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  Allen Dulles: The Life of the...

  Editors Charles River

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  The 28-year period from 1933-1961, bracketed on one end by Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and on the other by the very height of the Cold War, was marked by a remarkably stable succession of American presidents. In fact, only three men held office in this period, and that predictability led to a general stability among government agencies. Conversely, the CIA had five different directors in its first 15 years, from 1946-1961, and then nine different directors in the next 20, with four of those directors serving less than a year. But of all the CIA’s directors, none wielded the immense influence or power of Allen Dulles, who, together with his brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, became arguably the two most powerful people in the government after the president.  
  	To this day, Dulles’ eight-year tenure in that office is the longest, and as one of the country’s leading experts in international law, intelligence, and spycraft, he became renowned for his unwavering anti-communist ideology and readiness to take decisive measures to counter what he perceived as a menace to American safety. As such, it would be Dulles who sanctioned many of the CIA’s most notorious operations, including the ousting of Iran's democratically elected government in 1953, spying and experimentation on American citizens, and the disastrous Bay of Pigs. That last episode cost him his job, though he continued to play a role in American political life after President John F. Kennedy forced him out of the CIA in 1961.  
  	By then, however, Dulles had already had an outsized influence on the direction of the country, and to this day his legacy can be felt, even as his reputation continues to be a source of much debate. 

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  The Lands in Between - Russia vs...

  Mitchell A. Orenstein

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  Russia's stealth invasion of Ukraine and its assault on the US elections in 2016 forced a reluctant West to grapple with the effects of hybrid war. While most citizens in the West are new to the problems of election hacking, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, influence operations by foreign security services, and frozen conflicts, citizens of the frontline states between Russia and the European Union have been dealing with these issues for years. 
   
   
   
  The Lands in Between contends that these "lands in between" hold powerful lessons for Western countries. For Western politics is becoming increasingly similar to the lands in between, where hybrid warfare has polarized parties and voters into two camps: those who support a Western vision of liberal democracy and those who support a Russian vision of nationalist authoritarianism. Paradoxically, while politics increasingly boils down to a zero sum "civilizational choice" between Russia and the West, those who rise to the pinnacle of the political system in the lands in between are often non-ideological power brokers who have found a way to profit from both sides, taking rewards from both Russia and the West. Increasingly, the political pathologies of these small, vulnerable, and backwards states in Europe are our problems too. In this deepening conflict, we are all lands in between.

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  A Measure Short of War - A Brief...

  William C. Wohlforth, Jill Kastner

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  In 2016, the United States was stunned by evidence of Russian meddling in the US presidential elections. But it shouldn't have been. Subversion—domestic interference to undermine or manipulate a rival—is as old as statecraft itself. The basic idea would have been familiar to Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Elizabeth I, or Bismarck. 
   
   
   
  It came as a surprise in 2016 because the sole superpower had fallen asleep at the wheel. But what's really new? Have we entered a new age of vulnerability? To answer these questions, and to protect ourselves against future subversion, we need a clear-eyed understanding of what it is and how it works. 
   
   
   
  In A Measure Short of War, Jill Kastner and William C. Wohlforth provide just that, taking the listener on a compelling ride through the history of subversion, exploring two thousand years of mischief and manipulation to illustrate subversion's allure, its operational possibilities, and the means for fighting back against it. With vivid examples from the ancient world, the great-power rivalries of the nineteenth century, epic Cold War struggles, and more, A Measure Short of War shows how prior technological revolutions opened up new avenues for subversion, and how some democracies have been fatally weakened by foreign subverters while others have artfully defended themselves—and their democratic principles.

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  Oceans Rise Empires Fall - Why...

  Gerard Toal

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  In the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that the effects of accelerating climate change will be catastrophic, from rising seas to more violent storms to desertification. Yet why do nation-states find it so difficult to implement transnational policies that can reduce carbon output and slow global warming? In Oceans Rise, Empires Fall, Gerard Toal identifies geopolitics as the culprit. States would prefer to reduce emissions in the abstract, but in the great global competition for geopolitical power, states always prioritize access to carbon-based fuels necessary for generating the sort of economic growth that helps them compete with rival states. 
   
    
   
  The Ukraine conflict in particular exposes our priorities. To escape reliance on Russia's vast oil and gas reserves, states have expanded fossil fuel production that necessarily increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Competitive territorial, resource, and technological dramas across the geopolitical chessboard currently obscure the deterioration of the planet's life support systems. In the contest between geopolitics and sustainable climate policies, the former takes precedence—especially when competition shifts to outright conflict. In this book, Toal interrogates that relationship and its stakes for the ongoing acceleration of climate change.

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  Liberalism as a Way of Life

  Alexandre Lefebvre

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  Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life, many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means. Misled into thinking that liberalism is confined to politics, we fail to recognize that it's the water we swim in, saturating every area of public and private life, shaping our psychological and spiritual outlooks, and influencing our moral and aesthetic values—our sense of what is right, wrong, good, bad, funny, worthwhile, and more. This eye-opening book shows how so many of us are liberal to the core, why liberalism provides the basis for a good life, and how we can make our lives better and happier by becoming more aware of, and more committed to, the beliefs we already hold. 
   
   
   
  A lively, engaging, and uplifting guide to living well, the liberal way, Liberalism as a Way of Life is filled with examples from television, movies, stand-up comedy, and social media—from Parks and Recreation and The Good Place to the Borat movies and Hannah Gadsby. Along the way, you'll also learn about seventeen benefits of being a liberal and practical exercises to increase these rewards.

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  Black Power and the American...

  C.T. Vivian

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  In 1970, C. T. Vivian, a close colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a member of his executive staff, sat down to take stock of the civil rights movement and the progress it had made. His assessment was that it failed, and that the blame lay in the existence of myths about America. 
   
   
   
  As prophetic today as it was fifty years ago, Vivian's voice rings out as a critique and a call to action for a society in deep need of justice and peace. 
   
   
   
  The civil rights struggle that began when Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, decided to sit in the front of a bus has deeply altered American society and the American conscience. Yet from several perspectives, that movement has resulted in failure. The Black struggle for independence is more of an uphill climb than ever. Why? C. T. Vivian asserts that the civil rights movement failed because it was built on certain myths about America: 
   
   
   
  ● the myth that Americans will do what is right as soon as they know what is right. 
   
   
   
  ● the myth that legislation leads to justice. 
   
   
   
  ● the myth that America is an open society where any minority group can advance. 
   
   
   
  ● the myth that an ethic of love forms the core of the American conscience.

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