I’ve put together a carefully curated list of books and authors that offer deep insight into the structural and historical dynamics shaping today’s international crises, especially those marked by violence, double standards, and political complicity, such as the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.
This selection includes foundational texts in realism, critical geopolitics, and analyses of emerging global orders. It also features thinkers who connect history, strategic analysis, and normative questions, offering not only tools for understanding the present but frameworks for imagining more just futures.
Classics of Realism and Strategic Thought
Hans Morgenthau – Politics Among Nations
The foundational realist work on the struggle for power and interest in international relations.
John J. Mearsheimer – The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
A powerful structural realist account of why great powers compete, useful for understanding the logic behind inaction and complicity in global conflicts.
John J. Mearsheimer & Sebastian Rosato – How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy
Offers a framework for evaluating how states make foreign policy decisions, challenging the assumptions of liberal and constructivist theories.
Zbigniew Brzezinski – The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
A deeply influential Cold War and post-Cold War geostrategic analysis by a former U.S. National Security Advisor.
Robert J. Art & Robert Jervis – International Politics: Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues
An excellent anthology combining classic texts and modern case studies, useful for both teaching and deep research.
Historical Sociology, Empires, and Decline
Paul Kennedy – The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Examines the intersection of military and economic power over centuries; essential for understanding cycles of hegemony and decline.
Emmanuel Todd – After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order
A controversial but analytically rich critique of American decline and global hypocrisy, with strong emphasis on demographic and ideological shifts.
Niall Ferguson – Colossus and Empire
Conservative but valuable for understanding the mechanisms and contradictions of Western imperial power.
Geopolitics and Contemporary Strategy
Robert D. Kaplan – The Revenge of Geography and The Coming Anarchy
Provocative readings on how geography and resource scarcity shape political behaviour and conflict.
Parag Khanna – Connectography and The Future is Asian
A more optimistic globalist vision, focusing on connectivity, networks, and the shifting centre of power toward Asia.
Bruno Tertrais (ed.) – L’Atlas des guerres et des conflits (in French)
Rich in maps and political analysis—very useful to visualise and historicise current conflict zones, including the Middle East.
Democracy, Populism, and the Crisis of the West
Daniel Ziblatt & Steven Levitsky – How Democracies Die
A critical and readable analysis of institutional fragility, authoritarian drift, and the complicity of elites.
Jan-Werner Müller – What is Populism?
Concise and sharp explanation of the populist moment and how it undermines liberal democracy.
Tariq Ali – The Extreme Centre and The Clash of Fundamentalisms
A fierce critique of Western foreign policy and ideological blind spots, especially relevant to understanding Western complicity in ongoing violence.
Additional Recommendations (Theoretical & Critical)
Edward Said – Orientalism
Foundational for understanding Western representations of the “Other” and how discourse justifies domination.
Achille Mbembe – Necropolitics
A profound analysis of the politics of death—vital to thinking through Gaza, Palestine, and postcolonial violence.
Roxanne Doty – Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations
Combining poststructuralism with IR, useful for understanding how power operates discursively.
Cynthia Enloe – Bananas, Beaches and Bases
A feminist critique of global politics that challenges conventional IR thinking and centres marginalised voices.
·Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth
A classic of anti-colonial thought, Fanon analyses the psychological and structural violence of colonialism, and the revolutionary processes that seek to dismantle it, essential for understanding the persistence of colonial logics in modern international relations.
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Conclusion
These works are more than academic references—they are intellectual tools for navigating a world in crisis. In times of growing violence, democratic backsliding, and moral bankruptcy, such as what we are witnessing in Gaza, the ability to understand the structural logic behind global silence and complicity becomes not just useful but necessary.
These authors help us grasp how power is exercised, legitimised, and contested across time and space. They teach us that today’s crises are rarely sudden—they are built over decades through policy strategic choices, ideological shifts, and historical amnesia.
If we are to reclaim any normative ground in international politics, we must begin with critical knowledge. That is the purpose of this list: not to offer easy answers, but to help form deeper, historically grounded questions.
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