More summer book picks

It’s a hot day around here — a good one for thinking about summer reading, even though spending a day with a book isn’t on the Admissions Office agenda.  For blog readers, the first suggestion list-within-a-list for today comes from Prof. Hess, who’s got you covered if you may be taking his DHP D260 or D267 class this September.  Prof. Hess suggests:

Jihad in Saudi Arabia:  Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979, by Thomas Hegghammer 
The Long Divergence:  How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East, by Timur Kuran 
The Iran Primer:  Power, Politics, and U.S. Policy, by Robin Wright 
Afghanistan:  A Cultural and Political History, by Thomas Barfield 
A World Without Islam, by Graham E. Fuller 
How Capitalism Was Built:  The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, by Anders Aslund 
Black Garden:  Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, by Thomas de Waal

In response to my request, Prof. Perry told me the first book that came to mind is Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, which he said is, “appropriate for Fletcher because it is cross-disciplinary — an anthropologist takes up an historical subject — and because it is jargon-free, a relief from so much that students must read.”

Finally (for today), Prof. Chayes keeps her recommendation in the family, by “heartily” recommending The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban, by Sarah Chayes.  She notes that, “It has been much used by military and civilians alike in Afghanistan.”  And then Prof. Chayes offers an antidote for all this serious reading — a fiction selection:   Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.  “Fascinating on the intrigues of government in the era of Henry VIII — much has not changed!”

Next week, I’ll point you toward some new work by the professors themselves.