Summer reading for MSc Global Affairs offer holders

We are sometimes asked by incoming students for suggested readings for pre-programme reading. This list has been compiled by faculty members teaching on the regional introductory modules on Africa, Brazil, China, India, Middle East, and Russia to give you a flavour of course content. 

For each region, one more introductory text (for complete beginners) and one more advanced text (some are drawn from module reading lists) have been recommended. Some of these are new commercial books that we think may be of interest, others are more academic. Some are written by people who will teach you on the programme.

None of them are compulsory readings: we don’t expect students to have read before you arrive in September. They are listed purely for your interest and intellectual exploration.

Africa

Abiodun Alao, A New Narrative for Africa: Voice and Agency. London: Routledge Publishers (2019).

Timothy Murithi, Handbook of Africa's international relations. Routledge, 2014.

Brazil

Anthony Pereira, Modern Brazil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)

John D. French, Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil (University of North Carolina Press, 2020)

China

Dan Wang, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (Penguin, 2025)

Nicholas Loubere and Ivan Franceschini, Global China as Method, (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

India

Christophe Jaffrelot, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy(Princeton University Press, 2021)

Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian, A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey (Harper Collins, 2026)

Middle East

Gerges, Fawaz A. The Great Betrayal : The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2025)

Menoret, Pascal. Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Russia

Yaroslav Trofimov, Our Enemies Will Vanish. The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence. (Penguin, 2024)

Hal Brands, ed. War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World. (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)