Changes in the character of war partially account for the mass murders of the past century. But the rise of democracy also plays a role. Why did the 20th century produce so much mass killing of civilians - a phenomenon so terrible and unexpected that it caused a new word, "genocide", to be coined to … Continue reading The Killing Fields

The Breaking of Nations: order and chaos in the 21st century by Robert Cooper Atlantic Books, 180pp, £14.99 International relations may or may not be in a mess; the theory of international relations certainly is. The old theory was that the world consists of "states" which exist in an "international anarchy". It was an "anarchy" … Continue reading A Janus-faced World

The Roaring Nineties: seeds of destruction Joseph Stiglitz, Allen Lane, 389pp, £18.99 This book is the story of the forces that drove the American economy to frenzy in the 1990s and collapse in 2000. It is much better than Professor Stiglitz's last offering, Globalization and Its Discontents (2002), which was largely a rant against the … Continue reading Inside the Bubble

God and Caesar by Shirley Williams Continuum, 156pp, £12.99 To what political attitudes might Christian belief point? Can the decline of Christianity in rich western countries be reversed, and, if so, how? These are the main questions discussed in Shirley Williams's arrestingly titled essay "God and Caesar", based on lectures delivered at Notre Dame University … Continue reading The Last Serious Politician