1 курс (2 модуль)

Artem Altukhov

Allen R. C. Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction

A fairly accessible and balanced synopsis of the economic history of the world, starting from the Age of Discovery until today. Robert Allen considers different reasons for the “Great Divergence” — the steep rise of the Western civilization with the wake of the Industrial Revolution in England — and purports to explain the existing disparities in economic development and incomes of the different parts of the world. Dedicated chapters trace down the roots of continued poverty in Africa and Latin American economic backwardness.

Bernstein W. J. A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World from Prehistory to Today

A comprehensive and readable overview of the history of trade from Stone Age to the end of the 20th century. Bernstein unveils different surprising ways of how trade has shaped societies and nations across the globe, his narrative accompanied by vivid historical anecdotes and opportune showcases of trade borrowed from folklore and tales. Not too opinionated, the book leaves ample space for the reader to draw her own conclusions and theorize on the matter. 

Ha-Joon Chang Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Unlike typical economists who construct models of how the marketplace should work, Chang examines the past: what has actually happened? In this very unusual, witty, and refreshing history of capitalism, he attacks the mainstream freemarket mythology. We treat patents and copyrights as sacrosanct — but developed our own industries by studiously copying others’ technologies. We insist that centrally planned economies are inefficient and stifle growth — but many developing countries had higher GDP growth before they were pressured into deregulating their economies. Both justice and common sense, Chang argues, demand that we reevaluate the policies forced upon nations that are struggling to develop today.

Marshall T. Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls

While the 1990s and 2000s represented a period of globalization and erosion of borders between countries, the last decade has been marked by a great world division and the restoration of so-called “walls” between countries and regions. What is the rationale for that? Why do nations, instead of living together, tend to shun each other? In many cases, Tim Marshall finds the cause in the history of countries and the relations between them. These shadows of the past (not always distant) help to understand modern conflicts and the increased world division.

Nicole Bodishteanu

Ford C. The Mind of Empire: China's History and Modern Foreign Relations (Asia in the New Millennium)

It is important to understand what motivates China and how China sees itself so cooperation can be enhanced and conflict avoided. The basic argument is that the Chinese view of international relations is rooted in Confucian thought where there is a family of nations and there is only one head of the family. This is contrary to the Westphalian view of all nations having equal standing.

Bell D. The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy

The China Model asks an ambitious and challenging question - is there a better and more effective form of government than liberal democracy? Bell makes his comparisons between Western 'liberal democracy' and Chinese 'meritocracy'. The idea of the 'meritocracy' is not new in Western political thought, and reaches back to John Stuart Mill and Plato. In Bell's case, however, he naturally refers to Confucius and the derivatives of Confucianism.

Brown K. China's World: What Does China Want

An excellent look into how China sees itself and the world in 21st century. This book systematically breaks down the 2016-17 Chinese view of the world, that is essentially broken down into four different zones of interest 1. China-US 2. China & its immediate neighbors 3. China-EU 4. China-South America + Africa. It sheds light on how China applies different lenses while dealing with each of these region, while explaining what strategy/tactics China typically deploys in order to protect its economics or security interests and why.

Dmitry Novikov

Kissinger H. Diplomacy

A brilliant, sweeping history of diplomacy that includes personal stories from the noted former Secretary of State, including his stunning reopening of relations with China.The seminal work on foreign policy and the art of diplomacy. Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America’s approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations. Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is vital reading for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.

Anna Drozdova

Hoffman P.T. Why Did Europe Conquer the World?

Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations―such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution―fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder

technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.

Marshall T. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World

Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question. All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” (The Evening Standard), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments,journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and

vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders. Offering “a fresh way of looking at maps” (The New York Times Book Review), Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical. “In an ever more complex, chaotic, and interlinked world, Prisoners of Geography is a concise and useful primer on

geopolitics” (Newsweek) and a critical guide to one of the major determining factors in world affairs.

Elizabeth Zakharova

Hunt L. Inventing Human Rights

How were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of

human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread these new ideals and how human rights continue to be contested today

Lachmann R. States and Power

States over the past 500 years have become the dominant institutions on Earth, exercising vast and varied authority over the economic well-being, health, welfare, and very lives of their citizens. This concise and engaging book explains how power became centralized in states at the expense of the myriad of other polities that had battled one another over previous millennia.

Victoria Kazakova

Mishra R. A Business of State: Commerce, Politics, and the Birth of the East India Company

At the height of its power around 1800, the English East India Company controlled half of the world’s trade and deployed a vast network of political influencers at home and abroad. Yet the story of the Company’s beginnings in the early seventeenth century has remained largely untold. Rupali Mishra’s account of the East India Company’s formative years sheds new light on one of the most powerful corporations in the history of the world. From its birth in 1600, the East India Company lay at the heart of English political and economic life. The Company’s fortunes were determined by the leading figures of the Stuart era, from the monarch and his privy counselors to an extended cast of eminent courtiers and powerful merchants. Drawing on a host of overlooked and underutilized sources, Mishra reconstructs the inner life of the Company, laying bare the era’s fierce struggles to define the difference between public and private interests and the use and abuse of power. Unlike traditional accounts, which portray the Company as

a private entity that came to assume the powers of a state, Mishra’s history makes clear that, from its inception, the East India Company was embedded within―and inseparable from―the state. A Business of State illuminates how the East India Company quickly came to inhabit such a unique role in England’s commercial and political ambitions. It also offers critical insights into the rise of the early modern English state and the

expansion and development of its nascent empire.

Bengtsson T. Population, Economy, and Welfare in Sweden

Tommy Bengtsson The Swedish welfare model of the 1960s and 1970s excited great interest among many other countries. Today it still is an ideal image for some but a warning for many others. The reason why opinion about the Swedish welfare model has changed is primarily Sweden's financial problems, which are associated with a badly

financed and excessively large public sector. It is argued that the size of the budget deficit is a great problem in itself, but also, and perhaps more importantly, that the large public sector has negative effects on the entire economy since it lead to inefficient allocation of resources. A first step in order to solve these problems is to examine how they arose. The questions then are to what extent the large public sector which Sweden has today results from social entitlements which have come into existence since the 1960s, from the maturing of welfare systems decided upon earlier, from

unfavourable demographic developments, or from economic stagnation, and how these factors are interlinked. What is quite clear is that Sweden has had very low economic growth during the 1970s and 1980s compared with the preceding period. But so have many other industrial countries, without their having in consequence found themselves in difficulties as great as Sweden's. Therefore economic stagnation alone cannot explain Sweden's situation.

Maria Fedotova

Krugman P. The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

As it is widely known a financial crisis is likely to take place each 10-12 years and in order to deal with the future hazard a thorough analysis of previous crises appears to be indispensable. Luckily, the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman provides us with such opportunity. The economist grants us with the expert investigation of the 2008 financial crisis – the most notorious one since 1930-s, giving explicit reasons as well as tips on how to prevent the disaster.

McDermott R. Political Psychology in International Relations

In the wake of September 11, the American public has been besieged with claims that politics is driven by personality. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Kim Chong-Il, Ayatollah Khameinei - America's political rogues' gallery is populated by individuals whose need for recognition supposedly drives their actions on the world stage. To what extent is politics actually contingent on a person? And how is personality, in turn, formed by political environment? Political Psychology in International Relations provides students and scholars with the analytical tools they need to answer these pressing questions, and to assess their implications for policy in a real and sometimes dangerous world.