THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 41 up seemingly overnight, and with them the economic situations of everyday Chinese citizens. But, as he outlines in Breakneck, this progress hasn’t come without pain: China’s rapid advancement, he argues, has been thanks in part to political suppression, government surveillance, and social engineering. Wang calls China an “engineering state,” comparing it to the U.S., where development has stalled because lawyers and others reflexively block even positive changes. Wang points to similarities between the two rival countries and argues that if China and the United States learned to value each other’s strengths, both Americans and Chinese would benefit. Dan Wang is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover History Lab. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and The Financial Times. The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West Amitav Acharya, Basic Books, 2025, $32.50/hardcover, e-book available, 464 pages. To understand today’s economic, political, and cultural collapse, political scientist Amitav Acharya takes readers back thousands of years, looking at examples of cooperation and peace that long predate the creation of the United States. Acharya argues that the West does not have a monopoly on the concepts of individual rights, freedom, or democracy, and he cites examples from ancient Egypt, India, and China as he builds his case that today’s crisis is not unique in history. In fact, he argues, the end of Western dominance could allow non-Western nations to build a better, more prosperous world, if only we can learn from our joined history. Amitav Acharya is a distinguished professor of international relations at American University, where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance at the School of International Service, and serves as the chair of the ASEAN Studies Initiative. Other Recent Books of Interest Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, Macmillan, 2025, $30.00/hardcover, e-book available, 272 pages. The American Revolution and the Fate of the World Richard Bell, Riverhead Books, 2025, $35.00/hardcover, e-book available, 416 pages. The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism During the Second World War Tim Cook, Penguin Canada, 2025, $26.00/paperback, e-book available, 576 pages. Other Rivers: A Chinese Education Peter Hessler, Penguin Press, 2025, $32.00/ hardcover, e-book available, 464 pages. Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder Michael McFaul, Mariner Books, 2025, $35.00/ hardcover, e-book available, 544 pages. Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis Robert D. Kaplan, Random House, 2025, $31.00/ hardcover, e-book available, 224 pages. We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution Jill Lepore, Liveright, 2025, $39.99/hardcover, e-book available, 720 pages. Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization Bill McKibben, W. W. Norton, 2025, $29.99/ hardcover, e-book available, 224 pages. The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012–2020 Francisco Rodríguez, University of Notre Dame Press, 2025, $75.00/hardcover, e-book available, 538 pages. Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World, 2nd ed. Dennis Ross, Oxford University Press, 2025, $21.95/paperback, e-book available, 496 pages. Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia’s War Against the West John J. Sullivan, Little, Brown and Company, 2024, $32.50/hardcover, e-book available, 416 pages.
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