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The Globalist’s Top Books of 2012

The Globalist presents its top ten books for 2012.

December 25, 2012

The Globalist presents its top ten books for 2012.
1. Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World
By Kwasi Kwarteng

Excerpt: How has the British and U.S. to desire to control Iraqi oil shaped the country’s recent history?

2. Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
By Chrystia Freeland

Excerpt: Why have Americans been so tolerant of the rising gulf between rich and poor?

3. Who Stole the American Dream?
By Hedrick Smith

Excerpt: Why has the American Dream slipped out of the reach of more and more of the middle class?

4. Waging War on Corruption: Inside the Movement Fighting the Abuse of Power
By Frank Vogl

Excerpt: How can transparency help end the fleecing of resource-rich countries by their corrupt leaders?

5. Economics After the Crisis: Objectives and Means
By Adair Turner

Excerpt: Why do economists — and the policymakers who heed their advice — need to reconsider the conventional wisdoms of their profession?

6. Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
By Lester Brown

Excerpt: What can be done to help those on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder cope with rising food prices?

7. The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters
By Diane Coyle

Excerpt: What policies should governments focus on to ensure that future generations live at least well as the current generation?

8. Borrow: The American Way of Debt
By Louis Hyman

Excerpt: What is “patriotic” about cutting taxes for the rich? And how is the middle class “empowered” by piling up mountains of debt?

9. The Revenge of Geography
By Robert D. Kaplan

Excerpt: Will water make Turkey a greater power in the Arab Middle East in the 21st century than it was in the 20th?

10. Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power
By Andrew Nagorski

Excerpt: How did Hitler’s relationship with a young American woman change history in the 20th century?

Honorable mention:

Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy
By William H. Janeway

Excerpt: Can the United States muster the will to step into the 21st century world of energy?

Bull by the Horns
By Sheila Bair

Excerpt: Mitt Romney badly lost the women’s vote. But are Republicans the only party with a “woman problem?”

Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Excerpt: Why would USAID not get behind an effort to turn Afghan farmers from poppy to cotton?

No One’s World
By Charles A. Kupchan

Excerpt: Western dominance will wane in the 21st century, but what will take its place?

Exits from the Rat Race
By Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky

Excerpt: How did mid-century concerns about economic fairness give way to today’s crisis-prone, Darwinian capitalism?

For a complete listing of books featured on The Globalist Bookshelf in 2012, click here.