Germany is no longer Europe’s most troublesome player. It’s now an indispensable nation. The power of this transformation is personified by Chancellor Angela Merkel and her delicate political and diplomatic balancing act.
Major developments in the oil sector are decisively undermining the once-defining role of the Middle East in the global energy market. The region’s potency in global affairs is on the wane, making Obama’s pivot to East Asia well-timed.
The Continent’s many identities and fault lines stretch back into the nether centuries of European history. All have been influenced by the immutable force of geography, which also will shape Europe’s future.
Those nations falling between the developed West and the world’s poorest countries are jockeying for position in their own regions and playing powers against each other. They will make life increasingly difficult for the reigning great powers.
Charles Kupchan’s engaging new tome describes a world where global governance is collapsing and nations have only the barest common ground of agreement. But his analysis is marred by unworkable policy prescriptions and a static perspective.
Gandhi cuts a saintly figure in the modern imagination. Joseph Lelyveld’s controversial biographical account presents a more dispassionate perspective of the Father of the Indian Nation. An exaggerated creation myth is revealed.
