Columbia Global Reports

A one-volume history of the most consequential political movements of our time—populism, nationalism, socialism—and how they are influencing the twenty-first century

The distinguished political analyst John Judis has brought out a book with Columbia Global Reports during each of the last three national political seasons: The Populist Explosion in 2016, The Nationalist Revival in 2018, and The Socialist Awakening in 2020. Together, these books chart the rise during the second decade of the twenty-first century of new and unexpected political movements in the United States and Europe that arose in the wake of the Great Recession, the conflict with al-Qaeda and ISIS, and encroaching climate change.

Judis has revised and updated these three books, and written a new introductory essay that seeks to explain the tumultuous last decade—most notably, Donald Trump's presidency and the response to a global pandemic and recession. This volume is an indispensable guide to understanding the deeply rooted disenchantment that gave rise to populist parties and politicians on the right and left—and to the global changes that have transformed the politics of our time.

"Essential reading." —E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post

A haunting literary and visual journey deep into Russia’s past—and present

The Gulag was a monstrous network of labor camps that held and killed millions of prisoners from the 1930s to the 1950s. More than half a century after the end of Stalinist terror, the geography of the Gulag has been barely sketched and the number of its victims remains unknown. Has the Gulag been forgotten?

Writer Masha Gessen and photographer Misha Friedman set out across Russia in search of the memory of the Gulag. They journey from Moscow to Sandarmokh, a forested site of mass executions during Stalin’s Great Terror; to the only Gulag camp turned into a museum, outside of the city of Perm in the Urals; and to Kolyma, where prisoners worked in deadly mines in the remote reaches of the Far East. They find that in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where Stalin is remembered as a great leader, Soviet terror has not been forgotten: it was never remembered in the first place.

“A short, haunting and beautifully written book.” —Wall Street Journal