5 books on politics worth looking at by Arthur Snell
Posted on April 06 2023
Arthur Snell, author of How Britain Broke the World, has created this list of the five best books on politics. To purchase any of these books or read more about them, please check out our list on Bookshop.org.
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The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, Gary Gerstle.
In this fascinating book, Cambridge professor of history Gary Gerstle offers a sweeping account of neoliberalism, the political-economic framework that has dominated the western world for the past 50 years. It’s not a narrow text on economics, but a broad narrative which really helps you understand why the world, everywhere, is as it is.
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Jihad The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Keppel.
This remains one of the best, most comprehensive histories of the origins and rise of political Islam, including its militant variant. Keppel, a French scholar, writes with enormous fluency and readability, taking the reader through events in Egypt, Algeria and the Gulf, as well as in the wider world, as he tracks and explains this phenomenon that shaped events of the period from 1991 to 2015.
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How to be a Liberal by Ian Dunt.
A highly readable account of what liberalism is, its history and why it matters. For a book that could be a dry account of political theory, it is in fact moving and engaging, as we learn the way that liberalism has grown and flourished, but also suffered setbacks. At a time when authoritarians are on the march, this is the rallying cry for those of us who want freedom and reason to prevail.
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Imperial life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekran.
There are many books written about the Iraq War and its disastrous aftermath, but this, an account that homes in on America’s occupation in all of its post-imperial absurdity, is one of the best.
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How Britain Broke the World by Arthur Snell.
An account of the past quarter century of British foreign policy which shows how a series of poor choices, often taken for the best of intentions, contributed heavily to the breakdown in the global order currently besetting us.