Summer Reading Recommendations
From Inside the Reagan White House to the Rise of Global Economic Warfare to a Future Technological Republic to Understanding the Complexity of Modern Iran
July 10, 2025
Looking for some good summer reading? These are our recommendations from the books we’ve read so far this year. We hope you enjoy them, too.
Inside the Reagan White House: A Front-Row Seat To Presidential Leadership With Lessons For Today by Frank Lavin (Post Hill Press, 2025)
Written by my old boss and dear friend, Frank Lavin, the book is both a wonderful memoir of working for President Reagan and how he led. There are fantastic stories here, many not written about before, that make this a delightful and inspiring book. Full disclosure: I’m in the book, having worked for Frank in the White House Office of Political Affairs. It was probably the most exciting job I ever had in my life.
The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping (Stanford-Hoover Series on Authoritarianism, 2025)
Chinese President Xi Jinping is obviously one of the most powerful men in the world, reshaping China along with global politics and economics. But who is he? Where did he come from and what formed him to be the man he is today? This is an excellent biography of Xi’s father who was an early and enthusiastic leader in the Chinese Communist Party. But being a fully committed communist, the family suffered terribly from his ambition and total dedication to the Party - all of which was highly formative for Xi.
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple (Bloombsbury, 2025)
Dalrymple is a brilliant scholar of the history of India (his last book, The Ancharchy, is the best and most riveting history of the East India Company I’ve ever read). In his latest history, he brilliantly brings the reader through the history of India and how for more than a millennium has formed the political, economic, and cultural heart of greater Eurasia. India is now the largest nation in the world, having surpassed China last year in population. To know India’s future, it is smart to understand its past. And this is the perfect guide.
The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West by Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zaminska
Palantir is one of the most dynamic and fastest growing tech firms in the world and Alex Karp is its co-founder and CEO. Writing with Nick Zaminska, he offers a tough assessment of technology today, arguing markets are rewarding “shallow engagement” in tech that focuses on algorithms and photo sharing. Karp challenges the tech sector to step up “renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence.” A great and at times troubling read.
Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Aheadby Kenneth Rogoff (Yale Press, 2025)
Ken Rogoff has been a force in economic policy for decades, helping markets understand the power and impact of currencies. His memoir of the rise of the U.S. dollar - especially at a time when there is more and more questions about the dollars continued dominance - is well-timed and an all-around great read.
Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare by Edward Fishman (Portfolio Press, 2025)
Modern Cold Wars are increasingly being fought on a global economic battlefield. As Fishman writes, the use of sanctions by the U.S. has become the most powerful weapon of choice. This is a fast-moving, fascinating read of how the U.S. Treasury has deployed sanctions to achieve U.S. foreign policy dominance - as well as trade policy dominance.
Zbig: The life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet by Edward Luce (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2025)
Zbigniew Brzezinski was one of the more impactful foreign policy experts in the latter half of the 20th century. Born in Warsaw, Poland, he understood the cancer of communism and sought to shape Democratic Party foreign policy for decades to fight it. A rival of Henry Kissinger’s at Harvard and in government, he played an outsized role in ensuring a bipartisan view for defeating the Soviet Union.
The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World. by Hal Brands (W. W. Norton & Company, 2025)
Hal Brands presents a unique and thought-provoking perspective on current global affairs: While we often think of the modern era as the age of American power, the reality is we are living in a long, violent Eurasian century - stretching from Europe through the Middle East to China. And he argues it has enormous implications for the 21st century which we need to better understand. Brand’s is an incredibly prolific writer and this is one of his best books yet.
The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner by Douglas Waller (Dutton Press, 2025)
Most Americans do not know the name Frank Wisner and probably never will. But Wisner was one of the founders of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s, making him then one of the most powerful men in Washington and in many corridors of power around the world. He was involved in the coup in Iran that installed the Shah, Cuba when Castro came to power, and many other Cold War hotspots. But Wisner struggled with many personal demons which in the end sadly brought about his downfall. This is a riveting biography of man who helped shape US foreign policy, much of which we are still dealing with the repercussions of today.
Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 2025)
Robert Kaplan is a prolific writer of foreign affairs and history who seems to be always traveling to some corner of the world the rest of us usually ignore but which eventually thrusts its angry head up to forcibly grab our collective attention. In this book, Kaplan seems to take all his travels and experiences and writings to offer a tough assessment of the world ahead of us. It is not pretty by any measure but drawing on history throughout, he offers hope in the sense that if we see the risks, we can mitigate them. But we have to understand them first.
The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich by Evan Osnos (Scribner, 2025)
Ah, to be rich - really, really rich. Evan Osnos writes a rocking account of the world’s super-rich who live in super yachts, luxury bunkers, and giant personal jets. It is a world most of us never get to see but Osnos lays it all out there, giving us a detailed account of how this new class of almost indescribable wealth live.
Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History by Cali Nasr (Princeton University Press, 2025)
Nasr, an Iranian who immigrated to the US after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and went on to have a brilliant academic career here in the US, has written a very timely book explaining the complexity of today’s Iran and why it is so hard to deal with the leadership in Tehran. To understand what life and thinking is like in Iran today, this is great introduction.