Illustration: Paige Vickers

Thank you for following along with Foreign Affairs Summer Reads for the past nine weeks! Our editors’ final selection is Charles King on the difficulty of diagnosing great-power decline. Examining the work of the Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik, King explores how self-delusion can blind a state to its own faults until it finds itself on the brink of collapse.

How a Great Power Falls Apart

Decline Is Invisible From the Inside

By Charles King

If you missed any of our previous summer reads, catch up here.

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