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IIf we continue as we are, with birth rates falling globally, the world’s human population will peak in the next few decades – and then begin a sudden and rapid decline. It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better: better for the planet, better for the people who remain. In After the Spike, two leading population economists ask us to think again.

As nationalism and anti-immigration rhetoric surge in France (and elsewhere), The Shortest History of France presents a portrait of a nation whose politics and society have always been shaped by global forces. Grounded in up-to-date historical scholarship that avoids the traps of national exceptionalism, Jones reminds us that it was only after the first millennium of French history that a nation-state began to emerge.

The Dignity of Difference was the first major statement by a Jewish leader on the ethics of globalization. At the time of writing, the politics of identity had began to replace the politics of ideology that dominated the globe in the twentieth-century. Now Rabbi Sack’s heartfelt, clear-sighted and radical proposal for how we might reconcile our differences without violence is as relevant as ever. In it, Sacks argues that we must do more than just search for values common to all faiths.

After Nations explores 'a generalised state of crisis' that afflicts the nation-state worldwide. In an effort to understand this crisis, Rana Dasgupta charts the development of the global nation state project from the Enlightenment to the present, its ongoing value unquestioned—to our detriment. In its modern, fully-fledged form, the nation-state system is a very recent innovation, and one that departs from the normal history of the world—which is a story of empires. What we are seeing is the rapid disintegration of a system on which we had come to depend too completely.

For Washington, China is a strategic competitor: the only country with both the will to reshape the world order and, increasingly, the means to do so. For Europe, the People's Republic is a "partner for cooperation, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival". For NATO, it is a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine. Yet Beijing's image is far more positive in the Global South, of which the PRC considers itself a part.

The triumphant globalization of the 1990s and early 2000s has given way to a world economy riven by conflict and populism, as the United States, China and other world powers embrace economic nationalism. In The World’s Worst Bet, global economics specialist David J. Lynch offers a trenchant, fast-paced narrative of the rise and fall of the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known and sheds important new light on why the march toward greater global integration faltered.

What do a barracks for British troops in the Falklands War, a floating jail off the Bronx, and temporary housing for VW factory workers in Germany have in common? The Balder Scapa: a single barge that served all three roles. Though the name would eventually change to Finnboda 12. And then to Safe Esperia. And later on, to the Bibby Resolution. And after that . . . in short, a vessel with so many names, and so many fates, that to keep it in our sights—as the protagonist of this fascinating economic parable—Ian Kumekawa has no choice but to call it, simply, the Vessel.