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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
DECEMBER 3, 2018 (date conflict above)
The War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow
JANUARY 7, 2019 (date conflict above)
The Hundred Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury
FEBRUARY 4, 2019 (date conflict above)
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
MARCH 4, 2019 (date conflict above)
Like War: The Weaponization of Social Media by Peter W. Singer and Emerson T Brookings.
APRIL 1, 2019 (date conflict above)
Political Tribes by Amy Chua