Dr Ayşe Zarakol’s After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (Cambridge University Press, 2011) was named as one of the nine books one must read in order to understand the 21st century by the Russian daily newspaper, Republic. The short list was created from a survey of leading journalists in Russia. Among other books so named are From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Misra, Submission by Michel Houellebecq and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan.