The NCWA book club meets via Zoom

the first Tuesday of the month at noon

for most months in season.

All members are invited.

Stay tuned for NCWA Zoom book club meeting date and selection news. 

Bill Korstad, Chair

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2022-2023 Season

2023-04-04 - War: How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan

The book explores ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world and our very conception of ourselves.

2023-03-07 - Military History for the Modern Strategist: America's Major Wars Since 1861 by Michael O'Hanlon 

An examination of America’s major conflicts since the mid-1800s: the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. How successful has the United States been when it waged these wars? Were the wars avoidable? Did America’s leaders know what they were getting into when they committed to war? And what lessons does history offer for future leaders contemplating war?

2023-02-07 - Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World by Tom Burgis

Kleptopia is the transnational alliance of corrupt power. To my mind kleptopia is the rule of corruption, when corruption stops being an aberration and starts being the primary mechanism for wielding power. The word comes from kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enriching themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors from lobbyists and corporations, or they simply direct state funds to themselves and their associates.

2023-01-03 - America's Great Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition by Ali Wyne

In this timely intervention, Ali Wyne offers the first detailed critique of great-power competition as a foreign policy framework, warning that it could render the United States defensive and reactive. He exhorts Washington to find a middle ground between complacency and consternation.

2022-12-06 - Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China by Michael Beckley and Hal Brands

China is at a perilous moment: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet losing confidence that time is on its side. Rising powers become most aggressive when their fortunes fade, their difficulties multiply, and they realize they must achieve their ambitions now or miss the chance to do so forever. China has already started down this path. During the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real. America, Brands and Beckley argue, will still need a sustainable approach to winning a protracted global competition. But first, it needs a near-term strategy for navigating the danger zone ahead.

2022-11-01 - Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters and What to Do About It by Richard Reeves

Reeves looks at the structural challenges that face boys and men and offers fresh and innovative solutions that turn the page on the corrosive narrative that plagues this issue. Of Boys and Men argues that helping the other half of society does not mean giving up on the ideal of gender equality.

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Book Club Archives

2022-05-03 - Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World by Scott Reynolds Nelson

2022-04-05 - Future War and the Defense of Europe by John R. Allen, Frederick Ben Hodges and Julian Lindley-French

2022-03-01 - A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crisis of "Global Order" by John Ikenberry

2022-02-01 - Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order by Kathryn Stoner

2022-01-04 - Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor 

2021-12-07 - The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace the American Orderly by Rush Doshi

2021-11-02 - What the West is Getting Wrong about the Middle East: Why Islam Is Not the Problem by Omar Taspinar

2021-10-05 - The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe's Refugees by Patrick Kingsley 

2021-09-07 - The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State by Declan Walsh

2021-08-03 - Invisible China; How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China's Rise by Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell 

2021-07-06 - No meeting due to weather.

2021-06-01 - Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harira 

2021-05-04 - Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

2021-04-06 - How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates

2021-03-02 - Five short articles supplied by Bill Korstad

2021-02-02 - The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Bergen

2021-01-05 - Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World by H. R. McMaster

2020-12-01 - China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia by Daniel Markey

2020-11-03 - Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas

2020-10-06 - The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties by Christopher Caldwell 

2019-11-04 - Messing With the Enemy by Clinton Watts

missing?

2019-03-30 - In Deep: The FBI, the CIA and the Truth About America's Deep State by David Rohde. 

2019-03-02 - The Myth of Capitalism - Monopolies and the Death of Competition by Jonathan Tepper with Denise Hearn 

2019-02-03 - The Next America by Paul Taylor and Pew Research 

2019-01-06 - The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World by Robert Kagan

2018-12-02 - The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal by Bill Burns

2018-10-29 - The Perfect Weapon by David Sanger

2018-04-02 - The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel

2018-03-05 - How Everything Became War and Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon by Rosa Brooks

2018-02-05 - America's War for the Greater Middle East by Andrew J. Bacevich

2017-12-11 - The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake News by Arkady Ostrovsky

2017-11-13 - Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? by Graham Allison