Patrick Luciani: From the courts of the Popes to Putin’s plans to challenge the West—Here are the top five books I reviewed last year

The past year proved fruitful for books on international affairs, politics, political theory, history, and memoirs. I reviewed 24 of them for The Hub. As I did last year, here are the five that left an impression long after reading them.

1. On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice, by Adam Kirsch (W.W. Norton, 2024).

In a book of less than 140 pages, Adam Kirsch lays out the rise of the settler colonialism concept, its fundamental weakness in history and theory, and its dangerous view of the future. The theory is so pervasive that it conveniently explains everything you need to know about how Europeans have colonized the world from North America, Australia, India, and Africa. It now even explains the conflict in the Middle East and the war between Israel and Hamas. It propounds the view that “invasion is a structure, not an event” and that anyone inhabiting the lands of “Indigenous Peoples” is not and never will be anything other than a “settler” and an “immigrant.”

Kirsch does an excellent job of exposing this theory for what it is: a lousy theory and a distortion of history. He also exposes the idea of settler colonialism, particularly in the Middle East, as fraud and blames the academy for allowing such an antisemitic reading of history to wind its way through the academy.

You can read my full review of the book here.

2. The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, by Adam Shatz (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2023).

If we want to understand the rise of terrorism worldwide, we have to appreciate the political motivation, writings, and mind of Frantz Fanon. Born in Martinique in 1925, Fanon fought for the French against the Nazis in 1944 as a French citizen. Despite being a decorated soldier, Fanon’s blackness became the defining feature of his identity. His book Black Skin, White Masks chronicles the hardships of a black man putting on disguises to survive in a white world.

His second book, Wretched of the Earth, has become the bible for left-wing revolutionaries everywhere that justifies the use of violence if colonized people are ever to be free from their oppressors. Fanon’s writings have influenced Central and South American, African, and Middle Eastern revolutionaries, including ISIS and Hezbollah. Adam Shatz has written the best biography of Fanon, capturing his background and how he came to play an essential role in the Algerian liberation movement after the Second World War. Although sympathetic to Fanon’s struggle, Shatz’s book is no hagiography. The Rebel Clinic is essential for understanding Fanon’s mind and fatal thinking.

You can read my full review of the book here.

3. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday, 2024).

Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum is convinced that China and Russia will challenge the rules-based liberal world order established after 1945 and replace it with a multipolar world. Others who want to tag along are President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and the leaders of Iran and North Korea. One player off the board is Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who, before the collapse of his regime, once had aspirations of testing the West’s strength in the Middle East with the support of Iran and Russia.

In her recent book, Applebaum shows how the two leading contenders and their more minor partners are challenging America’s power and the West’s resolve to push back. She isn’t optimistic. Gone are the days when policy giants of the past understood the stakes, including George Schultz under President Reagan and James Baker, who worked for George H.W. Bush, along with the ever presence of Henry Kissinger.

She worries that President-elect Donald Trump, who does not rely on anyone’s advice, can hardly be trusted to manage the complexities of international policy, especially considering his unhealthy relationship with Russia’s president and unpredictable threats of tariffs aimed at both friends and foes.

You can read my full review of the book here.

4. The Courts of Three Popes: An American Lawyer and Diplomat in the Last Monarchy in the West, by Mary Ann Glendon (Image, 2024).

To most, the Vatican is a mysterious place. How corrupt is it? Who’s in charge? Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard University and former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See under George W. Bush, has written a fascinating memoir of her life, career, and time working with three pontiffs.

She came to the attention of Pope John Paul II through her legal writings on women and was asked to head the Vatican’s delegation to the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing. Professor Glendon went on to work with Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. She also headed a Papal think tank, working alongside economist and Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow.

The Courts of Three Popes is a fascinating insight into the workings of Vatican bureaucracy. After being asked to serve as ambassador, Glendon tells a captivating story of a deep friendship between President Bush and Pope Benedict. Their relationship was such that there were rumours that the president was contemplating converting to Catholicism. Reading a personal book off the beaten path of power politics and international conflict was a pleasure.

You can read my full review of the book here.

5. Who Will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent, by Keir Giles (Hurst & Co., 2024).

When Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris almost burned to the ground in 2019, President Emmanuel Macron promised to rebuild the church in record time. He succeeded and threw a massive party, inviting dignitaries from around the world—except the Pope. The reason is simple: Notre Dame wasn’t restored to the glory of God but to the glory of the state and perhaps tourism to the City of Light.

Europe has not only left religion behind but also concluded that the continent’s defence isn’t a priority. The barbaric attack by Russia on Ukraine shocked Europeans as they gradually awoke to how unprepared they were for a conflict with Vladimir Putin, should it come to that.

Keir Giles demonstrates how poorly prepared the U.K., Germany, and France are and that the only European countries that take Russia seriously are those that were once part of the Soviet Union, along with Finland and now Sweden. Unless Europeans and Canada are willing to defend themselves by contributing their fair share to NATO, Russia will feel emboldened to continue its aggression, especially now that President-elect Trump is soon to take office.

You can read my full review of the book here.