Best european politics books according to redditors
We found 43 Reddit comments discussing the best european politics books. We ranked the 34 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 43 Reddit comments discussing the best european politics books. We ranked the 34 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
If you want a good grounding in European Union politics, since that is my speciality, I can help you there.
Firstly, I would avoid all of the 'airport' read books written by journalists of a particular bent pushing their narrative on today's politics or Brexit, so "All out War", etc. (This goes for whether you want more info about Westminster politics, or UK interaction with EU politics.) Whilst they may be entertaining, they're written to "push" a narrative or viewpoint of the author, and aren't meant to be neutral accounts or fact laden at all.
For EU affairs I recommend two textbooks that would be required reading for any undergraduate studying EU politics, and serve as a core quick reference texts for any postgrad looking at it too. These will help you to actually base your opinions on the EU on some core facts and/or well established arguments (something that is sorely lacking on here).
Both of these should be fairly cheap to pick up second hand, but I do not recommend purchasing earlier versions than those I have listed, since a lot has happened in the intervening years since their previous editions were published.
Both of these textbooks are laid out in a concise and simple to follow manner, with key infoboxes for further reading and detail. They both look at theories of integration (why member states chose to integrate/who are the actors), the history and evolution of the Union, and the logic behind certain policies, how its institutions operate and have evolved, how they interact with each other both in theory and practice, arguments as to what the "Union" is, and finally critiques (and counterarguments to them) of the Union and its policies.
You can either read through them chapter by chapter, or keep them at hand, and when something comes up, flick through and examine them.
I can recommend further text books if you so wish.
Edit: PS. I see others on this post are recommending several political theory texts from 17th century authors and later. My tip is to find textbooks on political theory if that is something you want to look into. Whilst those texts are important, there are many interpretations of them and their often flowery, and to put it bluntly longwinded prose, (Hobbes taking several pages to discuss what is "power" springs to mind) can make digesting them difficult. A good textbook will digest the key arguments from political theory texts and lay them out in a nice concise manner, with critiques and counter arguments. You can then go and read the actual texts that stand out if you so wish.
Found a article for some context on her... will post more as I find it:
Link to Heavy.com article
> From 2001 to 2008, Farkas worked on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And in the late 1990s, Farkas worked in Bosnia as a human rights officer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Link to Fox article
> Retired Army Major General William L. Nash, a former commander of U.S. forces in Bosnia who was reportedly known for his "bluntness and political acumen," worked with Farkas on the Council on Foreign Relations and speaks highly of his former colleague.
Link to her book on Bosnia
> This timely study constitutes an outstanding contribution to the literature on ethnic conflict and contemporary U.S. foreign policy. Based on meticulous research, first-hand work in Bosnia in 1996
As in 1996 the same year that Hillary visited Bosnia and reportedly claimed she came in under sniper fire.
This video is filled with half-facts and downright false information and very poor understanding of the legislative process in the EU.
It is absolutely no secret that lobbying is part of the EU, in fact it's such of a non-secret that most companies are registered to a rule of conduct and while the register is voluntary (as the video says) the number of unregistered companies is very small.
Here you can search for the activity of each company
Just as lobby groups are part of the policy making process so to are NGOs local administrative bodies, territorial bodies, etc. There are also firms that advise companies how to lobby the EU and they also have a handbook: Lobbying in the new Europe Lobbying is important because the EU is massive and they serve by giving information on the specific legislation, usually all the sides that will be affected by legislation will be brought in for discussions, if you wanna impose regulation for the financial sector than of course you will want to hear the opinion of those in the financial sector.
Ultimately the EP has proven to be the easiest to influence by lobby groups and historically it's after proposals have made their way to the parliament that they started being watered down and the more strict rules stripped from them.
Example - Shows what was changed and what was stripped after different stages. In this case the rapporteur for the EP was Renate Sommers - an industry "friend"
Edit: Forgot to add, being on the transparency register allows the designated person for that company to be part of the Parliamentary meetings when they discuss specific legislation that might be of interest to them.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1118971507
Please send to Mr B Johnson, c/o Houses of Parliment, Westminster, London. SW1A 0AA.
I'm sure I'm to the left of this sub, but that's irrelevant.
You've misquoted me, I didn't say Islam is incompatible with Western culture, I said
>Maher's anti-religiosity isn't Islam specific, Islam just has the most incompatibilities with western culture of the popular religions at present.
Yes, there are plenty of Muslims who have had incredible contributions to systems used in the West and to western nations generally but the values and ideas that shape the west have had a lot more time to brush up against Judaism and Christianity which have been popular in the west for centuries. Both Judaism and Christianity also have had popular interpretations with huge volumes of incompatibilities with western culture but over time both religions have morphed into less regressive / oppressive versions of themselves through cultural combat with enlightenment values.
A strict reading of significant parts of the Torah and New Testament will result in a very long list of incompatibilities with our current culture as well but these readings have been depopularized over time while coexisting with liberal values. Interpretations that de-emphasize the areas of incompatibility and emphasize the areas of compatibility are possible within Islam just as they were possible with Judaism and Christianity.
It's inarguable that Western culture and Islam have developed largely in separate ecosystems which has given Islam less time for creative destruction with enlightenment values that are needed to reconcile some of these conflicts. Short of taking a cultural relativist approach to this disconnect, I'm not sure how any liberal could contest this. That relativism would also come with strings attached that prevent criticism of the repression present in many of these countries in which the more harmful or regressive interpretations of Islam are popularized as well which I'd hope liberals would find unacceptable.
At this point there aren't really any Christian theocracies that are burning witches or holding inquisitions, but there are still Muslim theocracies that are killing apostates and pushing sexist, homophobic, and anti-pluralistic policies and laws that need to be directly addressed and condemned. Maher is right to call out these injustices and those who've followed him for any length of time are aware that he's an equal opportunity offender in that he criticizes illiberalism (as he sees it) whether it's in Utah or Riyadh. Maher uses the 'American Taliban' label to refer to the Tea Party and other Christian conservatives who try to tear down the barrier between church and state; 'Religious' his documentary-of-sorts on the subject went through all sorts of pseudo-science and focused far more on Christiainity than Islam.
I don't think Maher is the best voice on the subject, but I do think he gets more flak on the subject than he deserves and I think liberals make themselves look bad by dismissing some of what he says in the way they do with derisive claims of 'Islamophobia' conflating his beliefs with those of actual Islamophobes.
Maajid Nawaaz is a fantastic source for quality writing on the subject and he frequently raises these challenges in productive conversations. The book, Citizen Islam does a very good job of establishing how the incompatibilities between some interpretations of Islam that are popular today are not fundamental to Islam itself and how Muslims can integrate into western society very successfully without having to give up on their cultural and religious heritage.
Text:
By Steven WardMay 4 at 7:00 AM
On Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported the State Department’s policy planning staff, led by Director Kiron Skinner, is “preparing for a clash of civilizations” with China. Skinner’s office is composing what it calls “Letter X” — styled after George Kennan’s “X Article” that laid out an argument for containing the Soviet Union during the first years of the Cold War.
The Examiner’s description of the State Department’s thinking contains remarkable details. Skinner describes great power competition with China as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before.” China “poses a unique challenge … because the regime in Beijing isn’t a child of Western philosophy and history.” The Cold War constituted “a fight within the Western family,” while the coming conflict with China is “the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.”
[No, China and the U.S. aren’t locked in an ideological battle. Not even close.]
Skinner is right that “you can’t have a policy without an argument underneath it.” But the argument that seems to be informing U.S. China policy is deeply flawed and dangerous.
Has the United States never competed with a great power whose ideology or civilization was dramatically different from ours?
Skinner’s claim that China is the United States’ first ideologically distinct great power competitor is wrong. For one thing, it is not at all clear that such an ideology is central to Sino-American competition. For another, this mangles history. Nazi Germany is an obvious counterexample. The Soviet Union is a second. Skinner has written extensively on President Ronald Reagan, who would be surprised to learn that American competition with the U.S.S.R. — the “evil empire” — did not involve ideological differences.
To Skinner, the Cold War did not constitute a conflict of civilization because it took place within the “Western family.” She takes her cue from Samuel Huntington’s ideas about the “clash of civilizations.” But those ideas do not stand up to scrutiny. The concept of “civilization” lacks empirical support. Also, the enterprise of classifying countries according to dominant civilizations ignores the variety and contingency of identities, treating some as fixed or natural while erasing others. Nor is it clear that Russia was ever understood (or understood itself) as a fully Western or European nation.
Fortunately, Skinner offers a further clue about what she means. China, she notes, is the first great power competitor that the United States has faced that is “not Caucasian.” In the end, the argument is not about ideology or civilization. It is about race. China — unlike Russia — is not predominantly white, and thus must be dealt with differently.
Before World War II, Japan came to believe it wouldn’t be treated equally in world politics because of Western racial attitudes.
But the claim that the United States has never faced a non-Caucasian great power competitor is also wrong. Japan before World War II was a great power rival and was understood as racially different.
You are just seeing the tip of the iceberg friend. As many as they deport, round up, lock up, or let them be beaten by Golden Dawn members, the influx of immigrants won't stop.
EU law has deliberately turned Greece into a buffer zone of immigration while they (edit: I mean the states of EU) also struggle with maybe the biggest issue in the planet nowadays. These waves of immigrants were created by the western economic system and civilization that capitalized and exploited for centuries the third world. Now that there is a surplus of people there are no more places for them to go. So now they knock on your door but you say "I don't care, let them go somewhere else" while your country contributed to this (as a western country and a member of the EU - and even practically, we are in the NATO you know, NATO attacks Afghanistan and Iraq, immigrants fled to Greece). We buy our iPhones and iPads and our cool trendy shoes that are made by child labor in Asia but when these people knock on our doors, no, no, we don't want them here.
Who are you and our politicians to deem a human being as "legal" and "illegal'? Have you ever thought about that?
I can't really use a reply on reddit to convince you to see the bigger picture. I will link some books for you to read though and maybe these will change your mind:
Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts
The End of Human Rights
Europe's 21st Century Challenge
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life - this book really sheds a light on the "legal" and "illegal" issue for humans.
Guests and Aliens
>[...] our freedom depends on the severity of other states, especially, but not only, neighbouring states whose populations wish to leave their own country. Our freedom supposes more controls at the borders and more suspicion against tourism of the poor. Tourism as the freedom to move is for the rich but the poor are by definition a threat against the order as they are supposed to want to stay in a host state in order to profit from social benefits.
EU (and the western civilization in general) speaks a lot about freedom and liberty but it can only comprehend that freedom in a context of banishment of the "others". Raising walls, patrolling the borders stricter, rounding up people to lock them up in hideous detainment centers all around Europe won't stop them from coming. We are only making their road more difficult resulting in more of them being drown or frozen to death.
Oh and by the way even if you drive away from Greece all the "foreigners" that won't solve the crisis. Immigrants in Greece nowadays are just the scapegoats for anger to be unleashed and votes to be gained by the same people that brought you here and by the people that today are speaking of driving away "foreigners" but after will also speak of driving away the ones that aren't "pure Greeks" - if you catch my drift.
There are no books that can adequately cover British politics to the extent that you're asking. Also, politics and economics are intertwined to the point that you cannot understand one without the other. Freakonomics, for example explains how the two cannot be meaningful separated and is an interesting place to start any political journey.
Depending on your background knowledge 30-Second Politics can give you a grounding of what all the different terminology means and Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box provides useful insight as to the difference between how politics is preached and practiced. Also, The Plan is essential reading to understand our current government.
You've already mentioned Douglass Murray's Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, which I would also thoroughly endorse. Further to that I'd recommend Thomas Pikkety's Capital in the 21st Century which although about economics is so closely tied to current political thought that it really is extremely useful reading
I think this is the only main study of the subject so far: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Populist-Radical-Central-Eastern-Europe/dp/1138839876
You might be worth looking at books about Franco's Spain as well.
Nice chart, but if you can tolerate looking at a french book cover, this is easier and much faster:
https://www.amazon.fr/LUnion-europ%C3%A9enne-pays-Petit-guide-ebook/dp/B0154THVDU
oui j'ai vu et donc?
pourquoi je prendrais en compte la parole d'un oligarque qui faisait partie du gang des spoliateurs après la chute de l'URSS ? De plus, ce qu'il dit des russes est plus que raciste, qu'il pourrisse en enfer, lui et sa clique de capitalistes usuriers.
edit: un bon livre sur le sujet https://www.amazon.fr/dp/2221094263/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1U1Y85SW3NYHN&coliid=I2T9GQFFACOWQE
je ne nie pas que Poutine s'en met dans les poches, mais ce type a redressé son pays qui était dans un gouffre social et économique, d'où sa grande popularité.
It's not evidence, but this book (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unleashing-Demons-Inside-Story-Brexit/dp/1473652480/) does give an interesting insight. Sir Oliver writes that the the prime minister had to plead with May to come off the fence about Brexit. There were serious concerns in the Cameron camp at the time that she was an "enemy agent" that would join the Boris/Gove team and come out publicly in support of Brexit.
I'm not sure how she can screw the public (or 52% of the public anyway). Article 50 has been triggered. She has spoken publicly several times that she's only interested in pursuing a hard-brexit.
EU leaders have also said repeatedly that there can be no single-market access without accepting free-movement of EU citizens. It would be political suicide if she agreed to free movement at this point. And if they cave on it, there would be strong precedent for any number of other countries to leave and expect to retain their single market access.
I can't see any alternative to a hard brexit at this point.
As I expect we can agree, the minds behind the official Leave campaign are not this generation's brightest.
The problem with their brag about how it was one of their soundbites that won it is that the public was already opposed prior to the campaign.
>The more information you seek out, the more confusing it gets.
Really?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Question-Hugo-Dixon/dp/1496146670/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465166831&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=hugo+dixob
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doomed-Marriage-Britain-Should-Leave/dp/191074901X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1465166959&sr=8-4&keywords=daniel+hannan
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Europe-Out-Everything-Need-Know/dp/1785900412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465166859&sr=8-1&keywords=david+charter
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Europe-Dilemma-Britain-Integration-Network/dp/1780762232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465166901&sr=8-1&keywords=roger+liddle
Sth like that? I actually mistook one author for the other as I just noticed...
https://www.amazon.de/Gr%C3%BCnde-die-AFD-zu-w%C3%A4hlen/dp/1520837364/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1489593068&sr=8-2-spell
OP isn’t writing the articles. The author of the article is also author of the book Putin’s Master Plan. So clearly he means Democrats should make bipartisan deals to stop Putin.
Respectfully, you are woefully oversimplifying Putin and his geopolitical game.
I recommend you check out Putin's Master Plan, which was written by a scholar on Russian affairs. This guy has been warning the world about Putin and his agenda since before it was fashionable to do so. Putin's agenda is far more complex, nefarious, and brilliant than you think.
That said, I do agree that he won't be successful and that ultimately, he'll fail... provided Western powers (especially NATO) stand up to him.
> Almost half our country voted for independence. What's that if not a radical idea?
Ha! Great point. It renewed my faith in people a little too. Though still a ways to go!
I was referring to the book mentioned here.
I hereby promise I'll start it once I'm done reading Honourable Friends? by Caroline Lucas
For those who know french I suggest:
Kosovo, une guerre "juste" pour un Etat mafieux - Pierre Péan (http://www.fayard.fr/kosovo-9782213651354)
and L'Europe est morte à Pristina - Jacques Hogard
(http://www.amazon.fr/LEurope-est-morte-%C3%A0-Pristina/dp/275561496X)
Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OojS5a3xslM
Found this on Cummings' wish list.
>I find it hilarious that you used Germany in 1945 as good example for a deflationary economy. You may want to give this a read:
Why? The source you sited refers to the hyper-inflation of 1923; not the collapse of the Reichsmark in 1945.
You need to read good sources instead of The Zionist Monthly. If want to see the brilliance of how the Nazis set up their economy, read this book. The author was the last American journalist in Germany prior to the beginning of WW2.
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Europe-John-Gunther/dp/B0008665CS#
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0198749953/?coliid=I1VZM8NH4D8427&colid=2ZKBN4RSJSYJV&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it - Catherine Barnard - The Substantive Law of the EU: The Four Freedoms.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0198789130/?coliid=I3FQZDCZWZQQW7&colid=2ZKBN4RSJSYJV&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it - Catherine Barnard and Steve Peers (as mentioned above, he is really very good)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0198708939/?coliid=I2G9WKHW05Z4U3&colid=2ZKBN4RSJSYJV&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it - EU Politics.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Institutions-European-Union-New/dp/0198737416/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524610636&sr=1-2-fkmr1&keywords=dermot+oleary+eu - Dermot Hodson, John Peterson 9eds) - Institutions of the EU.
A simple look on Amazon or Oxford University Press/Routledge etc will give you a great start for this type of text book and references will point you to further reading if you find yourself interested. The links I posted are most recent versions which I have read a bit but this type was my UG and PG essentially.
This is from a book they are charging £50 for not real research.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brexit-Britain-Voted-Leave-European/dp/1316605043
https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Politics-Dummies-Julian-Knight/dp/1118971507