Best books of the year

The Economist and the Guardian have chosen their best books of the year.

On politics and current affairs, the Economist chooses the following books:

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America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. By Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay. Brookings Institution Press; 245 pages; $22.95

President Bush is widely seen, abroad if not at home, as a bonehead. This view is rubbish, argue Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, both scholars at American think-tanks. Mr Bush is his own man; he sees himself as the chief executive officer of a huge enterprise and acts accordingly; he has a world view and a clear idea of how America should fit into it; and he is no fool.
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Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. By Clyde Prestowitz. Basic Books; 336 pages; $26 and �16.99

Clyde Prestowitz's book must be commended for the effort he has made to listen to those who are troubled by the political uses and limitations of American power, and also for the clarity with which he explains, particularly to American readers, how the United States and its foreign policy are all too often regarded by others.
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World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. By Amy Chua. Doubleday; 352 pages; $26. William Heinemann; �12.99

Do not be misled by the over-excited title. This is a serious, sober and well-written analysis of the challenges to peace and prosperity posed by the phenomenon of economically dominant ethnic minorities. No anti-globalist tract, it nonetheless gives globalists plenty to think about.
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Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx. By Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Scribner; 416 pages; $25. Flamingo; �17.99

Adrian LeBlanc spent ten years interviewing two Latina women from the Bronx as they made their way in and out of public housing, emergency rooms, prisons and courts; a startling portrait of how demanding it is to be poor.
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The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands. By Aidan Hartley. Grove/Atlantic; 432 pages; $24. HarperCollins; �20

An African-born reporter with a lyrical gift muses on his homeland, his rage at its horrors and the fatal attraction of its wars.
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The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment. By Franklin E. Zimring. Oxford University Press; 272 pages; $30 and �13.99

Franklin Zimring, one of America's leading criminologists, rises above the cacophony of comment from politicians and campaigners with a thought-provoking and genuinely original book.
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The Dark Heart of Italy: Travels Through Space and Time Across Italy. By Tobias Jones. Faber and Faber; 266 pages; �16.99. To be published in America North Point Press in June 2004

Tobias Jones casts a chilling light on the government of Silvio Berlusconi, the corruption that continues to undermine the country and the canzonissima culture he so vividly personifies.