Brookings Press Books Win IndieFab Awards

Four Brookings Institution Press books were honored by Foreword Reviews in its 16th Annual IndieFab Book of the Year Awards. In the Political Science category, The Thistle and the Drone has been named Gold Winner while The Metropolitan Revolution is the Bronze Winner.

Earlier this year, Confronting Suburban Poverty in America was selected as a finalist in the same field.

Also, The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed received an Honorable Mention in the War & Military field. Read more about these titles below.

The Thistle and the Drone, by Akbar Ahmed

World-renowned author, diplomat and scholar Akbar Ahmed draws on 40 current case studies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia to reveal a tremendously important yet largely unrecognized adverse effect of campaigns on the war against terror. Ahmed argues that in the aftermath of 9/11, the use of drones as a leading military counterinsurgency weapon has morphed into a campaign against tribal peoples that has actually exacerbated the already-broken relationship between central governments and the tribal societies on their periphery. Although al Qaeda has been decimated, the U.S. is drifting into a global war against tribal societies on the periphery of nations.

The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy , by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley

Across the US, cities and metropolitan areas are facing huge economic and competitive challenges that Washington won’t, or can’t, solve. The good news is that networks of metropolitan leaders – mayors, business and labor leaders, educators, and philanthropists – are stepping up and powering the nation forward. These state and local leaders are doing the hard work to grow more jobs and make their communities more prosperous, and they’re investing in infrastructure, making manufacturing a priority, and equipping workers with the skills they need.

In The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley highlight success stories and the people behind them.

Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, by Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube

Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube have spent over a decade researching poverty. In 2006, they began work on a report and discovered trends that surprised them. In Confronting Suburban Poverty, they explore the whats, whys and meanings of suburban poverty and what it brings to social issues.

The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed, by Marvin Kalb

In The Road to War, veteran journalist Marvin Kalb examines how presidential commitments can lead to the use of American military force—and to war. Kalb notes that since World War II, “presidents have relied more on commitments, public and private, than they have on declarations of war, even though the U.S. Constitution declares rather unambiguously that Congress has the responsibility to declare war.