Global Issues - Top Books

Here is a list of books which might be used as supplementary reading for the ‘Global Issues’ course. They touch on a number of themes in the course but also serve to deepen understanding and foster a more universal concern.So hopefully useful for holiday reading lists and also for conducting ‘Book Review/Discussion Groups’. The titles are linked to ‘amazon’ as they give brief a sysnopsis of each book. Here is the list in no particular order:

1. ‘The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it’ by Paul Collier
2. A Long Way Gone by Ismael Beah
Simple but harrowing read. Story of child solider in West Africa. Can’t recommend it enough.
3. War, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places by Paul Collier
4. The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley
My favourite. An uneven and curious read- but has strong opinion on many of Africa’s problems from aid to corruption. Hartley was the first journalist into Kigali at the height of the Rwandan genocide and also reported in Mogodishu. Gives a good insight into Africa.
5. Blood River by Tim Butcher
Interesting mix of travelogue, history and observation - as the author visits the broken heart of a failed continent - the Congo.
6. The Junior Officer’s Reading Club by Patrick Hennessy
7. The Islamist by Ed Husein
8. Enemy Combatant by Mozzam Begg
Topical given that Amnesty International seem to have been burned by their association with Mozzam Begg.
9. Descent into Chaos:The world’s most unstable region and the threat to global security by Ahmed Rashid
Detailed but worthwhile.
10. Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Engagement in Afganistan by David Loyn
Even just last few chapters very useful for understanding the context of the conflict in Afghanistan.
11. Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons by Clive Stafford Smith
12. ‘Dead Aid – Why Aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa’ by Dambiso Moyo
13. The Circuit by Bob Shephard
Reads like a thriller but gives a fascinating first hand perspective on pretty much every conflict on the go at the moment. Highly recommended as a introductory holiday read.
14. The State of Africa by Martin Meredith
Hard packed but hard hitting - worth delving into. Enough money has gone into Africa to build a five storey continent, but…

Again this is just a subjective start.