New Books in Diplomatic History

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Ronald Angelo Johnson, "Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Entangled Alliances is a reinterpretation of the American Revolution through analysis of diplomacy in the emerging United States during decades of hemispheric transformation. Ronald Angelo Johnson brings to light the fascinating story of American patriots and rebels from Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) allying against European tyranny. The American Revolution occurred between two of the greatest achievements in diplomacy of the eighteenth century: the peace treaties at Paris in 1763 and 1783. In Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution (Cornell UP, 2025), Johnson draws on original multilingual sources to offer readers fresh, lively stories in a timely study. While modern understandings of freedom are often linked to the US Declaration of Independence, Johnson argues that the desire of Black Atlantic inhabitants for liberty and their will to resist slavery predated the fateful standoff between minutemen and redcoats at Lexington and Concord. Entangled Alliances is a US history of the American Revolution, fusing the search for freedom by Black and white founders in the United States and Saint-Domingue into a coherent story of collective resistance during the most explosive twenty-year period of the eighteenth century. You can find Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson at the Baylor University website. Find host Sullivan Summer at her website, on Instagram, and on Substack where she and the author continued their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Aaron Magid, "The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan" (Universal Publishers, 2025)
The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan (Universal Publishers, 2025) is the first comprehensive biography on Jordan’s King Abdullah. Drawing on interviews with over 100 individuals, including Abdullah's classmates, former Jordanian ministers, and CIA directors, The Most American King offers a thorough account of this key Arab leader. Aaron Magid, a former Amman-based journalist, charts Abdullah’s path to power from a Massachusetts prep school to a British military academy to the throne. This book examines how Abdullah has remained in power for over a quarter century, surrounded by wars and refugee crises. While leaders nearby were ousted during the 2011 Arab Spring protests, Abdullah survived the wave of discontent. The Most American King details Abdullah’s efforts to cement an alliance with Washington. Despite leading a small desert country, the Jordanian king was the first Arab leader to meet US Presidents Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama. The kingdom has received billions in US assistance, and Abdullah’s intelligence services helped the CIA foil Al-Qaeda terror plots against American targets. Abdullah’s personal ties to the United States have strengthened this relationship. Abdullah trained with the US Army in Kentucky, appeared on a Star Trek episode, and interviewed with Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart. While the Hashemite ruler has frequently been lauded in the West, The Most American King discusses how some of Abdullah’s decisions provoked controversy inside the Hashemite Kingdom. Abdullah approved a $15 billion gas deal with Israel in 2014, but thousands of Jordanians protested the Hashemite Kingdom’s largest-ever deal with the Jewish state. Over a decade earlier, Abdullah agreed to host US troops in Jordan and provide Washington with overflight rights ahead of the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood denounced such military cooperation with the United States as it prepared to topple the government of its neighbor. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Jordanian politics. Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at [email protected]. Blusky and IG: @robbyref Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Kalathmika Natarajan, "Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy: Caste, Class and Indenture Abroad, 1914-67" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Over the centuries, millions of migrant labourers sailed from the Indian subcontinent, across the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, to shape what is now the world’s largest diaspora. Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy: Caste, Class and Indenture Abroad, 1914-67 (Hearst, 2025 and Oxford UP, 2026) recovers the histories and legacies of those ‘coolie’ migrants, and presents a new paradigm for the diplomatic history of independent India, going beyond high politics to explore how indenture, emigration and international relations became entangled. Before and after independence, Indian notions of the international realm as a sanctified space were shaped by migrant journeys; this was a space of anxiety in which to negotiate the ‘coolie stain’ on the country’s reputation. Discourse was defined by intersections of caste, class, race and gender—and framed the migrant worker as the quintessential ‘other’ of Indian diplomacy. Drawing on rich, multi-archival analysis spanning the vast geographies of labour migration, Kalathmika Natarajan pieces together the stories of quarantine camps en route to Ceylon; cultural and educational missions in the Caribbean; discretionary passport policies in India; and the mediation of immigrant life in Britain. The result is a nuanced history from the interwar period to the decades after independence, and a critical analysis centring both caste and the negotiation of ‘undesirable’ mobility as foundational to Indian diplomacy. About the Author: Kalathmika Natarajan is Lecturer in Modern South Asian History at the University of Exeter. Her interdisciplinary research combines critical approaches to diplomatic history and South Asian migration. She has worked at the University of Edinburgh, and received her doctoral degree from the University of Copenhagen. About the Host: Stuti Roy works at Oxford University Press and is a recent graduate with an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford, and a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Yong-Shik Lee, "Sustainable Peace in Northeast Asia" (Anthem Press, 2023)
In the long run, countries in Northeast Asia will have to see the need for collective defense. Otherwise, you won’t be able to stop rivalry between powers like the U.S. and China. It sounds utopian now, but so did the idea of French and German soldiers serving under the same command a century ago. – Y.S. Lee, NBN Interview (2025) Sustainable Peace in Northeast Asia (Anthem Press, 2023) examines the enduring political and military tensions in one of the world’s most dynamic yet unstable regions, from China and the Korean Peninsula to Japan, Mongolia, and Russia’s Far East. Despite its economic vitality, Northeast Asia remains fraught with persistent risks of conflict including North Korea’s nuclear program, and the unresolved disputes over territory, history, and power imbalances fueled in part by China’s rise. Y.S. Lee traces the political, historical, military, and economic forces behind these tensions and their global implications. Offering a comparative, country-by-country analysis, he also explores the influence of external powers such as the United States and Russia. The book assesses the prospects and consequences of Korean reunification and provides a fresh look at Mongolia’s often-overlooked role in regional stability, suggesting how imagination and diplomacy together might begin to rebuild trust across the region. In this NBN interview, Professor Lee discusses how history, ideology, and institutional design intersect across the region – from the entanglement of North Korea’s Juche ideology with its nuclear ambitions to Japan’s struggle for reconciliation, and South Korea’s evolving identity as a middle power. He argues that sustainable peace requires economic, political, and even eventual military cooperation akin to Europe’s postwar transformation, which was once unthinkable, but ultimately necessary. Yong-Shik Lee is Director of the Law and Development Institute and a leading scholar of international economic law and institutional reform. His previous works include Law and Development: Theory and Practice (2011; 2nd ed. 2021), Reclaiming Development in the World Trading System (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. 2016), and Safeguard Measures in World Trade: The Legal Analysis (Edward Elgar, 3rd ed. 2014). His research bridges economic theory and policy design to advance inclusive development and peace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Ada Ferrer, "Cuba: An American History" (Scribner, 2021)
“No country is ever just one thing.” In her new book Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021), NYU historian Ada Ferrer shows this again and again. In clear and engaging prose, Ferrer narrates five centuries of history from a decidedly different angle than previous one-volume studies; the main drivers of history in this book are not just familiar political figures and abstract historical forces, but a whole range of typically marginalized historical actors. Ferrer integrates the voices of the enslaved, ordinary Cubans, and her own family to reimagine what it means to tell the history of the island. Part of this reimagining also involves showing the many points of convergence between the history of the United States and Cuba. Ferrer uses many anecdotes—such as the story of the inauguration of a Vice President of the United States on a sugar plantation in Cuba—to suggest how the lines between Cuban and American history were often blurred together. The result is a finely crafted and deeply personal book that encourages readers to recognize Cuba’s contested past and its multiple identities. Steven P. Rodriguez is a PhD Candidate in history at Vanderbilt University. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow his twitter at @SPatrickRod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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