Writers’ Writers

It wasn’t long after I started interviewing writers for the New Books Network that I got nosy about their reading habits. So, ten interviews in, I started asking them to recommend a book and soon expanded that to two: preferably something in their field and something personal. For the latter, pandemic-era awards go to Matthias Haentjens and Signe Larsen for choosing a recipe book and a child’s encyclopedia.

Some of the early interviewees who missed out on the question came back via email with tips (thank you Olli Rehn for Serhii Plokhy’s Nuclear Folly). From me, special thanks to Hans-Werner Sinn for flagging Stefan Zweig’s Maria Stuart, to Pedro Gustavo Teixeira for All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski (and subsequently for Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov), and to Jana Randow for Fabian by Erich Kästner.

*********************************

1. Joscha Abels — author of The Politics of the Eurogroup: Governing Crisis and Conflict in the European Union (Routledge, 2023) — chose The Political Economy of Geoeconomics: Europe in a Changing World edited by Milan Babić, Adam Dixon, and Imogen Liu (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams (first published 1960 — Vintage Classics, 2013).
2. Christine Abely — author of The Russia Sanctions: The Economic Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2023) — recommended Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests by Agathe Demarais (Columbia University Press, 2022) and The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson (Princeton University Press, second edition 2016).
3. Catherine Ashton — author of And Then What? Inside Stories of 21st-Century Diplomacy (Elliott & Thompson, 2023) — chose Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham Allison (Longman, 1971) and Never by Ken Follett (Macmillan, 2021).
4. Bruno Amable — co-author with Stefano Palombarini of The Last Neoliberal: Macron and the Origins of France’s Political Crisis (Verso, 2020) — chose Techno-féodalisme: Critique de l’économie numérique by Cédric Durand (Éditions Zones, 2020).
5. Štefan Auer — author of European Disunion: Democracy, Sovereignty and the Politics of Emergency (Hurst-UK, OUP-US, 2022) — chose After Europe by Ivan Krastev (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) and Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy by Wolfram Eilenberger (Penguin Books, 2021).
6. Alex J. Bellamy — author of Warmonger: Vladimir Putin’s Imperial Wars (Agenda, 2023) — recommended The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy (Oneworld Publications, 2015) and Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland (Little Brown, 2019).
7. Richard Bellamy — co-author of Flexible Europe: Differentiated Integration, Fairness, and Democracy (Bristol University Press, 2022) — chose Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination by Adom Getachew (Princeton University Press, 2020) and Europa by Tim Parks (Vintage, 1998).
8. Paul Betts — author of Ruin and Renewal: Civilising Europe After the Second World War (Profile Books, 2021) — chose Project Europe: A History by Kiran Klaus Patel (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi (Allen Lane, 2021).
9. Agnieszka Bień-Kacała — co-author of Illiberal Constitutionalism in Poland and Hungary: The Deterioration of Democracy, Misuse of Human Rights and Abuse of the Rule of Law (Routledge, 2021) — chose Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown by Wojciech Sadurski (OUP Oxford, 2019).
10. Hélène Bienvenu — co-author of La Hongrie sous Orbán: Histoires de la Grande Plaine (Plein Jour, 2022) — recommended Dans la tête de Viktor Orbán by Amélie Poinssot (Éditions Actes Sud, 2019), Kaddish For An Unborn Child by Imre Kertész (Vintage Classics, 2017 translated by Tim Wilkinson), and Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II by Svetlana Alexievich (Random House, 2019 translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky).
11. Sven Carlsson — co-author of The Spotify Play: How CEO and Founder Daniel Ek Beat Apple, Google, and Amazon in the Race for Audio Dominance (Diversion Books, 2021) — chose Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (William Collins, 2018).
12. Alice Cavalieri — author of Italian Budgeting Policy: Between Punctuations and Incrementalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) — chose Political Recruitment: Gender, Race and Class in the British Parliament by Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski (Cambridge University Press, 1994) and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Virago, 1987).
13. Charles Dallara — author of Euroshock: How the Largest Debt Restructuring in History Helped Save Greece and Preserve the Eurozone (Rodin Books, 2024) — chose The Jungle Grows Back by Robert Kagan (Pisces Books, 2018) and The Good Lord Bird by James McBride (Penguin, 2013).
14. Paolo Dardanelli — co-editor with Oscar Mazzoleni of Switzerland-EU Relations: Lessons for the UK after Brexit? (Routledge, 2021) — chose How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (Viking, 2018) and Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies (Penguin, 2012).
15. Roman Deininger — co-author with Uwe Ritzer of Markus Söder: Der Schattenkanzler (Droemer Knauer, 2020) — chose His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life by Jonathan Alter (Simon & Schuster, 2020) and Afrikas Kampf um seine Kunst: Geschichte einer postkolonialen Niederlage by Bénédicte Savoy (C.H. Beck, 2021).
16. Léonie de Jonge — author of The Success and Failure of Right-Wing Populist Parties in the Benelux Countries (Routledge, 2021) — chose Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right by Cynthia Miller-Idriss (Princeton University Press, 2020) and Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future by Kate Brown (Allen Lane, 2019).
17. Petra de Koning — author of Mark Rutte (Uitgeverij Brooklyn, 2020) — chose What Makes An Apple? Six Conversations about Writing, Love, Guilt, and Other Pleasures between Amos Oz and Shira Hadad (Princeton University Press, 2022 — translated by Jessica Cohen) and Citizens of the Green Room: Profiles in Courage and Self-Delusion by Mark Leibovich (Blue Rider, 2014).
18. Malte Dold — co-editor of Ordoliberalism and European Economic Policy: Between Realpolitik and Economic Utopia (Routledge, 2021) — chose The Narrow Corridor: How Nations Struggle for Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (Penguin, 2020) and The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen (Penguin, 2010).
19. Tímea Drinóczi — co-author of Illiberal Constitutionalism in Poland and Hungary: The Deterioration of Democracy, Misuse of Human Rights and Abuse of the Rule of Law (Routledge, 2021) — chose Democratic Decline in Hungary: Law and Society in an Illiberal Democracy by András L. Pap (Routledge, 2017).
20. Mark Edele — author of Russia’s War Against Ukraine: The Whole Story (Melbourne University Publishing, 2023) — recommended German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad by Nicole Eaton (Cornell University Press, April 2023) and The Rider by Tim Krabbé (Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2016 translated by Sam Garrett — first published in Dutch in 1978).
21. Dirk Ehnts — author of Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics (Routledge, 2016/2020) — chose Reclaiming the State by William Mitchell and Thomas Fazi (Pluto Press, 2017) and Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer (Viking Books, 2007).
22. Peter Foster — author of What Went Wrong With Brexit: And What We Can Do About It (Canongate Books, 2023) — chose The Light that Failed: A Reckoning by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes (Allen Lane, 2019) and The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Picador Collection, 2022 — first published 2006).
23. Matthew Frear — author of Belarus Under Lukashenka: Adaptive Authoritarianism (Routledge, 2020) — chose In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak, translated by Sam Garrett (Vintage, 2008) and All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin by Mikhail Zygar, translated by Thomas Hodsun (Public Affairs, 2016).
24. James Galbraith — who wrote the introduction to his father’s The Great Crash 1929 (Penguin Modern Classics, 2021 — first published in 1954) — chose How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate by Isabella M. Weber (Routledge, 2021) and The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary Carter (Random House, 2020).
25. Joshua Gans — author of The Pandemic Information Gap and the Brutal Economics of Covid-19 (MIT Press, 2020) — chose The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary Carter (Random House, 2020) and The Peacemaker’s Code by Deepak Malhotra (Deepak Malhotra, 2021).
26. Anthony Luzzatto Gardner — author of Stars with Stripes: The Essential Partnership between the European Union and the United States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) — chose The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World by Anu Bradford (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World — And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling (Sceptre, 2019).
27. Hans Gersbach — author of Redesigning Democracy: More Ideas for Better Rules (Springer, 2017) — chose Voting Procedures Under a Restricted Domain: An Examination of the (In)Vulnerability of 20 Voting Procedures to Five Main Paradoxes by Dan Felsenthal and Hannu Nurmi (SpringerBriefs in Economics, 2019), and A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr. by Sylvia Nasar (Simon & Schuster, 1998).
28. Mark Gilbert — author of European Integration: A Political History (Roman & Littlefield, 2020) — chose Project Europe: A History by Kiran Klaus Patel (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Alarums and Excursions: Improvising Politics on the European Stage by Luuk Van Middelaar (Agenda Publishing, 2019), War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy (first published in 1869 — latest Penguin Classics, 2007) and Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (first published in 1938 — latest Penguin Classics, 2000).
29. Chris Grey — author of Brexit Unfolded: How No One Got What They Wanted (and Why They Were Never Going to) (Biteback, 2021) — chose Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O’Toole (Apollo, 2019) and A Question Of Loyalties by Allan Massie (Canongate Books, 2002 — first published in 1989).
30. Ruby Gropas — co-author of What is Europe? (Routledge, 2022) — chose The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict by Mark Leonard (Bantam Press, 2021) and Populocracy: The Tyranny of Authenticity and the Rise of Populism by Catherine Fieschi (Agenda Publishing, 2019).
31. Dmitry Grozoubinski — author of Why Politicians Lie About Trade: … and What You Need to Know About It (Canbury Press, 2024) — recommended The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization by Richard Baldwin (Harvard University Press, 2019) and The Art of Explanation: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence by Ros Atkins (Wildfire, 2023).
32. Matthias Haentjens — co-author with Pierre De Gioia-Carabellese of European Banking and Financial Law (Routledge, 2020) — chose Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman (1952 — translated by Robert Chandler — Harvill Secker, 2019) and Made at Home by Giorgio Locatelli (Fourth Estate, 2017).
33. Paul Hansbury — author of Belarus in Crisis: From Domestic Unrest to the Russia–Ukraine War — recommended Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? by Karen Dawisha (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard by Joseph Conrad (Penguin Classics, 2007 — first published 1904).
34. Andrew Harding — author of A Small, Stubborn Town: Life, death and defiance in Ukraine (Ithaka, 2023) — chose Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival by Luke Harding (Guardian Faber Publishing, 2023) and Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov (MacLehose Press, 2021).
35. Marko Attila Hoare — author of Serbia: A Modern History (Hurst, 2024) — recommends The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics by Ivo Banac (Cornell University Press, 1984) and Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies In Greece, 1922– 1936 by George Mavrogordatos (University of California Press, 1992).
36. Robert Holzmann — co-editor of Central Banks and Supervisory Architecture in Europe: Lessons from Crises in the 21st Century (Edward Elgar, 2022) — chose Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press, 2022), Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State also by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press, 2018), and Der Dreißigjährige Krieg: Europäische Katastrophe, Deutsches Trauma 1618–1648 by Herfried Münkler (Rowohlt Berlin, 2017).
37. Patrick Honohan — author of Currency, Credit and Crisis: Central Banking in Ireland and Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2019) — chose GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History by Diane Coyle (Princeton University Press, 2015) and East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity by Philippe Sands (Orion Publishing, 2016).
38. Ola Innset — author of Reinventing Liberalism: The Politics, Philosophy and Economics of Early Neoliberalism 1920–1947 (Springer, 2020) — chose Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism by Melinda Cooper (Zone Books, 2017) and the Outline trilogy (Outline, Transit and Kudos) by Rachel Cusk (Faber & Faber, 2018–19).
39. Erik Jones — editor of European Studies: Past, Present, and Future (Agenda Publishing, 2020) — chose Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze (Allen Lane, 2018) and The Once and Future King by T. H. White (Penguin, 2016 — first published in 1958).
40. Michael Kimmage — author of Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability (OUP Press, 2024) — recommended Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan (Random House, 2002) and The Russo-Ukrainian War by Serhii Plokhy (Allen Lane, 2023).
41. Lucy Kinski — author of European Representation in EU National Parliaments (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021) — chose Framing TTIP in the European Public Spheres: Towards an Empowering Dissensus for EU Integration by Alvaro Oleart (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell (Melville House Publishing, 2019).
42. András Körösényi — co-author with Gábor Illés and Attila Gyulai of The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making (Routledge, 2020) — chose Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution by David A. Bell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).
43. Tim Krieger — co-editor of Ordoliberalism and European Economic Policy: Between Realpolitik and Economic Utopia (Routledge, 2021) — chose Conservative Liberalism, Ordo-liberalism, and the State: Disciplining Democracy and the Market by Kenneth Dyson (OUP Oxford, 2021) and Exit Left: Markets and Mobility in Republican Thought by Robert S. Taylor (OUP Oxford, 2017).
44. Sandra Kröger — co-author of Flexible Europe (Bristol University Press, 2022) — chose The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff (Profile Books, 2019) and Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić (Jonathan Cape, 2021 — translated by Damion Searls).
45. Hans Kundnani — author of Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Hurst, 2023) recommended Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin Classics, 2006 — first published in 1956).
46. Signe Rehling Larsen — author of The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union (Oxford University Press, 2021) — chose Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present by Gary Gerstle (Princeton University Press, 2015) and Cars, Trains, Ships and Planes: A Visual Encyclopedia to Every Vehicle (DK Children, 2015).
47. Jonas Leijonhufvud — co-author of The Spotify Play: How CEO and Founder Daniel Ek Beat Apple, Google, and Amazon in the Race for Audio Dominance (Diversion Books, 2021) — chose Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac (W. W. Norton, 2019).
48. Marta Lorimer — co-author of Flexible Europe (Bristol University Press, 2022) — chose The Struggle for EU Legitimacy: Public Contestation, 1950–2005 by Claudia Sternberg (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese (Penguin Modern Classics, 2021 translated by Tim Parks — first published in Italian in 1949).
49. Tom Louwerse — co-author with Rudy Andeweg and Galen Irwin of Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (Red Globe Press, 2020) — chose Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries by Arend Lijphart (Yale University Press, 1999).
50. Jade McGlynn — author of Russia’s War (Polity, 2023) — recommended The Naked Year by Boris Pilnyak (Ardis, 2013 — translated by Alexander Tulloch, and first published in Russian in 1922) and The Long Hangover: Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker (OUP, 2018).
51. Tara McIndoe-Calder — co-author with Tara Bedi and Rogelio Mercado of Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe: Background, Impact, and Policy (Springer Nature, 2019) — chose Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez (Vintage, 2019), and Half of a Yellow Sun and Americana by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fourth Estate, 2014).
52. Ewald Nowotny — author of Geld und Leben (Braumüller, 2020) — chose The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath by Ben Bernanke (W. W. Norton, 2017) and War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy (first published in 1869 — latest Penguin Classics, 2007).
53. Merijn Oudenampsen — author of The Rise of the Dutch New Right: An Intellectual History of the Rightward Shift in Dutch Politics (Routledge, 2020) — chose Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism by Melinda Cooper (Zone Books, 2017).
54. Kiran Klaus Patel — author of Project Europe: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2020) — chose Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945―1968 by Martin Conway (Princeton University Press, 2020) and The Capital by Robert Menasse (MacLehose Press, 2019 — translated by Jamie Bulloch).
55. Nicolas Petit — author of Big Tech and the Digital Economy: The Moligopoly Scenario (Oxford University Press, 2020) — chose Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter (first published 1942 — latest Routledge Classics, 2010) and the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov (first published 1942–1993 — latest Harper Collins, 2016).
56. Serhii Plokhy — author of The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History (Allen Lane, 2023) — recommended The Zelensky Effect by Olga Onuch and Henry Hale (Hurst, 2022) and Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949–1990 by Katja Hoyer (Allen Lane, 2023).
57. Richard Pomfret — author of The Road to Monetary Union (Cambridge University Press, 2021) — chose Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World by Tom Burgis (William Collins, 2020), and Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck (Granta Books, 2018 — translated by Susan Bernofsky).
58. Illia Ponomarenko — author of I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv (Bloomsbury, 2024) — chose Babi Yar: The Story of Ukraine’s Holocaust by Anatoly Kuznetsov as “A. Anatoli” (first published in Russian in 1966; English translation by David Floyd now in Vintage Classics, 2024) and Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence by Yaroslav Trofimov (Penguin, 2024).
59. Maria Popova — co-author of Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States (Polity, 2023) — chose Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration After Communism by Milada Anna Vachudova (OUP Oxford, 2005) and Courage and Fear by Ola Hnatiuk (Academic Studies Press, 2020) translated by Ewa Siwak.
60. Samuel Ramani — author of Putin’s War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution (Hurst, 2023) — recommended Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia by Timothy Frye (Princeton University Press, 2021) and How to Fight a War by Mike Martin (Hurst, 2023).
61. Jana Randow — co-author of Mario Draghi: The True Story of the Man Who Saved the Euro (Rizzoli, 2019) — chose Rebel Radio: The Story of El Salvador’s Radio Venceremos by José Ignacio López Vigil (Curbstone Press, 1995 — translated by Mark Fried) and Fabian, Die Geschichte eines Moralisten by Erich Kästner — first published in 1931 and translated by Cyrus Brooks as Going to the Dogs: The Story of a Moralist (NYRB Classics, 2013).
62. Olli Rehn — author of Walking the Highwire: Rebalancing the European Economy in Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) — chose Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Serhii Plokhy (Allen Lane, 2021) and Democracy and Prosperity: The Reinvention of Capitalism in a Turbulent Century by Torben Iversen and David Soskice (Princeton University Press, 2019).
63. Fernando Restoy — co-editor of Central Banks and Supervisory Architecture in Europe: Lessons from Crises in the 21st Century (Edward Elgar, 2022) — chose A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Viking, 2020) and Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed (William Heinemann, 2009).
64. Dalibor Roháč — author of Governing the EU in an Age of Division (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022) — chose Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press, 2022) and Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today’s Culture Wars by Azar Gat (Oxford University Press, 2022).
65. Tobias Rötheli — author of The Behavioral Economics of Inflation Expectations: Macroeconomics Meets Psychology (Cambridge University Press, 2020) — chose A History of Economic Theory: Classic Contributions 1720–1980 by Jürg Niehans (JHUP, 1994) and Raymond Carver’s Collected Stories (Library of America, 2009).
66. Massimo Rostagno — lead author of Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis: A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank (OUP Oxford, 2021) — chose Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty (Harvard University Press, 2014) and The Populist Temptation: Economic Grievance and Political Reaction in the Modern Era by Barry Eichengreen (OUP USA, 2018).
67. Ravi Roy — co-author of Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2021) — chose Other People’s Money: Masters of the Universe or Servants of the People? by John Kay (Profile Books, 2016).
68. Gwendolyn Sasse — author of Russia’s War Against Ukraine (Polity, 2023) — recommended The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present by Serhii Plokhy (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2021) and 100 Kinder: Kindersachbuch über den Alltag von Kindern auf der ganzen Welt by Christoph Drösser and Nora Coenenberg (Gabriel Verlag, 2019).
69. Gábor Scheiring — author of The Retreat of Liberal Democracy: Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) — chose Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus Deaton (Princeton University Press, 2020) and Leftism Reinvented: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism by Stephanie Mudge (Harvard University Press, 2018).
70. Benjamin Schupmann — the author of Democracy Despite Itself: Liberal Constitutionalism and Militant Democracy (OUP Press, 2024) — recommended Sovereignty Across Generations: Constituent Power and Political Liberalism by Alessandro Ferrara (OUP Oxford, 2023) and Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity by Hartmut Rosa (Columbia University Press, 2013).
71. Oxana Shevel — co-author of Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States (Polity, 2023) — chose Nations and Nationalism by Ernest Gellner (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) and In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas by Stanislav Aseyev (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2022) translated by Lidia Wolanskyj.
72. Simon Shuster — author of The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky (HarperCollins, 2024) — chose Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham (Bantam Press, 2019) and Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick (Viking, 1993).
73. Hans-Werner Sinn — author of The Economics of Target Balances: From Lehman to Corona (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) — chose Maria Stuart by Stefan Zweig [first published in 1935 — most recently published in English as Mary Queen of Scots (Pushkin Press, 2018)].
74. Lasse Skytt — author of Orbanland: Why Viktor Orbán’s Hungary Matters (New Europe Books, 2022) — chose After Europe by Ivan Krastev (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) and Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant (WH Allen, 2021).
75. Alessandro Speciale — co-author of Mario Draghi: The True Story of the Man Who Saved the Euro (Rizzoli, 2019) — chose The Magician by Colm Tóibín (Viking, 2021) and Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self by Andrea Wulf (John Murray, 2022).
76. Manfred Steger — co-author of Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2021) — chose Imperium by Robert Harris (Arrow, 2009).
77. Jen Stout — author of Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Human Cost of Russia’s War (Polygon, 2024) — recommended The Face of War: Writings from the Frontline by Martha Gellhorn (Eland, 2016 — first published in 1959), The Letters Of Martha Gellhorn edited by Caroline Moorehead (Chatto & Windus, 2006), and Island by Aldous Huxley (Vintage Classics, 2005 — first published in 1962).
78. Pedro Gustavo Teixeira — author of The Legal History of the European Banking Union: How European Law Led to the Supranational Integration of the Single Financial Market (Hart Publishing, 2020) — chose Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century by Mark Mazower (Penguin, 1999 — latest edition 2018) and All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski (Granta, 2015 — translated by Anthea Bell).
79. Tom Theuns — author of The Need for an EU Expulsion Mechanism (Res Publica, Springer — 2022) — recommended Memory and the Future of Europe: Rupture and Integration in the Wake of Total War by Peter Verovšek (Manchester University Press, 2020), Technopopulism: The New Logic of Democratic Politics by Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti (OUP Oxford, 2021) and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little Brown, 2013).
80. Anna Triandafyllidou — co-author of What is Europe? (Routledge, 2022) — chose My Name Is Europe by Gazmend Kapllani (published in Greek by Livanis in 2010 and in French by Éditions Intervalles in 2015), and Europe and the Other and Europe as the Other by Bo Stråth (Peter Lang, 2011).
81. Yaroslav Trofimov — author of Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence (Penguin, 2024) — chose Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine by Timothy Snyder (Yale University Press, 2005) and Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte (first published in Italian in 1944, the latest edition from Adelphi, 2014; translated into English and published in 2007 by NYRB Classics).
82. Loukas Tsoukalis — author of Europe’s Coming of Age (Polity, October 2022) — chose The Globalization Paradox: Why Global Markets, States, and Democracy Can’t Coexist (OUP Press, 2012) by Dani Rodrik and Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World by Branko Milanović (Belknap Press, 2019).
83. Stephen Wall — author of Reluctant European: Britain and the European Union from 1945 to Brexit (Oxford University Press, 2020) — chose Beyond Brexit: Towards a British Constitution by Vernon Bogdanor (I.B. Tauris, 2019) and James Callaghan: An Underrated Prime Minister? edited by Kevin Hickson and Jasper Miles (Biteback Publishing, 2020).
84. Gregory Werden — author of The Foundations of Antitrust: Events, Ideas, and Doctrines (Carolina Academic Press, 2020) — chose Trusts: The Recent Combinations in Trade, Their Character, Legality and Mode of Organization, and the Rights, Duties and Liabilities of Their Managers and Certificate Holders by William W Cook (Gale — Making of Modern Law, 2020; originally published by L. K. Strouse, 1888).
85. Marlene Wind — author of The Tribalization of Europe: A Defence of our Liberal Values (Polity, 2020) — chose How to Save a Constitutional Democracy by Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (Schocken Books, 1951).

Tim Gwynn Jones ~ twenty4two ~ tim.jones@242substack.com