David M. Smick’s THE WORLD IS CURVED: HIDDEN DANGERS TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY predicts more troubled times ahead. Smick says China is being run by Tony Soprano and his thugs. It’s hard to look to gangsters for global leadership. And reading Smick on globalization and the world financial system is an eye-opener. Written as a reaction to Tom Friedman’s THE WORLD IS FLAT, THE WORLD IS CURVED is a more nuanced, detailed analysis written by a Wall Street insider. If you want to understand what’s happening (and what’s likely to happen) to the global economy THE WORLD IS CURVED provides a lot of answers.

“Power changes people, and it changes nations,” Robert Kagan says in his slim, insightful guide to contemporary politics. In a little more than a 100 pages, Kagan explores the upcoming competition of the U.S. and China (maybe a war), the frustration of radical Islamists to turn back the clock of modernity 1,400 years, and the surety that terrorists will acquire and use nuclear weapons. In a couple of hours, Kagan can reorient your geopolitical vision.