Local Power in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia

This book examines the strategies of regional powers in the Middle East regarding their response to cases of state failure in the region, thus connecting the theoretical concepts of statehood, state failure, and revisionist and pro-status quo interventionist behavior. Through a detailed comparative analysis of five case studies of failed states occurring in the region during 1960–2010s –Yemen (1962–1970), Lebanon (1975–1989), Iraq (2003–2020), Yemen (2004–2020), and Syria (2011–2020) – the author employs the conceptual theory of balance of power to analyze the behavior of six regional powers in the Middle East: Egypt, Iran, Israel, Syria (pre-2011), Saudi Arabia, and Turkey toward each one of those cases. The book proposes that when states become failed states, regional powers with revisionist strategies expand into them, which in turn induce status quo regional powers to react by imposing balancing action, and that this power struggle turns failed states into battlegrounds for regional power (im)balances.

In the great boom of the 1990's, top management's compensation soared, but the wages of most Americans barely grew at all. This wages stagnation has baffled experts, but in The New Ruthless Economy, Simon Head points to information technology as the prime cause of this growing wage disparity. Many economists, technologists and business consultants have predicted that IT would liberate the work force, bringing self-managed work teams and decentralized decision making. Head argues that the opposite has happened.

The latest book from "the most dangerous philosopher in the West" (New Republic) considers the new dangers and radical possibilities set in motion by advances in Big Tech.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the false assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal were terrible reminders that good information is essential to national security. These failures convinced the American public that their intelligence system was broken and prompted a radical reorganization of agencies and personnel, but as Richard K. Betts argues in this book, critics and politicians have severely underestimated the obstacles to true reform.