The World Next Week: Summer Reading Special

In this special edition, CFR.org Editor Robert McMahon, CFR's Director of Studies Jim Lindsay and Senior Fellow for Defense Policy Janine Davidson share their summer reading lists. Listen in for book recommendations. 

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Hosts
  • James M. Lindsay
    Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
  • Janine Davidson
    Former Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Robert McMahon
    Managing Editor

Show Notes

In this special edition, CFR.org Editor Robert McMahon, CFR's Director of Studies Jim Lindsay and Senior Fellow for Defense Policy Janine Davidson start off the summer with a list of books that they will be reading in the weeks ahead. Listen in for recommendations from their reading lists.
 

Robert McMahon's list:

  • Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
  • Pig Tales: An Omnivore's Quest for Sustainable Meat by Barry Estabrook
  • The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

James Lindsay's list:

  • In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made by Norman Cantor
  • The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order 1916-1931 by Adam Tooze
  • How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steve Johnson 

Janine Davidson's list:

  • The Unraveling by Emma Sky
  • Ghost Fleet by Peter Singer
  • The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

Climate Change

The United Arab Emirates, a major oil and gas producer, hosts the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), where hundreds of world leaders meet to discuss limiting global warming and helping states that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change; Russia arbitrarily detains a journalist with U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and the World Health Organization asks China for information on a spike in respiratory illness.

Ukraine

Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces stalls as the future of U.S. aid remains uncertain; Argentina gears up for its presidential election runoff while inflation rates soar; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrives in Berlin to address refugee flows and the Israel–Hamas war with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz; and David Cameron returns to the United Kingdom government as foreign secretary.

Indo-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit begins in San Francisco with U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping set to meet on the sidelines; French President Emmanuel Macron hosts a humanitarian conference to discuss new aid options for civilians in the Gaza Strip; the Arab League holds an emergency summit in Riyadh at the request of the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia; and the United States and China discuss nuclear arms control.

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