100 Books Like Environmentalism and Global International Society

I love this one because Elinor Ostrom challenges the idea that only states or markets can manage shared resources. Her work, grounded in rich field research, proves that communities can sustainably govern common goods through cooperation and trust.

Beyond legal frameworks, she focuses on real-world institutions and human interaction, making this book an enduring inspiration for those rethinking governance, sustainability, and collective action today.

Toward a Politics of the Planet Earth is one of the most important foundational texts in global environmental governance. 

The authors recognize the urgency and scope of global environmental problems, and identify their salient properties along with developing a novel holistic approach which reflects the complexity of ecosystems.

They stress the need for scientific knowledge, the challenges to the international system from environmental threats, and the probabilistic nature of human behavior.

They also introduced the concept of an “ecological world view” which has come to inform much of global environmental governance.

Newell’s Globalization and the Environment provides a thorough overview of the international political economy forces which shape global environmental governance. 

He applies a critical gaze to the roles of capitalism, trade, finance, and multinational corporations, along with a focus on the power exercised by the private sector which makes effective global environmental governance difficult. 

Kate O’Neill’s The Environment and International Relations provides a thorough overview of the actors and processes involved in global environmental governance. 

She deftly captures the political nature of global environmental threats, and looks at the roles of states and transnational actors in the governance of a variety of global environmental issues.

This book has worthwhile attributes, such as clear writing on the nature of uranium poisoning and its history, personal interviews, and vital coverage of local peoples’ reactions to damage done to their lands and their families, as well as their homelands by profit-mined mining companies.

Vasquez’s coverage centers on the Amazon with a focus on several extractive industries. This book stands alone in its coverage of resource extraction issues in the Amazon Valley because this area has so many other important issues to cover.

When I was at Yale, Professor Irving Janis became aware of my interest in mass psychology and asked if I would be interested in seeing a manuscript he was working on. I jumped at the chance and soon was reading Victims of Groupthink.

The book relates histories of bureaucratic decision-making that went wrong. Janis postulated that in a group setting, people defer the hard work of reasoning to others, whom they assume must be working on the problem. As a result, no one works on the problem, and whatever decision emerges derives from the dynamics of group psychology. This book is out of print and hard to find.

Vitalis' meticulously researched volume is about Saudi Arabia and the United States. In lucid prose, he makes the controversial case that American oil prospectors in the 20th century recreated the patterns of domination that dominated the exploitation of resources in the American West in Saudi Arabia. The argument smashes long-held truths and myths about the origins of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

As Jimmy Carter nears the end of his life – a life of contributions to the world – I want to thank him for his book. His book is part historical observation, saying what historians oft-times decline to say, while being prophetically correct in recounting of history and the predictable consequences the regions faced unless action is taken.

The book was published in 2006, long after Carter left the presidency, at a time saying what others were not saying about the region. He made me a participant–as a reader–telling historical truths that I was sure he would be profoundly criticized for – oh, was he. 

I love this book because Jimmy Carter’s book is a reminder that writing non-fiction can be fraught, the same as doing an act which does not make friends. He took a risk and used his credibility to tell the truth, and as a reader, I… show more.

John “Jock” Colville, a 24-year-old Foreign Office staffer, was assigned to work at 10 Downing Street, Britain’s equivalent of the White House, at the outbreak of World War II. When Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, Colville, who kept a detailed secret diary, chronicled the new leader’s every move as he rallied his countrymen to keep fighting Hitler’s Germany. His entries for this critical period offer a vivid behind-the-scenes portrait of Churchill, his inner circle—and his strenuous efforts to forge a close partnership with President Roosevelt, who had vowed to keep his country out of the war.

Mariana of Austria (1634-96) has long been underestimated. Regent for her young son, Carlos II, last Habsburg ruler of Spain, she is reputed to have been pig-headed, incompetent, and not very bright. The famous Velasquez painting showing her in a skirt too wide to fit through a door and hair stretching out like an accordion has not helped her reputation. But Silvia Mitchell has mined the archives and produced a wonderful revision of this queen’s regency, showing how, over the course of her regency, Mariana led the Spanish monarchy into transformative military and diplomatic alliances with the English and the Dutch and, through her style of ruling, helped bring about a new political culture. This study makes clear how much our picture of pre-modern politics has been distorted by the failure to take female roles seriously.