China, the United States, and Global Order, by Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter

One does not have to dig very deep into foreign-policy punditry to find the belief that the question of the next decade is how world order will adapt to a waxing China and a waning United States. Will China embrace, reject, or simply ignore the set of pre-existing global norms? Will the United States continue to assert its privilege in setting global norms, or will it retreat into unilateralism? Beyond the punditry, very few scholars have bothered to look systematically at how both of these countries interact with global governance norms and structures. Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter tackle the general question of Sino-American interactions with global rules and norms in a rigorous and informative manner, discussing issues as diverse as nonproliferation and financial regulation with a degree of empirical sophistication that borders on the astonishing. Foot and Walter have produced a must-read for anyone interested in the future of global governance. —Daniel W. Drezner, blogger

Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights, by James Peck

It's commonplace to contrast the idealistic pursuit of human rights with the supposedly amoral conduct of realpolitik. But in this provocative and challenging book, James Peck shows how U.S. leaders from both parties have used the rhetoric and institutions of human rights as just another tool of power politics, often to the detriment of human rights itself. Although his account is occasionally a bit over the top, it is a valuable corrective to anyone who thinks U.S. foreign policy is primarily driven by universal moral principles. This book didn't change my basic worldview, perhaps, but it certainly opened my eyes. —Stephen M. Walt, blogger

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