WACHH BoOK CLUB
The Book Club is the newest addition to the World Affairs Council of Hilton Head (WACHH) program offerings. The Book Club presents an opportunity for us all to learn more broadly and deeply about both world affairs and domestic politics, to engage in stimulating discussions, and to make new friendships.
The Book Club is free and open to WACHH members and the public, but advance registration is required. Registration for each book club discussion will open one month in advance and is limited to 35 participants.
The Book Club meets the second Thursday of each month from 4:30 to 6:00 pm at The Island Rec Center Board Room, 20 Wilborn Rd, Hilton Head Island (next to the High school).
Click HERE to download the Book Club Flyer for more information.
March 14, 2024
The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches us about Great-Power Rivalry by Hal Brands
“If you want to know how America can win today's rivalries with Russia and China, read this book about how it triumphed in another twilight struggle: the Cold War.” — Stephen J. Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush
America is entering an era of long-term great power competition with China and Russia that pits democracy against autocracy. Author Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, says we can expect a series of long and grinding contests most of which will be “twilight struggles” — hence the book’s title — because they happen “between the sunshine of peace and the darkness of war.” Brands argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons on how to succeed in the great-power rivalry of today, and provides an insightful historical analysis of the nearly 50-year Cold War between the US and Soviet Union, from the end of WWII to the collapse of the USSR. In this authoritative and influential book, The Twilight Struggle provides a guide to America’s successes and failures in the Cold War and their modern day relevance in understanding global power dynamics. With crisp prose and sharp analysis, Brand presents 12 lessons to be heeded today that include avoiding escalation, balancing strength with diplomacy, and understanding adversaries’ motivations.
Registration Opens February 14
April 11, 2024
Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War by Howard French
“Born in Blackness” is a compelling, impossible-to-forget read. Laura Seay, Washington Post
Born in Blackness provides a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II. Howard French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world and reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, omissions in African history of the achievements of sovereign African nations and their far-flung peoples throughout the last five hundred years. In this important book, the story of medieval and emerging Africa is reframed to demonstrate how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the African continent. In fact, the author reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa.
May 9, 2024
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar
New Your Times Bestseller, A Best Book of the Year: CNN, Economist, Bloomberg, Politico Playbook, Financial Times, The Guardian, CEO Magazine, Semafor • Winner of the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award •Finalist for the Porchlight Business Book Award and the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award
We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organize your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. None of us are prepared. As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side, the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other. Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia? This groundbreaking book establishes “the containment problem”—the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies—as the essential challenge of our age.
World Affairs Council of Hilton HeadOffice: 200 Main St. #201 M, Hilton Head Island, SC 29926 Mail: PO Box 22523, Hilton Head Island, SC 29925 843-384-6758 | execdirector@wachh.org |
