Here are 100 books that The Mighty and the Almighty fans have personally recommended if you like
The Mighty and the Almighty.
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As a religious person, I’ve always believed religion is a force for good while being constantly reminded of the horrors it causes. This became a real-world concern with the 9/11 attacks (which happened my second week in college) and the faith-tinged US response. I spent ten years in Washington, DC working at the intersection of faith and counterterrorism, hopeful religion could solve our problems but worried it will only make things worse. I’ve continued that work as a Professor at the University of Vermont. This book reflects that tension and my desire to resolve it.
Niebuhr, a theologian active in the Cold War, experienced a resurgence in popularity after then-Senator Barack Obama listed him as his favorite theologian. Much of this interest had to do with the desire for a more restrained US foreign policy but I was drawn to what he had to say about the impact of faith on politics.
In this book he discusses the significance of faith-based ideals in America’s struggle with the Soviet Union and how our naivete turned “virtue into a vice.” This aligned with my interest in the unintended effects of infusing religion into international relations; in fact, I suggested that quote as one possible title for my book.
While Niebuhr focuses on the United States, his warning about unfettered idealism can apply to any country’s foreign policy.
Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, "The Irony of American History" is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr's masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr's wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
As a religious person, I’ve always believed religion is a force for good while being constantly reminded of the horrors it causes. This became a real-world concern with the 9/11 attacks (which happened my second week in college) and the faith-tinged US response. I spent ten years in Washington, DC working at the intersection of faith and counterterrorism, hopeful religion could solve our problems but worried it will only make things worse. I’ve continued that work as a Professor at the University of Vermont. This book reflects that tension and my desire to resolve it.
This book focuses on Iran, but like the Niebuhr book has broader applications.
Tabaar is an expert on Iranian politics who conducted incredibly in-depth research on Islamic politics in the country before and after its revolution in 1979. He pushes back on the simplistic idea that religious ideas drove politics in Iran; instead, a “politics of Islam” dominated,” in which actors drew on Islamic symbols and practices to advance their political goals.
Tabaar’s book gives a compelling example of the way religion can both drive politics and be caught up in political actors’ strategic calculations, leading to unexpected effects. It provided a foundation for my book’s argument that religion is both an influence on and tool of foreign policy that rarely works out the way it was intended.
Since the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven-dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a theologically prescribed outlook. In Religious Statecraft, Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar argues that such views have the link between religious ideology and political order backwards. This provocative book examines the politics of Islam rather than political Islam-demonstrating that religious narratives can change rapidly, frequently, and dramatically in accordance with elites' threat perceptions. Tabaar traces half a century of shifting Islamist doctrines against the backdrop of Iran's factional and international politics. He argues that the…
As a religious person, I’ve always believed religion is a force for good while being constantly reminded of the horrors it causes. This became a real-world concern with the 9/11 attacks (which happened my second week in college) and the faith-tinged US response. I spent ten years in Washington, DC working at the intersection of faith and counterterrorism, hopeful religion could solve our problems but worried it will only make things worse. I’ve continued that work as a Professor at the University of Vermont. This book reflects that tension and my desire to resolve it.
This is a “big picture” book, providing a grand sweep of international history to readers.
Owen argues world politics involves recurring ideological divides that lead states to forcefully intervene in others’ politics. He looks at Catholic-Protestant tensions in Europe, republican-monarchical conflicts in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the 20th century fight between democracy and totalitarianism.
He then argues the contemporary secular-Islamist division is another case of such a transnational divide, both highlighting the significance of this struggle and rejecting those who would argue there is something exceptionally disruptive about political Islam.
While my scope is much narrower—specific cases of states trying to use religion as a foreign policy tool—I drew on Owen to argue that this is most likely in the case of broad transnational ideological struggles.
Some blame the violence and unrest in the Muslim world on Islam itself, arguing that the religion and its history is inherently bloody. Others blame the United States, arguing that American attempts to spread democracy by force have destabilized the region, and that these efforts are somehow radical or unique. Challenging these views, "The Clash of Ideas in World Politics" reveals how the Muslim world is in the throes of an ideological struggle that extends far beyond the Middle East, and how struggles like it have been a recurring feature of international relations since the dawn of the modern European…
Former model Kira McGovern picks up the paint brushes of her youth and through an unexpected epiphany she decides to mix ashes of the deceased with her paints to produce tributes for grieving families.
Unexpectedly this leads to visions and images of the subjects of her work and terrifying changes…
As a religious person, I’ve always believed religion is a force for good while being constantly reminded of the horrors it causes. This became a real-world concern with the 9/11 attacks (which happened my second week in college) and the faith-tinged US response. I spent ten years in Washington, DC working at the intersection of faith and counterterrorism, hopeful religion could solve our problems but worried it will only make things worse. I’ve continued that work as a Professor at the University of Vermont. This book reflects that tension and my desire to resolve it.
In this book, Sandal and Fox directly connect religion to mainstream international relations.
They survey the “grand paradigms” of international relations theory and discuss the various ways religion can be integrated into each. This was a useful exercise as both skeptics and champions of religion’s role in international relations have argued it is wholly separate from existing theories.
To me, its most valuable contribution was their suggestion that religion can be a source of the power and resources states struggle over, in contrast to many scholars on religion and international relations who assume religion overcomes power politics.
They also discussed religious legitimacy as a potential tool for states. These provided a useful starting point for my exploration of religion as an often-disruptive force in foreign policy.
There is a growing realization among international relations scholars and practitioners that religion is a critical factor in global politics. The Iranian Revolution, the September 11 attacks, the ethno-religious conflicts such as the ones in the former Yugoslavia and Sri Lanka are among the many reasons for this increased focus on religion in international affairs. The rise of religious political parties across the world ranging from the Christian Democrats in Europe to Bharatiya Janata Party in India similarly illustrated religion's heightened international profile.
Despite all this attention, it is challenging to situate religion within a discipline which has been dominantly…
Emrah Sahin is a specialist in the history of religious interactions and international operations in Islam and Muslim-Christian relations. He received a Ph.D. from McGill University, a Social Science and Humanities Research Award from Canada, the Sabancı International Research Award from Turkey, and the Teacher of the Year Award from the University of Florida. He is currently with the University of Florida as a board member in Global Islamic Studies, an affiliate in History, a lecturer in European Studies, a college-wide advisor, and the coordinator of the federal Global Officer program.
Threading provocative arguments and creative narrations, this book is an outline and an inspiration to learn about US engagement with the Middle East since the Ottoman ages. My students loved it in uncommon read seminars, eventually appreciating our species produced a transatlantic history that is engaging and more entangled with the Middle East than it came to be imagined to this day.
This best-selling history is the first fully comprehensive history of America's involvement in the Middle East from George Washington to George W. Bush. As Niall Ferguson writes, "If you think America's entanglement in the Middle East began with Roosevelt and Truman, Michael Oren's deeply researched and brilliantly written history will be a revelation to you, as it was to me. With its cast of fascinating characters-earnest missionaries, maverick converts, wide-eyed tourists, and even a nineteenth-century George Bush-Power, Faith, and Fantasy is not only a terrific read, it is also proof that you don't really understand an issue until you know…
My interest in global issues developed when I was a student. What was my conviction already then became more obvious every year since then. In order to solve our most urgent problems, we need to have a strong and legitimate global governance system. Global governance, therefore, became the core of my research. I am Michael Zürn, the Director of the Research Unit Global Governance at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and a Professor of International Relations at Free University of Berlin. I have also been the co-spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script" (SCRIPTS) since 2019.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the actors, interests, and politics that define contemporary global governance. Pouliot and Therien break down the “bricolage” of global governance policy-making, establishing a clear framework and methodological approach for assessing global governance in practice.
This book stands out for its “how-to” approach and reframing of global governance, not as a functional response to global problems but as the outcome of struggles about transboundary practices and universal values. It is a must-read for making sense of the patchwork of our increasingly connected but simultaneously conflicted global society.
This book analyzes the politics of global governance by looking at how global policymaking actually works. It provides a comprehensive theoretical and methodological framework which is systematically applied to the study of three global policies drawn from recent UN activities: the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, the institutionalization of the Human Rights Council from 2005 onwards, and the ongoing promotion of the protection of civilians in peace operations. By unpacking the practices and the values that have prevailed in these three cases, the authors demonstrate how global policymaking forms a patchwork pervaded by improvisation and social conflict.…
Rusty Allen is an Iraqi War veteran with PTSD. He moves to his grandfather's cabin in the mountains to find some peace and go back to wilderness training.
He gets wrapped up in a kidnapping first, as a suspect and then as a guide. He tolerates the sheriff's deputy with…
As a student, I was intrigued by Newton’s laws of motion. As I grew older, I sought to understand how these laws apply in a real-world setting of economics and politics. I spent my full professional life in this search and held several positions – Minister of Finance, Governor of the Central Bank, Minister of Foreign Affairs. I was decorated over the years with several awards. I had a good education at the London School of Economics and at Harvard University. After it all, I still did not quite comprehend how Newton’s Laws work to advance the quality of life in communities and countries. The Caribbean on The Edge is a reflection of that journey.
This book explains why small states fail or succeed in world politics, and as such, set the parameters to assess Caribbean diplomacy and its promise and shortcomings. This book adds a compelling framework to my work, and I enjoyed reading this book, which was written "with clarity and rigor," according to noted scholar Anders Wivel.
A complete guide for how small states can be strikingly successful and influential-if they assess their situations and adapt their strategies.
Small states are crucial actors in world politics. Yet, they have been relegated to a second tier of International Relations scholarship. In A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics, Tom Long shows how small states can identify opportunities and shape effective strategies to achieve their foreign policy goals. To do so, Long puts small states' relationships at the center of his approach. Although small states are defined by their position as materially weaker actors vis-a-vis large states,…
I’ve always loved history, especially U.S. history, and, as a White House official for President Clinton, I saw it made up close. As a historian, I have focused in particular on America’s role in the world ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when I came to recognize that President Kennedy was right: “Domestic policy can hurt you, but foreign policy can kill you.” Over the last quarter-century, I’ve concentrated my work on America’s efforts to lead the West and promote freedom around the world. I read voraciously, write a column on foreign policy for leading outlets, and discuss global affairs often on TV and radio.
I love stories about America at its best, its most uplifting, its most inspiring, and I can’t imagine anyone telling the story of the Berlin airlift and what he calls “America’s finest hour” in more gripping detail than Andrei Cherny in The Candy Bombers.
With style and elegance, he takes you into the White House, where Truman decides to save West Berlin from Stalin’s attempted conquest, and he puts you in the cockpits of the pilots who delivered food and other necessities on a round-the-clock basis to the desperate people of that city. How good is this book? I wish I had written this book myself.
In the tradition of the great narrative storytellers, Andrei Cherny recounts the exhilarating saga of the unlikely men who made the Berlin Airlift one of the great military and humanitarian successes of American history.
The Candy Bombers is a remarkable story with profound implications for our own time. Cherny tells the tale of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and secondstringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat, but also won the hearts of America’s defeated enemies, inspired people around the world to believe in America’s fundamental goodness, avoided World War III, and won the greatest…
I'm a Communication professor at Fresno Pacific University and former Fulbright grantee to Jordan. Growing up in west Texas I was always fascinated with other countries. I encountered Arabic in college, and I quickly fell in love with a language and society that reminded me so much of my home—in fact, the word “haboob” is used by Texas farmers and Bedouin herders alike to describe a violent dust storm. While I was teaching English in Amman, I realized how much I enjoy learning how different cultures come to understand one another. My driving passion is to explore the centuries-long rhetorical history tying Americans and Middle Easterners together in mutual webs of (mis)representation, and this topic has never been more relevant than today.
A highly readable tome, Cooper’s account of how the oil politics of the 1970s revolutionized U.S. foreign policy and the Persian Gulf is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the political landscape of the Middle East. Cooper traces the personal interactions among the Shah of Iran, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, and the House of Saud in the midst of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the consequent oil embargo, the formation of OPEC, and the early stirrings of revolution in Iran. Perhaps most helpful, this book dispels many misperceptions about Iran under the Shah while also showing how the United States played an integral role in weakening his regime prior to the 1979 revolution.
“Relying on a rich cache of previously classified notes, transcripts, cables, policy briefs, and memoranda, Andrew Cooper explains how oil drove, even corrupted, American foreign policy during a time when Cold War imperatives still applied,”* and tells why in the 1970s the U.S. switched its Middle East allegiance from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi royal family.
While America struggles with a recess ion, oil prices soar, revolution rocks the Middle East, European nations risk defaulting on their loans, and the world teeters on the brink of a possible global financial crisis. This is not a description of the…
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
Steven A. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for the Middle East and Africa studies and director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine and an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S. Middle East policy.
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.
America's Kingdom debunks the many myths that now surround the United States's "special relationship" with Saudi Arabia, or what is less reverently known as "the deal": oil for security. Taking aim at the long-held belief that the Arabian American Oil Company, ARAMCO, made miracles happen in the desert, Robert Vitalis shows that nothing could be further from the truth. What is true is that oil led the U.S. government to follow the company to the kingdom. Eisenhower agreed to train Ibn Sa'ud's army, Kennedy sent jets to defend the kingdom, and Lyndon Johnson sold it missiles. Oil and ARAMCO quickly…
