine, and the nature of conflict in the modern world. It was certainly not an easy selection, but then again, it never is. I do hope you appreciated my choices for this year’s best reads and wish you and yours a very happy holiday season.
“Chip War” - Chris Miller
Chris Miller’s “Chip War” makes this year’s Best Books list, and many others, with good reason. It is the fascinating story of the semiconductor, that ubiquitous creation that drives our modern world. But more than just a science or technology history, Miller pens a deeply insightful exploration of the global ecosystem of politics, technology, and economics in which the semiconductor is designed, engineered, and manufactured. Miller’s narrative is compelling and incredibly readable, one that seamlessly blends portraits of engineers with the complexities of technology, and insights into the corridors of power and board rooms, with visions of the geopolitical battlefields of today and tomorrow. It is a supremely timely book with the United States’ passage of the CHIPS Act, and news about domestic investment in semiconductor manufacturing.
“Command” - Sir Lawrence Freedman
Sir Lawrence Freedman’s “Command” was a book I truly savored this year. It is the fascinating exploration of the nexus of politics and military operations across the 20 and 2centuries, and across the globe. Whereas many books are restricted in their focus to the United States or one campaign, Freedman offers a tour de horizon, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to East Pakistan, and from the Congo to Ukraine. This provides a much more vivid mosaic of a central theme of his book: Liberal democratic systems are better at command and control than their authoritarian opposites. The latter are often far more concerned about regime survival or “coup proofing,” creating sclerotic systems delivering only good news to the leadership and bad commands to its lackeys. While anything but perfect, the liberal democracies he surveys are more responsive to changes on the battlefield, and have bettersystemicand institutional tools to assert civilian control over the military.
“Dancing on Bones” - Katie Stallard
In his book “1984” George Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” In her wonderful book “Dancing on Bones,” journalist Katie Stallard shows just how true Orwell’s quote is in Russia, China, and North Korea. It is a fascinating journey through each country’s past and present. Stallard shows how the regimes have weaponized history to ensure their survival. Indeed, the world watched in near real-time as Putin deployed his perverted understanding of Russian and Ukrainian history to justify his expanded invasion. Even today the Kremlin deploys increasingly convoluted narratives to control its population at home and muddy the waters abroad.
“How to Stage a Coup” - Rory Cormac
Taking the most underhanded activities a state can use to influence, suborn, and subvert its allies and friends and making it a delightful and enjoyable read takes skill, and it is just what Rory Cormac does in his book “How to Stage a Coup.” In it, Cormac surveys the global world of covert action, offering a vivid look at an often misunderstood tool. Cormac goes beyond the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia, giving glimpses into how countries around the world seek to use deniable operations to influence, suborn, and subvert in pursuit of a geopolitical edge. He shows that in many cases, the efforts are not, ultimately, successful in and of themselves. Yet, failure is not necessarily an issue (just ask the Russians) and buying time (as in the case of the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear program) is often a goal itself.
“China After Mao” - Frank Dikotter
Frank Dikötter’s “China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower” is a fascinating deep dive into China’s rise through 2012 from the inside out. Dikötter shows the inner complexities of the political and economic disagreements within the Chinese Communist Party. He chronicles how its leadership waged internal battles and struggled to assert its will across the country. In so doing he offers a far richer look at the country’s rise, providing needed nuance and complexity to what is too often assumed to be a linear rise.
“Hybrid Warriors” - Anna Arutunyan
In Freedman’s exploration of the war in Ukraine, he touches upon a key theme that is often overlooked in many of the war’s narratives: the role of non-state actors. This is the central focus of Anna Arutunyan’s superb book “Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers and Moscow's Struggle for Ukraine.” Arutunyan delivers a well-reported, deeply-researched account of the opening salvos of the 2014 war in Eastern Ukraine. “Hybrid Warriors” explores how political entrepreneurs, mercenaries, genuine separatists, and other non-state actors drove the conflict from the bottom-up, a conflict for which Moscow was reluctant to initially accept responsibility, yet for which it eventually took ownership. In divining the conflict’s origin, she offers a far richer picture of Putin’s regime, how it governs at home and acts abroad, and returns agency to the Ukrainians themselves.
“Putin’s Wars” - Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti’s “Putin’s Wars” is indeed as the Times of London wrote “exactly the right book at the right time.” His second major book of the year (the first being his superb “The Weaponisation of Everything”), Galeotti’s book surveys Russia’s post-Soviet wars and shows how the wars influenced Russia’s politics, and how those politics affected military operations and developments. How this current war will affect Russia remains to be seen, but it is clear that the country is heading toward several years of severe economic pain, a domestic political scene that is veering toward greater propaganda and repression, and isolation from the Western world. “Putin’s Wars'' vividly shows how the past affected the present, and offers lessons for the future. In the interest of full disclosure, I was asked to provide an endorsement of “Putin’s Wars'' and after devouring it in a few short days, I was delighted to do so.
“Butler to the World” - Oliver Bullough
Oliver Bullough’s “Butler to the World,” explores how the United Kingdom has become the destination of choice for the world’s kleptocrats, oligarchs, money launderers, and more. Bullough’s book is a timely exploration of the enabling services London and the broader United Kingdom have come to offer, especially as the flows of foreign funds, particularly from Russia, are receiving renewed scrutiny. He makes an interesting argument that London’s pursuit of a post-Suez Crisis role in the world drove many of the individual decisions that made the United Kingdom as attractive as it is today. He ultimately shows that many of the world’s broader security challenges can be tied to illicit finance and the enabling role that the “butlers” of London and elsewhere provide.
“Spies, Lies, & Algorithms” - Amy Zegart
In the run-up to the war in Ukraine, America’s Intelligence Community played an unexpectedly outsized and public role. The White House aggressively used intelligence to convince allies of the imminence of the threat (including Ukraine), attempted to deter Russia (unlikely to ever succeed), and paved the way for mobilizing a response when Moscow did actually invade (which as evidenced on the battlefields of Ukraine, has proven successful). Understanding how this came to be and what it could mean for the future means understanding intelligence, not just in theory, but in practice. Here, Stanford’s Amy Zegart offers what is likely the best single volume on the subject in her book “Spies, Lies, & Algorithms.” Reading very much like a welcome seminar from a true expert in the field, Zegart brings intelligence in from the shadows and offers an illuminating and grounded portrait of this fascinating world, and how it is likely to change in the future.
“Red Carpet” - Erich Schwartzel
An unexpectedly delightful book is a treasure indeed. Erich Schwartzel’s “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy” decidedly falls into this category. Schwartzel charts an underappreciated aspect of strategic competition: cultural competition. He explores how Hollywood sought access to China’s closed markets and embarked on a program of anticipatory self-censorship, avoiding themes that may offend the Chinese Communist Party. He also shows how China itself sought to develop its own indigenous Hollywood, copying the tools and techniques of Hollywood’s studios to recreate its own film industry. Yet, for China, the real playing field is overseas. While Hollywood still chases the China market and the next streaming hit, Beijing seeks to spread its entertainment and, ultimately, influence, further afield in Africa, Latin and South America, and the Indo-Pacific, attempting to out-Hollywood Hollywood.
“Bad Actors” - Mick Herron
The Slough House series by Mick Herron continues to delight. Indeed, I’m on my second read through of his novels about a group of failed MI5 spies. It is a collection that ticks all of my interests from British spies through to Russian skullduggery, all set against the backdrop of my once adopted home, London. In “Bad Actors,” the Slow Horses are tracking a missing super-forecaster from 10 Downing Street (working for a Dominic Cummings-like figure) and attempting to uncover what her connections are to Russian intelligence. Now in its second season on AppleTV+, Herron’s series is brought vividly to life with the peerless acting of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb (the group’s cantankerous head), and the divine Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner (the “first desk” of MI5). Rarely has the casting ever been so on point.
