Also of interest...in global affairs

Where China Meets India

by Thant Myint-U

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27)

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“It is an illusion to think of Myanmar, as many Westerners do,” as isolated and irrelevant, said The Economist. Situated between India and China, this large coastal nation is strategically important and increasingly falling under the sway of China. Thant Myint-U’s latest study of the country argues that the West should lift sanctions against the ruling junta to counter growing Chinese influence—even if doing so undermines the standing of favored opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Struggle for Egypt

by Steven A. Cook

(Oxford, $28)

Steven Cook’s new history offers “in­valuable insights to anyone interested in how Egypt came to its present impasse,” said Thanassis Cambanis in The New York Times. A fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Cook goes back to the 1952 military coup to re-create Egypt’s decline “from pride of the Arab world to shameful decaying autocracy.” Though he “isn’t trying to tell us why Egyptians revolted in 2011, or what might come next,” Cook’s “perceptive analysis helps us answer both questions.”

Stealth of Nations

by Robert Neuwirth

(Pantheon, $26)

Step onto the streets of the developing world and you’ll encounter the entrepreneurs who operate in an informal economy known as “System D,” said Marc Levinson in The Wall Street Journal. Westerners may pity unlicensed taxi drivers in Nigeria, or knockoff-handbag producers in China, but many System D merchants are prosperous. This fascinating book may oversell the value of off-the-books business, but it “challenges conventional thinking about what it means for an economy to develop.”

Instant City

by Steve Inskeep

(Penguin, $28)

“A tribute to Karachi is long overdue,” said Akbar Ahmed in The Washington Post. The Pakistani city was transformed almost overnight from a “sleepy coastal town” into a “sprawling metropolis of 13 million” because of refugees fleeing regional conflicts. Choosing a typically violent day in the city’s life—Dec. 28, 2009, when Sunnis attacked a Shiite procession—Inskeep provides a portrait of Karachi that reveals both its dangers and its “big, courageous, and even generous heart.”