My first trip to Europe, and it’s all murderous monsters and no sightseeing… My ex-boyfriend escaped from the dungeons of the usurper and current Dark Queen. I promised I’d save him, even if he doesn’t want me to. But I wasn’t prepared for what’s happened on Earth since I’ve been living it up as the Heir to the Light Throne. I unleashed hell when I broke the world and thousands of magical minds with it. Hordes of hungry vampires with no control roam Central Europe. Shifters with no Alpha to unite them and keep them sane during the full moon ravage the countryside. And weirdest of all are the evil, misogynistic monks dead set on ridding the world of witches. Dodging monsters and monks should be child’s play for the world breaker – aka me. But ending the fighting between the supernaturals is proving a lot harder. I need to unite the werewolves and vampires to fight the monsters I unleashed when I broke the world. Otherwise, I won’t survive to take the Fae throne...

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled what would come to be known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—a global development strategy involving infrastructure projects and associated financing throughout the world, including Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. While the Chinese government has framed the plan as one promoting transnational connectivity, critics and security experts see it as part of a larger strategy to achieve global dominance. Rivers of Iron examines one aspect of President Xi Jinping’s “New Era”: China’s effort to create an intercountry railway system connecting China and its seven Southeast Asian neighbors (Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). This book illuminates the political strengths and weaknesses of the plan, as well as the capacity of the impacted countries to resist, shape, and even take advantage of China’s wide-reaching actions. Using frameworks from the fields of international relations and comparative politics, the authors of Rivers of Iron seek to explain how domestic politics in these eight Asian nations shaped their varying external responses and behaviors. How does China wield power using infrastructure? Do smaller states have agency? How should we understand the role of infrastructure in broader development? Does industrial policy work? And crucially, how should competing global powers respond?