Guest Newsletter: Five Books - The '80s And Taiwan

The Best Historical Novels Set in the 1980s

With its music and fashion and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, the 1980s are ripe for fiction, argues Eleanor Anstruther, author of Fallout, a novel about the decades-long protest against cruise missiles at Greenham Common. She recommends five of her favourites—including two Booker Prize winners—from the excesses of Thatcherite London to a coming of age on the slagheaps of Glasgow. Read more

Taiwan and US-China relations

Taiwan is a crucial lynchpin of the high-tech global economy, but its international political position is far from stable. China has explicit ambitions to incorporate it into the Chinese state and seems intent on building the military capacity to do this by force. The US is committed to preserving its de facto independence. For the moment, there is a stand-off, but a crisis over Taiwan would be a crisis for the world, politically and economically. Eyck Freymann, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, recommends five books to help understand the dynamics of the situation and the possible outcomes. Read more