100 Best International Law Books of All Time
We've researched and ranked the best international law books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue... more
Bill GatesI did find his historical analysis, which makes up the bulk of the book, utterly fascinating. (Source)
Brad FeldThe Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War: This book was a grind, but it had a lot of good stuff in it. It’s only 784 pages so it took more than a day to read it. If you are trying to understand what is going on in the current American economy, and why the future will not look like the past, this is a good place to start. (Source)
Satya NadellaCovering everything from the combustion engine to the flush toilet—and judging recent breakthroughs with a skeptical eye—this work of economic history “concludes that innovation is the ultimate source of dramatic improvements in the human condition,” says Nadella. (Source)
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg trial.
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Stephanie FlandersThis is a fantastic and very impressive book. (Source)
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of the last century of American history, Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Power, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern... more
Steve CrawshawWhen Power was writing, the Rwandan genocide had already happened, but Darfur was still to come. The sub-title of her book is ‘America and the age of genocide’, and she started work expecting to investigate how American foreign policy had coped so badly. Terrible events, including the mass killing of Armenians in Turkey early in the 20th century, and Pol Pot’s mass killings in Cambodia 60 years... (Source)
Norman NaimarkThis was an extremely important and timely book in calling attention to the deep-seated hypocrisy that lay at the heart of American policies when facing genocide over the past century. Power’s criticism of the devastating combination of American timidity and wishful thinking in face of mass killing, especially in the mid-1990s in Bosnia and Rwanda, is palpable throughout the book. Through... (Source)
Peter W. GalbraithSamantha Power first came to the public notice for her work on the American response to genocide in Bosnia, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. The title, A Problem From Hell is a quote from Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s congressional testimony about the situation in Bosnia, explaining why the United States couldn’t do anything to stop the genocide there. She was a young reporter... (Source)
Nelson A. Denis tells this powerful story through the... more
In this brilliant short book, Britain's former senior law lord, and one of the world's most acute legal minds, examines what the idea actually means. He makes clear that the rule of law is not an arid legal doctrine but is the foundation of a fair and just society, is a guarantee of responsible government, is an important contribution to... more
The Secret BarristerThis book is cited as mandatory reading for all prospective law students at every law school in the country, but I would go further and decree it compulsory for all politicians and indeed anybody with any interest in public life. (Source)
Max MosleyWhat’s interesting about The Rule of Law is that it’s written by someone who was until very recently the UK’s most senior judge, Lord Bingham. It’s comforting because it shows that the highest level of the judiciary is really interested in the liberty of the individual and freedom in all its various guises. It’s also got all sorts of fascinating little pieces in it. For example, he criticises the... (Source)
Shami ChakrabartiA new book from probably the greatest jurist of our times, probably anywhere in the world. (Source)
Authored by James Crawford, the ninth edition further secures the work as the essential international law text for students and practitioners.
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Diarmaid MacCullochBede is writing about 130 years after the English had first experienced Christianity. (Source)
Pulling back the curtain on the "divisible college of international lawyers," Anthea Roberts shows how international lawyers in different states, regions, and geopolitical groupings are often subject to distinct incoming influences and outgoing spheres of influence in ways that reflect and reinforce differences in how they understand and approach international law. These divisions... more
The issuance and invocation of this Official Proclamation of Real Moorish American Nationality serves as constructive notice to the nations of the world: The Moors are back.
Precursor to the series Applied Solutions for Moorish Nationals. less
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
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Andrew Russeth@felixsalmon In her amazing new book (https://t.co/S7WEJhZQST), Joan Kee recounts Douglas Huebler reissuing already-sold works in an attempt to punish a dealer who hadn't paid him his cut. (The collectors were collateral damage.) (Source)
When Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire was called to serve as force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in '93, he thought he was heading off on a straightforward peacekeeping mission. Thirteen months later he flew home... more
The new edition takes account of recent developments in the law, including the 2010 amendments to the ICC Statute, the progressive evolution of customary law, and new jurisprudence from national and international courts and tribunals. It sheds light on controversial topics like direct participation in... more
John TasioulasIt’s not purporting to confer rights on anyone, it’s saying human beings already have these rights and the point of the document is to affirm an existing moral reality. (Source)
Alan PierceThis is a great book for overall understanding of primarily modern western building and the many different building styles and materials employed. (Source)
Markings is distinctive, as W.H. Auden remarks in his foreword, as a record of "the attempt by a professional man of action to unite in one life the via activa and the via contemplativa." It... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
The great eighteenth-century theorist of international law Emer de Vattel (17141767) was a key figure in sustaining the practical and theoretical influence of natural jurisprudence through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Coming toward the end of the period when the discourse of natural law was dominant in European political theory, Vattel’s contribution is cited as a major source of contemporary wisdom on questions of international law in the American Revolution and even by opponents of revolution, such as Cardinal Consalvi, at the Congress of Vienna of 1815.
Vattel...
-the historical evolution of international criminal law;
-the legal definition of the so-called core crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide) plus aggression, torture and terrorism;
-the forms and modes of criminal responsibility; and
-the main issues related to the... more
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Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression,... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
On a hot summer afternoon in 1928, the leaders of the world assembled in Paris to outlaw war. Within the year, the treaty signed that day, known as the Peace Pact, had been ratified by nearly every state in the world. War, for the first time in history, had become illegal the world over. But the promise of that summer day was fleeting. Within a decade of its signing, each state that had gathered in Paris to... more
It answers these questions by drawing on from three different yet closely interconnected perspectives: history, theory, and recent state practice. The work uses comparative international law as starting point and argues that in order to understand post-Soviet Russia's state and scholarly approaches to international law, one should take into account the history of ideas in Russia. To an extent, Russian... more
Clare LockhartMy fourth book is Illicit, which talks about the illegal, the criminal and the illicit economies. De Soto’s theories about terrorism and why people might be attracted to terrorist causes have huge implications. They provide useful insights as to how we deal with terrorism and provide disenfranchised sections of the population with legitimate representation. That is one of the key ways that the... (Source)
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
Mary Fulbrook's encompassing book explores the lives of individuals across a full spectrum of suffering and guilt, each one capturing one small part of the greater story. Using "reckoning" in the widest possible sense to evoke how the... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a “warm war,” a shoving match between the United States, since WWII the uncontested ruler of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world’s largest navy. The Chinese regard the Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, as... more
For centuries it seemed an impossible dream that international institutions could ever tell nation-states how to treat their own citizens. But after a century in which 160 million lives have been wasted by war, genocide, and torture, the worldwide human rights movement is gaining popular and political strength.
In a book that has been called "an epic work" by "The Times" (London), Geoffrey Robertson, one of the world's leading human rights lawyers,... more
China’s rise has upset the global balance of power, and the first place to feel the strain is Beijing’s back yard: the South China Sea. For decades tensions have smoldered in the region, but today the threat of a direct confrontation among superpowers grows ever more likely. This important book is the first to make clear sense of the South Sea disputes. Bill Hayton, a journalist with extensive experience in the region, examines the high stakes involved for... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
At first glance, the modern history of the global economic system seems to support the long-held view that the leading world power's currency--the British pound, the U.S. dollar, and perhaps someday the Chinese yuan--invariably dominates international trade and finance. In How Global Currencies Work, three noted economists provide a reassessment of this history and the theories behind the conventional wisdom.
Offering a new history of global finance over the past... more
In Back to Black, Kehinde Andrews argues that racism is inexorably embedded in the fabric of society, and that it can never be overcome unless by enacting change outside of this... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
During his distinguished career, Martin Garbus has established himself as a well-known trial lawyer representing the likes of Daniel Ellsberg and Leonard Peltier. But there is no story Garbus wants to tell more than that of his most challenging case: representing five Cuban spies marooned in the U.S. prison system and his efforts to get them out.
North of Havana tells the story of a spy ring sent by Cuba in...
moreCovering international legal developments from the... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
The seventh edition includes further discussion of topical... more
Eric Prokopi, a thirty-eight-year-old Floridian, was the man who had brought this extraordinary skeleton to... more
Giles MerrittHe really does, and he is still referred to. People ask his advice on Brexit and just about anything you can name, because he has an accumulated 30 years of being at the sharp end of all the legal tangles that dominate European politics. (Source)
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
Mieville critically examines existing theories of international law and offers a compelling alternative Marxist view.
China Mieville, PhD, International Relations,... more
Mary Ellen O'Connell explains the purpose of international law and the power it has to achieve that... more
These tribunals have been unprecedented. They operate... more
Don't have time to read the top International Law books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.