“A valuable primer on foreign policy: a primer that concerned citizens of all political persuasions—not to mention the president and his advisers—could benefit from reading.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
An examination of a world increasingly defined by disorder and a United States unable to shape the world in its image, from the president of the Council on Foreign Relations
Things fall...

"Based on unprecedented access to previously classified documents and dozens of interviews with key policymakers, here is the untold story of how George H. W. Bush faced a critical turning point of history--the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War was the greatest shock to international affairs since World War II. In that perilous moment, Saddam Hussein chose to invade Kuwait, China cracked down on its own pro-democracy protesters, and regimes...

Gore Vidal has been described as the last 'noble defender" of the American republic. In Imperial America, Vidal steals the thunder of a right wing America — those who have camouflaged their extremist rhetoric in the Old Glory and the Red, White, and Blue — by demonstrating that those whose protest arbitrary and secret government, those who defend the bill of rights, those who seek to restrain America's international power, are the true patriots....

"Ambassador William J. Burns is the most distinguished and admired American diplomat of the last half century. Over the course of four decades, he played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time--from the bloodless end of the Cold War to post-Cold War relations with Putin's Russia, from post-9/11 tumult in the Middle East to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. Upon his retirement, Secretary John Kerry said Burns belonged...

"A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward. Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal...

"Insanity Defense is an insider's account of America's ineffectual approach to some of the hardest defense and intelligence issues in the three decades since the Cold War ended"--

Reveals the covert operations that have brought the United States and Iran to the brink of open war, including Iran's proposal for peace after 9/11, which was rejected by President Bush, and Iran's secret army in post-U.S. invasion Iraq.