Want to know what books Ali Wyne recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Ali Wyne's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was left as the world's sole superpower, which was the dawn of an international order known as unipolarity. The ramifications of imbalanced power extend around the globe--including the country at the center. What has the sudden realization that it stands alone atop the international hierarchy done to the United States? In Psychology of a Superpower, Christopher J. Fettweis examines how unipolarity affects the way U.S. leaders conceive of their role, make strategy, and perceive America's place in the world.
Combining... more With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was left as the world's sole superpower, which was the dawn of an international order known as unipolarity. The ramifications of imbalanced power extend around the globe--including the country at the center. What has the sudden realization that it stands alone atop the international hierarchy done to the United States? In Psychology of a Superpower, Christopher J. Fettweis examines how unipolarity affects the way U.S. leaders conceive of their role, make strategy, and perceive America's place in the world.
Combining security, strategy, and psychology, Fettweis investigates how the idea of being number one affects the decision making of America's foreign-policy elite. He examines the role the United States plays in providing global common goods, such as peace and security; the effect of the Cold War's end on nuclear-weapon strategy and policy; the psychological consequences of unbalanced power; and the grand strategies that have emerged in unipolarity. Drawing on psychology's insights into the psychological and behavioral consequences of unchecked power, Fettweis brings new insight to political science's policy-analysis toolkit. He also considers the prospect of the end of unipolarity, offering a challenge to widely held perceptions of American indispensability and asking whether the unipolar moment is worth trying to save. Psychology of a Superpower is a provocative rethinking of the risks and opportunities of the global position of the United States, with significant consequences for U.S. strategy, character, and identity. less 
Ali WyneThis is a new book which I found very powerful because the author demonstrates how insights into the psychology of individuals map onto the psychology of great powers, in this case the world’s preeminent power. There’s an enormous amount to unpack in the book, but there are a few core insights that I really took away from it. (Source)
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Protecting sovereignty while advancing American interests in the global age
Americans have long been protective of the country's sovereignty--beginning when George Washington retired as president with the admonition for his successors to avoid "permanent" alliances with foreign powers. Ever since, the nation has faced periodic, often heated, debates about how to maintain that sovereignty, and whether and when it's appropriate to cede some of it in the form of treaties and the alliances about which Washington warned.
As the recent election made clear,... more Protecting sovereignty while advancing American interests in the global age
Americans have long been protective of the country's sovereignty--beginning when George Washington retired as president with the admonition for his successors to avoid "permanent" alliances with foreign powers. Ever since, the nation has faced periodic, often heated, debates about how to maintain that sovereignty, and whether and when it's appropriate to cede some of it in the form of treaties and the alliances about which Washington warned.
As the recent election made clear, sovereignty is also one of the most frequently invoked, polemical, and misunderstood concepts in politics--particularly American politics. The concept wields symbolic power, implying something sacred and inalienable: the right of the people to control their fate without subordination to outside authorities. Given its emotional pull, however, the concept is easily highjacked by political opportunists. By playing the sovereignty card, they can curtail more reasoned debates over the merits of proposed international commitments by portraying supporters of global treaties or organizations as enemies of motherhood and apple pie.
Such polemics distract Americans from what is really at stake in the sovereignty debate: namely, the ability of the United States to shape its destiny in a global age. The United States cannot successfully manage globalization, much less insulate itself from cross-border threats, on its own. As global integration deepens and cross-border challenges grow, the nation's fate is increasingly tied to that of other countries, whose cooperation will be needed to exploit the shared opportunities and mitigate the common risks of interdependence.
Sovereignty Reimagined is intended to help today's policymakers think more clearly about what is actually at stake in the sovereignty debate and to provide some criteria for determining when it is appropriate to make bargains over sovereignty--and how to make them. less Ali WyneStewart Patrick is a big ideas person and this book is very much in keeping with his scholarship to date. What he does is he takes abstract concepts and interrogates them. He deconstructs the assumptions underlying them and he imparts greater clarity and nuance. Whether it’s failed states, global governance or, now, sovereignty, he really unpacks the term. (Source)
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From a renowned foreign-policy expert, a new paradigm for strategy in the twenty-first century
In 1961, Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict used game theory to radically reenvision the U.S.-Soviet relationship and establish the basis of international relations for the rest of the Cold War. Now, Anne-Marie Slaughter—one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers from 2009 to 2012, and the first woman to serve as director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning—applies network theory to develop a new set of strategies for the post-Cold War... more From a renowned foreign-policy expert, a new paradigm for strategy in the twenty-first century
In 1961, Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict used game theory to radically reenvision the U.S.-Soviet relationship and establish the basis of international relations for the rest of the Cold War. Now, Anne-Marie Slaughter—one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers from 2009 to 2012, and the first woman to serve as director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning—applies network theory to develop a new set of strategies for the post-Cold War world. While chessboard-style competitive relationships still exist—U.S.-Iranian relations, for example—many other situations demand that we look not at individual entities but at their links to one another. We must learn to understand, shape, and build on those connections.
Concise and accessible, based on real-world situations, on a lucid understanding of network science, and on a clear taxonomy of strategies, this will be a go-to resource for anyone looking for a new way to think about strategy in politics or business. less Ali WyneI found this book fascinating. It made me recognize how impoverished our conceptualization of power remains. One of her core arguments is that the predominant theoretical and prescriptive frameworks that we use in foreign policy remain very state-centric. They reflect a Westphalian system where the nation state is the predominant actor and state-to-state interactions are the dominant interactions. (Source)
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For more than a century, the United States has been the world's most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post-American world? Will China's rapid rise spark a new Cold War between the two titans?
In this compelling essay, world renowned foreign policy analyst, Joseph Nye, explains why the American century is far from over and what the US must do to retain its lead in an era of increasingly diffuse power politics. America's superpower status may well be tempered by its own domestic problems and China's... more For more than a century, the United States has been the world's most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post-American world? Will China's rapid rise spark a new Cold War between the two titans?
In this compelling essay, world renowned foreign policy analyst, Joseph Nye, explains why the American century is far from over and what the US must do to retain its lead in an era of increasingly diffuse power politics. America's superpower status may well be tempered by its own domestic problems and China's economic boom, he argues, but its military, economic and soft power capabilities will continue to outstrip those of its closest rivals for decades to come. less Ali WyneThis book taps into some of the current debates. Is America just in relative decline? Or is it in terminal decline? Is America turning inward? Is America’s seeming inward turn just part of normal oscillations in US foreign policy? Or is it a harbinger of things to come? (Source)
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A vivid, surprising portrait of the civic and economic reinvention taking place in America, town by town and generally out of view of the national media. A realistically positive and provocative view of the country between its coasts.
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse... more A vivid, surprising portrait of the civic and economic reinvention taking place in America, town by town and generally out of view of the national media. A realistically positive and provocative view of the country between its coasts.
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign.
The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems--from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge--but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey--and an account of a country busy remaking itself. less 
David AllenFab book releasing today by friends James and Deborah Fallows - chronicle of their experiences of middle-American community success stories. Must read, if you care about how people who care can really make a difference! https://t.co/7oMJ6LnE7L (Source)
Ali WyneThere has always been this contrived boundary between domestic policy and foreign policy. They have always been intimately intertwined, but with the populist and nationalist stirrings we’re seeing, I think that looking at the relationship between the two and recognizing the artificiality of the boundary between the two of them is becoming more important. (Source)
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