Browse Books in Global Politics with Caelyn Cobb

The world may be on pause, but politics—and the study of it—continues apace. From gender and globalization to comparative politics and methodology, the global politics list at Columbia University Press is here to help you keep up.

This spring saw the release of two big-think politics books. The first of these, the authoritative The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide by Valerie M. Hudson, Donna Lee Bowen, and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen, marshals scores of quantitative data to demonstrate the crucial link between women’s subjugation and poor development and security outcomes. This call for women’s flourishing as a national imperative is a must-read for anyone interested in human rights, gender equality, and global development

The second of these is the latest book by Jeffrey D. Sachs, The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions. Sachs brings his unique ability for systems-wide thinking to explore the historical waves of globalization from the earliest human societies to the present. Identifying the major technological and social factors that made each phase of globalization and development possible, he then highlights the kinds of tools and institutions that we should seize upon in ourcurrent wave of globalization to reach the planet’s fullest potential. Even against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, Sachs makes a compelling case for the enduring importance of globalization in human development.

This spring has also been a banner year for new publications in our Columbia Studies in Terrorism & Irregular Warfare series. Lorenzo Vidino’s latest, The Closed Circle: Joining and Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood in the West, explores the experience of entering and leaving radical political groups through first-person narratives. Aaron Zelin studies the phenomenon of Tunisian jihadists in Your Sons Are at Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, and Arie Perliger uncovers the roots and current trends of far-right terrorism in the United States in American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism.

A pair of other new releases in this series explore terrorist and counterterrorist methods. Force of Words: The Logic of Terrorist Threats by Joseph M. Brown takes a wide comparative look at when and why terrorist groups make threats of violence, and Tortured Logic: Why Some Americans Support the Use of Torture in Counterterrorism by Erin M. Kearns and Joseph K. Young uses field experiments to better understand the popular appeal of torture as a counterterrosim investigation method despite its cruelty and ineffectiveness.

For those of you who had to put your field research on hold during the global pandemic, our global politics list has a couple of new titles on the horizon that will help you prep for your return to the field. This summer, we released Stories from the Field, a collection of essays about the craft of fieldwork in political science. In this informal, accessible book of personal advice for both new and seasoned scholars, editors Peter Krause and Ora Szekely bring together over forty political scientists to share their successes, failures, and lessons learned from careers in the field.

Learn about going to archives, becoming a taxi driver for research purposes, navigating a distaste for fieldwork while in the field, and more! Early next year, we’ll release Doing Global Fieldwork by Jesse Driscoll, a guide to mixed-methods field research abroad for beginner—mark your calendars so you can have both of these indispensable texts at the ready.

Check out our virtual exhibit for these books and more. You can get 20% off on new releases on topics ranging from Japan’s political economic strategy to holy cities in comparative perspective, as well as the titles mentioned above. Have a great virtual APSA—I look forward to seeing you all in person soon!