politics and news
the future of china. By David Shambhaugh. government; 195 pages; $19.95 and £14.99 No country has modernized its economy without also becoming a democracy. a respected American political scientist asks if China can break the mold.
Black wind, white snow: the rise of Russia’s new nationalism. by charles clover yale university press; 360 pages; 35 dollars and 25 pounds sterling, a veteran financial times correspondent analyzes what really motivates the regime in moscow by tracing the rise of eurasianism: the belief (in crude terms) that the national identity of russia is determined by ethnicity, geography and destiny.
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the euro and the battle of ideas. By Markus Brunnermeier, Harold James, and Jean-Pierre Landau. princeton university press; 440 pages; $35 and £24.95Three authors focus on France and Germany to unravel the competing economic ideas that make up the euro project. Germans like rules and discipline, and worry about excessive debt and the moral hazard created by bailouts. the French prefer flexibility and discretion, and worry about the lack of a mutualized debt instrument. German politicians are usually lawyers, French politicians more often economists. not a happy marriage.
ceo, china: the rise of xi jinping. by kerry brown. i.b. Taurus; 288 pages; $28 and £20 what kind of leader is xi jinping? there are few political questions whose answer has more influence on people than this. by an expert British porcelain observer.
China’s crony capitalism: the dynamics of regime decline. by minxin pei. harvard university press; 365 pages; $35 and £25.95 on how decentralizing control rights over state property, without clarifying property rules, offered China’s rulers the greatest opportunity in history to enrich themselves, by a government professor who now resides in California.
The Egyptians: A Radical History. by jack shenker. allen rail; 528 pages; £15.99 a refreshing account, from a young reporter at the guardian, of the movement that toppled hosni mubarak in 2011. what sets his writing apart from others is his presence in the slums, factories and homes where egyptians began to question their relationships with their rulers mr shenker evokes despair for the economy of this mismanaged country, but also surprising hope for its future, thanks to a young generation who say they are “no longer ready to put up with the old crap”.
trials: on death row in pakistan. By Isabel Buchanan. jonathan cape; 264 pages; £16.99 Two young lawyers, one Pakistani and one British (the author), are thrown into the dark world of Pakistan’s death row, where 8,000 people await their execution. a remarkable first book written with verve and an eye for detail.
hillbilly elegy: memories of a family and a culture in crisis. by j. d. vance harpist; 264 pages; $27.99. williamcollins; £14.99 why so many people want to believe donald trump will bring manufacturing jobs back and keep immigrants out. Possibly the most important recent book on America.
the art of charlie chan hock chye. by sonny liew pantheon; 320 pages; $30 and £25 A brilliantly inventive graphic novel, several years in the making, weighs the costs and benefits of life in the small, authoritarian model city-state that Lee Kwan Yew founded half a century ago. By a Malaysian-born comic book artist and illustrator, now living in Singapore.
Road to Spring: Life and Death in Palestine. by ben ehrenreich. penguin press; 428 pages; $28. great; £14.99 an elegant and moving account of one family’s trials, a tale that symbolizes the daily lives of many Palestinians.
biography and memoirs
the return: parents, children and the land in between. for hisham kill. random house; 256 pages; $26. viking; £14.99 a beautifully written memoir dealing with the nature of family, the emotions of exile and the ties that bind the present to the past, in particular the son with his father, boar slaughter, who disappeared in a notorious prison Libya.
elizabeth: the forgotten years. by johnguy. viking; 490 pages; $35 and £25 Most historians focus on the early decades, with Elizabeth’s last years acting as a postscript to the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada. An Australian-born historian, now a Cambridge Fellow, argues that this period is crucial to understanding a more human side of the intelligent redhead.
half lion: how p.v. Narasimha Rao transformed India. By Vinay Sitapati. indian penguin; 391 pages; Rs 699 The true father of India’s economic reforms deserves a place alongside Nehru as India’s most senior Prime Minister. instead, he was thrown into disgrace and darkness. an important book, written by a young doctoral student at princeton, that deserves a wider circulation.
when the breath becomes air. By Paul Kalanithi. random house; 238 pages; $25 bodley head; £12.99a young neurosurgeon, dying of cancer, examines his life, especially the gift of language, the parts of the brain that control it, and its centrality in what makes us human. a powerful and compelling read.
karl marx: greatness and illusion. by gareth stedman jones. belknap; 768 pages; $35. allen rail; £35a british historian reassesses marx in the 21st century. There is no better guide than this professor of the history of ideas at the University of London.
negrolandia: memories. by margo jefferson. ancient; 248 pages; $16. great; £12.99 growing up as an African American of privilege and wealth may seem comfortable. But this penetrating memoir shows how those spared the brutality of Southern segregation nonetheless had to learn to navigate a much more subtle set of rules and unspoken assumptions: stand out, but don’t show off; feel comfortable anywhere, but keep in mind that prejudice can rear its ugly head at any time.
kenneth clark: life, art and “civilization”. by james stourton I touched; 478 pages; $35. williamcollins; £30 both cool and grand, kenneth clark would be easy to outsmart. A carefully researched and thoughtful biography of a controversial and curiously unknown man who became the most brilliant cultural populist of the 20th century, written by a former president of Sotheby’s.
born to run. by bruce springsteen. Simon & schuster; 528 pages; $32.50 and £20 the timely autobiography of the bard of American deindustrialization, whose songs acknowledge and honor the plight of blue-collar workers. his stories have never grown old; years after they were written, they remain a lesson in empathy for the white-collar fans he has always attracted.
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but you didn’t come back. by Marceline Loridan-Ivens. Translated by Sandra Smith. Atlantic Monthly Press; 112 pages; $22. faber; £12.99 in 1944, when she was 15 years old, the author and her father were caught and deported; he to auschwitz, she to birkenau. she returned; she never did. it took her 70 years to write her story. In strict and unforgiving prose, she confronts her father’s illusions and the lies she told herself. a little book with a big voice.
the civil wars of julia ward howe. a biography. By Elaine Showalter. Simon & schuster; 243 pages; $28A Charming Life, by an energetic academic, of a nineteenth-century American woman who wrote poetry, plays, and books, became a tireless speaker for feminist causes, particularly women’s right to vote. her life intersected with longfellow, the brownings, louisa may alcott and henry james. but she is best known for writing the lyrics to the “battle hymn of the republic”.
flamboyant gentleman: the byzantine life of steven runciman. by minoo dinshaw. allen rail; 767 pages; £30 When he died in 2000 at the age of 97, Sir Steven Runciman had become convinced that he was a relic of a bygone age and the embodiment of an almost mythical age. a lively life of a colorful British historian who was best known for his work on the Crusades, by a promising young author. a debut to be proud of.
story
the kingdom of water: a secret history of china. by Philip Ball. bobley head; 316 pages; £25. to be published in usa by university of chicago press march 2017 how two great rivers, the yellow river and the yangzi, shaped china’s history. by a British science writer who for 20 years was an editor at nature.
the Romanovs: 1613-1918. by simon sebag montefiore. I touched; 784 pages; $35. weidenfeld & nicolson; £25a cruel tale of hereditary power, by a master storyteller who enhances this uncharted tale with vivid, amusing, and surprising detail.
the quest for power: europe 1815-1914. Viking by Richard Evans; 928 pages; $40 allen drive; £35 a distinguished scholar from germany sums up the winners and losers in the century after the battle of waterloo, which could well be described as the first era of globalization.
Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. by Peter Wilson. belknap; 941 pages; $39.95. allen rail; The Holy Roman Empire, on paper, looked more like a Jackson Pollock painting than a model for modern Europe, and yet it worked well. a masterful account, by an oxford historian.
Lenin on the train. By Catherine Merridale. allen rail; 353 pages; £25. To be published in the US by Metropolitan in March 2017 How Vladimir Lenin’s train journey from Switzerland to Russia led to revolution and changed his country, and the world, forever. An insightful and sympathetic account from one of Russia’s foremost historians.
east west street: on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity. by philippe arenas. I touched; 448 pages; $32.50 weidenfeld & nicolson; £20A distinguished Franco-British lawyer traces how a single important word entered the legal canon, while examining the lives of those who created it and the war experiences of his own Jewish relatives in Europe. an unspeakable winner of the baillie gifford prize for non-fiction.
economy and business
The rise and fall of American growth: American living standards since the Civil War. by Robert Gordon Princeton University Press; 762 pages; $39.95 and £29.95 on why economic growth soared in the US in the early 20th century, and why it won’t pick up again any time soon, by an outspoken economist who teaches at Northwestern University.
global inequality: a new approach for the era of globalization. by branko milanović. belknap; 299 pages; $29.95. harvard university press; At £23.95 surprisingly little is known about the causes of the inequality. an economist from the luxembourg center for income studies and the city university of new york proposes a bold and interesting new theory.
the great convergence: information technologies and the new globalization. by richard baldwin. belknap; 329 pages; $29.95 and £22.95 globalization has changed fundamentally since the internet revolution in the 1990s. while 20th century trade involved competition between countries, 21st century trade is more confusing, with supply chains crossing borders. An American academic working in Geneva argues that while it may be hard to help the losers, reversing the trend is even harder.
The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan.* By Sebastian Mallaby. penguin press; 781 pages; $40 bloomsbury; £25once a hero, the former chairman of the federal reserve is now called a villain. Sebastian Mallaby, who used to write for The Economist and is married to our editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, examines whether Alan Greenspan was to blame for the financial crisis. Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2016 Winner.
alibaba: the house that jack ma built. by duncan clark. echo; 287 pages; $27.99 and £18.99: An intriguing insider’s account of how Jack Ma conquered the internet in China, written by one of the company’s early advisers
eccentric orbits: the story of iridium. by john bloom. Atlantic Monthly Press; 537 pages; $27.50. grove press; £16.99 The exhaustive (and exhausting) history of the Iridium Communications Project and how it was resurrected.
culture, society and travel
Smart countries: the secrets behind the success of the world’s educational superpowers. By Lucy Crehan Unbound; 304 pages; £16.99 writing too much about education is controversial and ill-informed. Lucy Crehan’s book is refreshingly unbiased and shows that there is much to learn about how other countries learn.
freedom of expression: ten principles for a connected world. by timothy ash garton. yale university press; 491 pages; $30 Atlantic; See how urbanization and the expansion of the Internet have increased the possibilities of freedom of expression, but also the consequences that derive from it. A distillation of a lifetime’s research and writing, by the Oxford academic who also created freespeechdebate.com.
Another Day in the Death of America: Chronicle of Ten Short Lives. by Gary Young nations books; 267 pages; $25.99. faber guardian; £16.99The stories of ten young people who were shot to death on the arbitrarily selected date of Saturday 23rd November 2013. A “long, painful and heart-rending cry”, by a journalist at The Guardian, in a country so overwhelmed by violence army that has almost given up trying to stop it.
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the life project: the extraordinary story of our ordinary lives. by Helen Pearson. soft skull; 256 pages; $17.95 penguin; £9.99 how researchers and data collectors have followed a national random sample of people linked only by birth in 1946, and helped shape public policy across the country. a jewel in the crown of British social science.
meetings with notable manuscripts. by christopher dehamel. allen rail; 632 pages; £30politics and the meaning of medieval manuscripts. a charming and surprising book, from the man who has examined more manuscripts than anyone before him.
progress: ten reasons to look to the future. by johan norberg. a world; 246 pages; $24.99 and £16.99 a Swedish economic historian studies the many and often surprising ways human life has improved.
the end of karma: hope and anger among the youth of india. by somini sengupta. Norton; 244 pages; $26.95 and £18.99 on how India’s youth are trading fatalism and karma for free will and higher expectations, by a former new york times new delhi bureau chief who weaves together facts, stories first-hand and archival investigations to great effect.
City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp. by ben rawlence picador; 384 pages; $26. portobello; £14.99 chronicles life in the dadaab refugee camp in northern kenya, which was supposed to close in november but hasn’t because its inhabitants have nowhere to go.
Beethoven for a later time: living with string quartets. by edward dusinberre. chicago university press; 232 pages; $30 faber & faber; £18.99the principal violinist of the takacs quartet recounts the musical lives of its members, inserting into the group’s autobiography the story of beethoven’s 16 string quartets, now considered the apogee of the chamber music repertoire.
how to listen to jazz. by ted gioia basic books; 272 pages; $24.99 and £16.99 why jazz is unique and how to tell good jazz from bad. no author could have done a better job.
fiction
the vegetarian. by han kang translated by deborah smith. hometh; 192 pages; $21. portobello; £8.99 This skinny South Korean novel is one of the season’s most erotic literary novels. winner of the international man booker award 2016.
war and turpentine. By Stefan Hertmans. Translated by David McKay. Pantheon; 304 pages; $26.95. Harville Secker; £16.99 – A lovingly reimagined life of an ordinary man whose life was forever marked by the First World War. fine prose by a Belgian-Flemish poet and essayist.
the jaws: a family, 2029-2047. By Lionel Shriver. harpist; 400 pages; $27.99. neighborhood press; £16.99 a hilarious and often brutal story of how a family fares when the us economy collapses. in God they trusted. from the irrepressible author of “we need to talk about kevin”.
rolling time. by Zadie Smith. penguin press; 453 pages; $27. Hamish Hamilton; £18.99 a powerful story of lives marred by secrets, unfulfilled potential and the unfairness of the world. This could very well be Zadie Smith’s best novel.
science and technology
I contain multitudes: the microbes within us and a grander vision of life. by ed yong ecco; 368 pages; $27.99. bobley head; £20, a science writer and blogger directs an enthusiastic naturalist’s gaze at the bacteria, viruses and other minuscule organisms that co-inhabit the bodies of humans and other animals. he meets some little known villains and many heroes.
the gene: an intimate history. by siddhartha mukherjee. notary; 592 pages; $32. bobley head; The world is not ready for the birth of the first human being with a genome that has been permanently modified in a laboratory. by a pulitzer-winning writer and physician.
ppatient hm: a story of memory, madness and family secrets. By Luke Dittrich. random house; 440 pages; $28. chatto & wind; £18.99 patient hm became famous in the history of science when a surgeon treated his epilepsy by removing the medial temporal lobes of his brain, causing him to lose most of his memory. a remarkable examination of how neuroscience works, by the surgeon’s grandson.
healing: a journey into the science of mind over body. by Jo Marchant crown; 320 pages; $26. canongate; £16.99 A thought-provoking exploration of how the mind affects the body and how it can be harnessed to help treat physical illness, by an award-winning science journalist.
the glass universe: how the ladies of the harvard observatory took the measure of the stars. by dava sobel viking; 336 pages; $30 to be published in britain by the fourth estate in january 2017 the hidden story of the remarkable women whose contribution to astronomy changed our understanding of the stars and man’s place in the universe, by the award-winning author of “length” and “the daughter of Galileo”.
*our policy is to identify the reviewer of any book written by or about someone closely associated with the economist. Sebastian Mallaby is married to Zanny Minton Beddoes, our Editor-in-Chief. The review of his book in these pages (“Man in the Dock,” Oct. 1) was written by Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator for the Financial Times. was edited for length only.
correction (December 9): an earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the founder of singapore. this has been updated.
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