New history books

This is a very timely book. It is the story of the extraordinary career of Britain’s top wartime counter-propagandist, Sefton Delmer, who worked to counter Nazi propaganda.

However Pomerantsev's message in the book is also about the danger of current propaganda. He is Ukrainian and thus his main current enemy is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, about whose propaganda he has already written two previous books (see Nothing is true and everything is possible).  He also talks about Trump and the situation in America:

How To Win an Information War was written in a time when Russians who are contacted by their Ukrainian friends and relatives, and told what is actually happening, usually respond with disbelief and rejection. Ordinary Russians have become unreachable by the living truth. Meanwhile in the US up to 40 per cent of Americans believe that the last presidential election was “stolen” and it is conceivable that the corrupt author of this fiction will become US president again.

Financial Times

Peter Frankopan's new book is also fascinating as it examines the impact of the environment on human history:

'The Earth Transformed is Frankopan’s sweeping attempt to forge a new kind of history, one made possible by new technologies (machine learning, sensors and data analytics) that are opening up new ways to study the relationship between our climate and our past.

Also very topical is this book by Christopher Philips on the current situation in the Middle East:

Christopher Phillips explores geopolitical rivalries in the region, and the major external powers vying for influence: Russia, China, the EU, and the US. Moving through ten key flashpoints, from Syria to Palestine, Phillips argues that the United States’ overextension after the Cold War, and retreat in the 2010s, has imbalanced the region. Today, the Middle East remains blighted by conflicts of unprecedented violence and a post-American scramble for power – leaving its fate in the balance.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300263428/battleground/