Top Political and Current Event Ebook Best Sellers

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American Government 101 - Kathleen Sears Cover Art

American Government 101

American Government 101 From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About U.S. Politics by Kathleen Sears

The ultimate crash course in how the US government works—and how it got that way—from the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus. Too often, textbooks turn the noteworthy details of government into tedious discourse that would put even the president to sleep. American Government 101 cuts out the boring explanations, and instead provides a hands-on lesson that keeps you engaged as you learn. From the backstory of the Constitution to the institution of the Electoral College, this primer is packed with hundreds of entertaining tidbits and concepts to help you learn about how the government of the United States actually works. So whether you want to learn about how policies and laws are created, or just want to become a better-informed voter, American Government 101 has all the answers—even the ones you didn’t know you were looking for.

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New Cold Wars - David E. Sanger & Mary K. Brooks Cover Art

New Cold Wars

New Cold Wars China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West by David E. Sanger & Mary K. Brooks

The fast-paced inside story of America’s plunge into a volatile rivalry with the other two great nuclear powers—Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon   “[A] cogent, revealing account of how a generation of American officials have grappled with dangerous developments in the post-Cold War era . . . vividly captures Washington.”— The New York Times New Cold Wars —the latest from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon David E. Sanger—is a fast-paced account of America’s plunge into simultaneous confrontations with two very different adversaries. For years, the United States was confident that the newly democratic Russia and increasingly wealthy China could be lured into a Western-led order that promised prosperity and relative peace—so long as they agreed to Washington’s terms. By the time America emerged from the age of terrorism, it was clear that this had been a fantasy. Now the three powers are engaged in a high-stakes struggle for military, economic, political, and technological supremacy, with nations around the world pressured to take sides. Yet all three are discovering that they are maneuvering for influence in a far more turbulent world than they imagined. Based on a remarkable array of interviews with top officials from five presidential administrations, U.S. intelligence agencies, foreign governments, and tech companies, Sanger unfolds a riveting narrative spun around the era’s critical questions: Will the mistakes Putin made in his invasion of Ukraine prove his undoing and will he reach for his nuclear arsenal—or will the West’s famously short attention span signal Kyiv’s doom? Will Xi invade Taiwan? Will both men deepen their partnership to undercut America’s dominance? And can a politically dysfunctional America still lead the world? Taking readers from the battlefields of Ukraine—where trench warfare and cyberwarfare are interwoven—to the Taiwan headquarters where the world’s most advanced computer chips are produced and on to tense debates in the White House Situation Room, New Cold Wars is a remarkable first-draft history chronicling America’s return to superpower conflict, the choices that lie ahead, and what is at stake for the United States and the world.

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Tyranny of the Minority - Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt Cover Art

Tyranny of the Minority

Tyranny of the Minority
Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point
by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A call to reform our antiquated political institutions before it’s too late—from the authors of How Democracies Die “[Levitsky and Ziblatt] write with terrifying clarity about how the forces of the right have co-opted the enshrined rules to exert their tyranny.”— The Washington Post ONE OF THE CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS ’ TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A NEWSWEEK BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it? With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind. In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.

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The Parasitic Mind - Gad Saad Cover Art

The Parasitic Mind

The Parasitic Mind How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad

"Read this book, strengthen your resolve, and help us all return to reason."   — JORDAN PETERSON The West’s commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism have become endangered by a series of viral forces in our society today. Renowned host of the popular YouTube show “The SAAD Truth”, Dr. Gad Saad exposes how an epidemic of idea pathogens are spreading like a virus and killing common sense in the West. Serving as a powerful follow-up to Jordan Peterson’s book  12 Rules for Life  Dr. Saad unpacks what is really happening in progressive safe zones, why we need to be paying more attention to these trends, and what we must do to stop the spread of dangerous thinking. A professor at Concordia University who has witnessed this troubling epidemic first-hand, Dr. Saad dissects a multitude of these concerning forces (corrupt thought patterns, belief systems, attitudes, etc.) that have given rise to a stifling political correctness in our society and how these have created serious consequences that must be remedied–before it’s too late.

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Prisoners of Geography - Tim Marshall Cover Art

Prisoners of Geography

Prisoners of Geography Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall

In this New York Times bestseller, an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers—“fans of geography, history, and politics (and maps) will be enthralled” ( Fort Worth Star-Telegram ). Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question. All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” ( The Evening Standard ), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders. Offering “a fresh way of looking at maps” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical. “In an ever more complex, chaotic, and interlinked world, Prisoners of Geography is a concise and useful primer on geopolitics” ( Newsweek ) and a critical guide to one of the major determining factors in world affairs.

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Get It Together - Jesse Watters Cover Art

Get It Together

Get It Together
Troubling Tales from the Liberal Fringe
by Jesse Watters

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Can the political be way too personal? What if most radical activists are trying to change their lives by changing the whole country? When Jesse Watters set out to interview a few dozen radical activists to find out where their wild ideas came from, he discovered two things that shocked him: First, he liked these people. Second, their political positions were not primarily from books, teachers, or other activists. They originated in personal drama. Most of these people didn’t need legislation. They needed a therapist. In Get It Together, the number one New York Times bestselling author and Fox News primetime host takes on Wokeism in a way no one else has. Through a series of (sometimes very) personal interviews with some of the most radical activists in the country, Watters discovers that these activists may be overlooking the most important change they need to make—within themselves. From activists working for climate change salvation, Black supremacy, and social justice to a professional cuddler and a transwoman who identifies as a wolf, Watters shows how many well-intentioned Americans have bought into causes invented and run by people who are illogical, emotional, and ill-informed. Through their stories, Watters uncovers common threads—childhood traumas, broken relationships, and a lack of introspection. What if the people obsessed with the end of the world are just hurting from how this one has treated them? What if that, rather than ideological disagreements, is the deeper root of our country’s political divide? Funny, fresh, and fascinating, Get It Together is sure to spark important conversations, and to inspire us to see one another not as political opponents, but as real and broken human beings.

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Finish What We Started - Isaac Arnsdorf Cover Art

Finish What We Started

Finish What We Started The MAGA Movement's Ground War to End Democracy by Isaac Arnsdorf

"Entertaining, enlightening and disturbing." - Ira Glass The immersive, captivating untold story of the mass radicalization of the Republican Party in the aftermath of January 6, 2021, entrenching the political power of a radical right-wing movement dedicated to dismantling democracy itself.   Inspired by Donald Trump’s election lies, a growing movement of grassroots activists mobilized around the country to pick up where the insurrection left off, laying the groundwork to succeed next time where Trump had failed to keep himself in power. But their own success in taking over and purging the Republican Party became their undoing as it drove away moderates and supplied the Democrats with a winning message in the 2022 midterms. Still, the MAGA Republicans proved uninterested in learning from that defeat, only becoming more extreme, divisive, and dead set on returning Trump to power.    Washington Post national political reporter Isaac Arnsdorf has spent years at the forefront of reporting on this growing movement. Drawing on extensive, exclusive on-the-ground reporting around the country, and deepened by historical context, Arnsdorf has produced the defining journalistic account of the origins, evolution and future of the MAGA movement. Combining critical and rigorous reporting with the intimacy and complexity of a novel, this book is unlike any other in the decade since Donald Trump convulsed and transformed American politics.   Finish What We Started tells the story of the ordinary Americans driving this change, who they are and where they came from, what motivates them, and what their movement means for the survival of American democracy.  

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On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder Cover Art

On Tyranny

On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” ( Vox ) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” ( The New York Times ) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.

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The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory - Tim Alberta Cover Art

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta

Instant New York Times Bestseller One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year An Economist and Air Mail Best Book of the Year "Brave and absorbing." -- New York Times “Alberta is not just a thorough and responsible reporter but a vibrant writer, capable of rendering a farcical scene in vivid hues.” -- Washington Post “An astonishingly clear-eyed look at a murky movement.” -- Los Angeles Times Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal. For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD. Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing. Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?

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Bad Therapy - Abigail Shrier Cover Art

Bad Therapy

Bad Therapy
Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
by Abigail Shrier

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. From the author of Irreversible Damage , an investigation into a mental health industry that is harming, not healing, American children In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What’s gone wrong with America’s youth? In Bad Therapy , bestselling investigative journalist Abigail Shrier argues that the problem isn’t the kids—it’s the mental health experts. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with child psychologists, parents, teachers, and young people, Shrier explores the ways the mental health industry has transformed the way we teach, treat, discipline, and even talk to our kids. She reveals that most of the therapeutic approaches have serious side effects and few proven benefits. Among her unsettling findings: Talk therapy can induce rumination, trapping children in cycles of anxiety and depressionSocial Emotional Learning handicaps our most vulnerable children, in both public schools and private“Gentle parenting” can encourage emotional turbulence – even violence – in children as they lash out, desperate for an adult in charge Mental health care can be lifesaving when properly applied to children with severe needs, but for the typical child, the cure can be worse than the disease. Bad Therapy is a must-read for anyone questioning why our efforts to bolster America’s kids have backfired—and what it will take for parents to lead a turnaround.

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Mapping America - Dr. Jean-Pierre Isbouts & Dr. Neal Asbury Cover Art

Mapping America

Mapping America The Incredible Story and Stunning Hand-Colored Maps and Engravings that Created the United States by Dr. Jean-Pierre Isbouts & Dr. Neal Asbury

The story of the exploration and birth of America is told afresh through the unique prism of hand-colored maps and engravings of the period. Before photography and television, it was printed and hand-colored maps that brought home the thrill of undiscovered lands and the possibilities of exploration, while guiding armies on all sides through the Indian Wars and the clashes of the American Revolution. Only by looking through the prism of these maps, can we truly understand how and why America developed the way it did. Mapping America illuminates with scene-setting text and more than 150 color images—from the exotic and fanciful maps of Renaissance explorers to the magnificent maps of the Golden Age and the thrilling battle-maps and charts of the American Revolutionary War, in addition to paintings from the masters of eighteenth century art, scores of photographs, and detailed diagrams. In total, this informative and lushly illustrated volume developed by rare maps collector Neal Asbury, host of “Neal Asbury’s Made in America,” and National Geographic historian Jean-Pierre Isbouts offers a new and immersive look at the ambition, the struggle, and the glory that attended and defined the exploration and making of America.

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Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler Cover Art

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler is known as one of the most dangerous books in history. It is a fundamental exposition of Nazi ideology, which caused deaths of milions of people. The publisher would like to inform, that propaganda of any totalitarianism, such as Nazism, Fascism and Communism is not his target and this book should be only perceived as a historical source. Every man wanting to understand the complexity of the World War II should be acquainted with this position. 

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Hit 'Em Where It Hurts - Rachel Bitecofer & Aaron Murphy Cover Art

Hit 'Em Where It Hurts

Hit 'Em Where It Hurts How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game by Rachel Bitecofer & Aaron Murphy

A radical, urgent plan for how the Democratic Party and its supporters can win elections at one of the most pivotal moments in the history of our nation’s democracy “Bitecofer hits hard against the GOP tactics of fear and anger and the Democrats’ status quo narratives around political engagement and winning elections.”—Michael Steele, former RNC chair Why do Democrats fail to win voters to their side, and what can they do to develop new winning political strategies—especially as the very fate of democracy hangs in the balance in 2024? Too often the carefully constructed, rational arguments of the Left meet a grisly fate at the polls, where voters are instead swayed by Republican candidates hawking anger, fear, and resentment. Only when Democrats are handed an overwhelming motivational issue—like the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade —have they found a way to counter this effect. Political scientist and strategist Rachel Bitecofer came to prominence after predicting the size (to the seat) of the Democrats’ rare Blue Wave in the 2018 midterms. At the heart of her prediction lay a powerful concept— negative partisanship, or the idea that voters, even most so-called independents, don’t vote for their candidate so much as they vote against their candidate’s opponent. Seen through this lens, Hit ’Em Where It Hurts is a deep dive into the Republicans’ own playbook, sharing how Democrats can turn the Right’s own tactics against them. The way for Democrats to wage—and win—electoral war, Bitecofer writes, is to present themselves as “brand ambassadors for freedom, health, wealth, safety, and common sense,” the very opposite of the extremist, freedom-fearing Right. This is a last-ditch effort to armor democracy while there is still time to save and strengthen it against hijacking by a small minority of ideologues. As America careens into the election cycle that will determine its democratic future, Hit ’Em Where It Hurts is the book for any Democrat who has ever banged their head against a wall when obvious reasoning failed to sway voters over to their side. This guide is a lifeline to save American democracy in its darkest hour.

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The Unprotected Class - Jeremy Carl Cover Art

The Unprotected Class

The Unprotected Class How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart by Jeremy Carl

Anti-white racism, undisguised and unembarrassed, is now official policy in America. One class of citizens—whites—is openly discriminated against in every sphere of public and private life. The Unprotected Class is a comprehensive explanation of how we got here and what we must do to correct a manifest—and dangerous—injustice. Launched with an appeal to justice for all, the civil rights movement went off the rails even as it achieved its original goals. Soon its excesses and failures were exploited to justify discrimination against whites in business, education, law, entertainment, and even the church. With the death of George Floyd and the shedding of all pretense of racial justice, vindictiveness, resentment, and hatred were unleashed in America.

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Das Kapital - Karl Marx Cover Art

Das Kapital

Das Kapital Capital by Karl Marx

Das Kapital (Capital) by Karl Marx is a critical analysis of capitalism as a political economy. This is the essential first volume of the treatise.

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The Gatekeepers - Chris Whipple Cover Art

The Gatekeepers

The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple

Now with a new chapter on the chaos in the Trump administration, the first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions—and inactions—have defined the course of our country. What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to the president of the United States—as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others. The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers," wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and—most crucially—enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks.  Through extensive, intimate interviews with all seventeen   living chiefs and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker’s expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution—and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might   have been prevented by a more effective chief.  Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details,  The Gatekeepers  offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.

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What This Comedian Said Will Shock You - Bill Maher Cover Art

What This Comedian Said Will Shock You

What This Comedian Said Will Shock You by Bill Maher

The hilarious and controversial host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher has written his funniest, most opinionated, and most necessary book ever—a brilliantly astute and acerbically funny vivisection of American life, politics, and culture. Some of the smartest commentary about what’s happening in America is coming from a comedian—this comedian being Bill Maher. If you want to understand what’s wrong with this country, it turns out that one of the best informed and most thought-provoking analysts is this very funny pothead. The book was inspired by the “editorial” Bill delivers at the end of each episode of Real Time . These editorials are direct-to-camera sermons about culture, politics, and what’s happening in the world. To put this book together, Maher reviewed more than a decade of his editorials, rewriting, reimagining, and updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we’re in. Free speech, cops, drugs, race, religion, the generations, cancel culture, the parties, the media, show biz, romance, health—Maher covers it all. The result is a hugely entertaining work of commentary about American culture in the tradition of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and H. L. Mencken.

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Chip War - Chris Miller Cover Art

Chip War

Chip War The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller

One of Barack Obama ’ s Favorite Books of 2023 The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in fierce competition is “pulse quickening…a nonfiction thriller” ( The New York Times ). You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything —from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity. Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the US became dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. Until recently, China had been catching up, aligning its chip-building ambitions with military modernization. Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study" ( London Times ).

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City of Death - Ephraim Mattos & Scott McEwen Cover Art

City of Death

City of Death Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul by Ephraim Mattos & Scott McEwen

A frontline witness account of the deadly urban combat of the Battle of Mosul told by former Navy SEAL and frontline combat medic Ephraim Mattos. After leaving the US Navy SEAL teams in spring of 2017, Ephraim Mattos, age twenty-four, flew to Iraq to join a small group of volunteer humanitarians known as the Free Burma Rangers, who were working on the frontlines of the war on ISIS. Until being shot by ISIS on a suicidal rescue mission, Mattos witnessed unexplainable acts of courage and sacrifice by the Free Burma Rangers, who, while under heavy machine gun and mortar fire, assaulted across ISIS minefields, used themselves as human shields, and sprinted down ISIS-infested streets-all to retrieve wounded civilians. In City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul , Mattos recounts in vivid detail what he saw and felt while he and the other Free Burma Rangers evacuated the wounded, conducted rescue missions, and at times fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iraqi Army against ISIS. Filled with raw and emotional descriptions of what it's like to come face-to-face with death, this is the harrowing and uplifting true story of a small group of men who risked everything to save the lives of the Iraqi people and who followed the credence, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." As the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestselling American Sniper , Scott McEwen has teamed up with Mattos to help share an unforgettable tale of an American warrior turned humanitarian forced to fight his way into and out of a Hell on Earth created by ISIS.

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Revenge - Michael Cohen Cover Art

Revenge

Revenge How Donald Trump Weaponized the US Department of Justice Against His Critics by Michael Cohen

NOW WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY NORMAN EISEN AND E. DANYA PERRY The man the New York State Attorney General credited with inspiring her prosecution of Donald Trump — New York Times number one bestselling author Michael Cohen — tells the behind-the-scenes story of what can happen to you — and what really happened to him — when a President who believes himself to be above the law decides to go after his critics . . . . When Michael Cohen's secret payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels on behalf of Donald Trump made Cohen look like a liability to the by-then-President of the United States, the end to their decade-long relationship came swiftly — with a knock on the door from the FBI. Soon, Cohen would find himself imprisoned — even though he had plenty of evidence to show he was innocent of most of the charges. Meanwhile, with the release of the Steele Dossier, Cohen also found himself battling endless news reports citing the Dossier's claims that he'd had clandestine dealings with Russia — reports that only mounted despite his exoneration by the Mueller Report. In a story now being echoed in recent breaking news stories about IRS persecution of other Trump foes such as former FBI head James Comey and others, Cohen details — in his inimitable blunt language, with absolutely no holds barred and naming names — his attempt to clear his name and tell the truth about Donald Trump. Chillingly, he also makes clear what happens when you try to speak truth to power, and the power knows no bounds.

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Disillusioned - Benjamin Herold Cover Art

Disillusioned

Disillusioned Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs by Benjamin Herold

"Astonishingly important.” —Alex Kotlowitz, The Atlantic Through the stories of five American families, a masterful and timely exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools Outside Atlanta, a middle-class Black family faces off with a school system seemingly bent on punishing their teenage son. North of Dallas, a conservative white family relocates to an affluent suburban enclave, but can’t escape the changes sweeping the country. On Chicago’s North Shore, a multiracial mom joins an ultraprogressive challenge to the town’s liberal status quo. In Compton, California, whose suburban roots are now barely recognizable, undocumented Hispanic parents place their gifted son’s future in the hands of educators at a remarkable elementary school. And outside Pittsburgh, a Black mother moves to the same street where author Benjamin Herold grew up, then confronts the destructive legacy left behind by white families like his. Disillusioned braids these human stories together with penetrating local and national history to reveal a vicious cycle undermining the dreams upon which American suburbia was built. For generations, upwardly mobile white families have extracted opportunity from the nation’s heavily subsidized suburbs, then moved on before the bills for maintenance and repair came due, leaving the mostly Black and Brown families who followed to clean up the ensuing mess. But now, sweeping demographic shifts and the dawning realization that endless expansion is no longer feasible are disrupting this pattern, forcing everyday families to confront a truth their communities were designed to avoid: The suburban lifestyle dream is a Ponzi scheme whose unraveling threatens us all. How do we come to terms with this troubled history? How do we build a future in which all children can thrive?  Drawing upon his decorated career as an education journalist, Herold explores these pressing debates with expertise and perspective. Then, alongside Bethany Smith—the mother from his old neighborhood, who contributes a powerful epilogue to the book—he offers a hopeful path toward renewal. The result is nothing short of a journalistic masterpiece.

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The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason - Sam Harris Cover Art

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris

"The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated....Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."—Natalie Angier, New York Times In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs—even when these beliefs inspire the worst human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic. Winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction.

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From Beirut to Jerusalem - Thomas L. Friedman Cover Art

From Beirut to Jerusalem

From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman

This revised edition of the number-one bestseller and winner of the 1989 National Book Award includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's new, updated epilogue. One of the most thought-provoking books ever written about the Middle East, From Beirut to Jerusalem remains vital to our understanding of this complex and volatile region of the world. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman drew upon his ten years of experience reporting from Lebanon and Israel to write this now-classic work of journalism. In a new afterword, he updates his journey with a fresh discussion of the Arab Awakenings and how they are transforming the area, and a new look at relations between Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis and Israelis. Rich with anecdote, history, analysis, and autobiography, From Beirut to Jerusalem will continue to shape how we see the Middle East for many years to come. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it."--Seymour M. Hersh

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Servants of the Damned - David Enrich Cover Art

Servants of the Damned

Servants of the Damned Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice by David Enrich

National Bestseller "A powerful and important picture of how mega law firms distort justice."—David Cay Johnston, Washington Post The NYT's Business Investigations Editor reveals the dark side of American law: Delivering a "devastating" (Carol Leonnig) exposé of the astonishing yet shadowy power wielded by the world’s largest law firms, David Enrich traces how one firm shielded opioid makers, gun companies, big tobacco, Russian oligarchs, Fox News, the Catholic Church, and much of the Fortune 500; helped Donald Trump get elected, govern, and evade investigation; masterminded the conservative remaking of the courts . . . and make a killing along the way. In his acclaimed #1 bestseller Dark Towers, David Enrich presented the never-before-told saga of how Deutsche Bank became the global face of financial recklessness and criminality. Now Enrich turns his eye towards the world of “Big Law” and the nearly unchecked influence these firms wield to shield the wealthy and powerful—and bury their secrets. To tell this story, Enrich focuses on Jones Day, one of the world’s largest law firms. Jones Day’s narrative arc—founded in Cleveland in 1893, it became the first law firm to expand nationally and is now a global juggernaut with deep ties to corporate interests and conservative politics—is a powerful encapsulation of the changes that have swept the legal industry in recent decades. Since 2016, Jones Day has been in the spotlight for representing Donald Trump and his campaigns (and now his PACs)—and for the fleet of Jones Day attorneys who joined his administration, including White House Counsel Don McGahn. Jones Day helped Trump fend off the Mueller investigation and challenged Obamacare. Its once and future lawyers defended Trump’s Muslim ban and border policies and handled his judicial nominations. Jones Day even laid some of the legal groundwork for Trump to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election. But the Trump work is but one chapter in the firm’s checkered history. Jones Day, like many of its peers, have become highly effective enablers of the business world’s worst misbehavior. The firm has for decades represented Big Tobacco in its fight to avoid liability for its products. Jones Day worked tirelessly for the Catholic Church as it tried to minimize its sexual-abuse scandals. And for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, as it sought to protect its right to make and market its dangerously addictive drug. And for Fox News as it waged war against employees who were the victims of sexual harassment and retaliation. And for Russian oligarchs as their companies sought to expand internationally. In this gripping and revealing new work of narrative nonfiction, Enrich makes the compelling central argument that law firms like Jones Day play a crucial yet largely hidden role in enabling and protecting powerful bad actors in our society, housing their darkest secrets, and earning billions in revenue for themselves.

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The Marx-Engels Reader - Karl Marx Cover Art

The Marx-Engels Reader

The Marx-Engels Reader Second Edition by Karl Marx

This edition of the leading anthology provides the essential writings of Marx and Engels—those works necessary for an introduction to Marxist thought and ideology. The volume is arranged to show both the chronological and the thematic development of the two great thinkers. Selections range in coverage from history, society, and economics, to politics, philosophy, and the strategy and tactics of social revolution.

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Extremism - J. M. Berger Cover Art

Extremism

Extremism by J. M. Berger

What extremism is, how extremist ideologies are constructed, and why extremism can escalate into violence. A rising tide of extremist movements threaten to destabilize civil societies around the globe. It has never been more important to understand extremism, yet the dictionary definition—a logical starting point in a search for understanding—tells us only that extremism is “the quality or state of being extreme.” In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, J. M. Berger offers a nuanced introduction to extremist movements, explaining what extremism is, how extremist ideologies are constructed, and why extremism can escalate into violence. Berger shows that although the ideological content of extremist movements varies widely, there are common structural elements. Berger, an expert on extremist movements and terrorism, explains that extremism arises from a perception of “us versus them,” intensified by the conviction that the success of “us” is inseparable from hostile acts against “them.” Extremism differs from ordinary unpleasantness—run-of-the-mill hatred and racism—by its sweeping rationalization of an insistence on violence. Berger illustrates his argument with case studies and examples from around the world and throughout history, from the destruction of Carthage by the Romans—often called “the first genocide”—to the apocalyptic jihadism of Al Qaeda, America's new “alt-right,” and the anti-Semitic conspiracy tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He describes the evolution of identity movements, individual and group radicalization, and more. If we understand the causes of extremism, and the common elements of extremist movements, Berger says, we will be more effective in countering it.

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El amasiato. - Álvaro Delgado Cover Art

El amasiato.

El amasiato. El pacto secreto Peña-Calderón y otras traiciones panistas by Álvaro Delgado

En 2006, poco antes de la celebración de los comicios presidenciales, tuvo lugar una “minicumbre” en cierto hotel de la Ciudad de México; ahí, el entonces gobernador Enrique Peña Nieto le garantizó una considerable cantidad de votos al candidato presidencial panista, Felipe Calderón, el mismo porcentaje con el que fue declarado oficialmente ganador. Seis años después, cuando Peña Nieto fue el candidato presidencial priista, Calderón le pago el favor y, desde el gobierno federal, saboteó la campaña de la abanderada de su partido, Josefina Vázquez Mota, a quien él mismo le confesaría su traición: “Te abandoné”. A la luz de lo sucedido después de aquella reunión secreta de 2006, las preguntas son válidas: ¿Peña y Calderón decidieron ahí la alternancia partidista en el poder?, ¿realizaron todos los amarres para la elección presidencial de 2018?, ¿en esa fecha volverá el PAN a Los Pinos, representado ahora por una mujer: Margarita Zavala? En el presente volumen, Alvaro Delgado documenta con todo el rigor del reportero las historias que han ido tejiendo los jerarcas del PAN y Peña Nieto, en otro capítulo de la alta corrupción política que ha producido el desastre económico, político y social de México en las recientes décadas.

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Industrial Society and Its Future - Theodore John Kaczynski Cover Art

Industrial Society and Its Future

Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore John Kaczynski

“It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness.” Theodore John Kaczynski (1942-) or also known as the Unabomber, is an Americandomestic terrorist and anarchist who moved to a remote cabin in 1971. The cabin lackedelectricity or running water, there he lived as a recluse while learning how to be self-sufficient. He began his bombing campaign in 1978 after witnessing the destruction ofthe wilderness surrounding his cabin.

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The Case to Impeach and Imprison Joe Biden - Mike McCormick Cover Art

The Case to Impeach and Imprison Joe Biden

The Case to Impeach and Imprison Joe Biden by Mike McCormick

The Case to Impeach and Imprison Joe Biden is author Mike McCormick’s eyewitness account from six years as Joe Biden’s White House stenographer, traveling with him to Ukraine and Honduras and many other countries. During this assignment, he found the vice president buffoonish and unpresidential. McCormick, who made national news in April 2023 by revealing he submitted evidence to the FBI that would impeach Joe Biden, confirms that he was interviewed extensively about his knowledge of Biden’s corruption and evil by investigators from the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee. McCormick ultimately recognized the crimes that then-Vice President Biden perpetrated in his dealings with Ukraine and Honduras only after receiving a verified copy of the Hunter Biden Laptop. By cross-referencing materials in the Hunter Biden Laptop with President Obama’s White House website and congressional testimony by Joe’s co-conspirators, plus his own recollections, McCormick weaves a devastating timeline that pinpoints Joe Biden as the mastermind of a kickback scheme with Burisma Holdings that enriched him and Hunter Biden. Also detailed in this book is Joe Biden’s treasonous Alliance for Prosperity, which funded cartel-affiliated cocaine smugglers in the Honduran government who were then under investigation by the DEA with hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars. McCormick courageously identifies US government officials who assisted Joe Biden in his evil schemes, including then president Barack Obama. And McCormick names the journalists who continue to cover for the Obama–Biden corruption. Despite all the evidence, he has not yet been asked to testify under oath about what he saw. That’s why he’s written this book.

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Attack from Within - Barbara Mcquade Cover Art

Attack from Within

Attack from Within How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America by Barbara Mcquade

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An urgent, comprehensive explanation of the ways disinformation is impacting democracy, and practical solutions that can be pursued to strengthen the public, media, and truth-based politics MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few. "One of the most acute observers of our time shares . . . a compelling work about a challenge that—left unexamined and left unchecked—could undermine our democracy." —Eric H. Holder Jr, 82nd Attorney General of the United States American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility. In Attack from Within , legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. The book includes: The authoritarian playbook : a brief history of disinformation from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Trump, chronicles the ways in which authoritarians have used disinformation to seize and retain power. Disinformation tactics —like demonizing the other, seducing with nostalgia, silencing critics, muzzling the media, condemning the courts; stoking violence—and reasons why they work.An explanation of why America is particularly vulnerable to disinformation and how it exploits our First Amendment Freedoms, sparks threats and violence, and destabilizes social structures. Real, accessible solutions for countering disinformation and maintaining the rule of law such as making domestic terrorism a federal crime, increasing media literacy in schools, criminalizing doxxing, and much more. Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2021 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country’s hard-won democracy.

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Reading the Constitution - Stephen Breyer Cover Art

Reading the Constitution

Reading the Constitution Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism by Stephen Breyer

A provocative, brilliant analysis by recently retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that deconstructs the textualist philosophy of the current Supreme Court’s supermajority and makes the case for a better way to interpret the Constitution . “You will not read a more important legal work this election year.” —Bob Woodward, Washington Post reporter and author of fifteen #1 New York Times bestselling books “A dissent for the ages.” — The Washington Post “Breyer’s candor about the state of the court is refreshing and much needed.” — The Boston Globe The relatively new judicial philosophy of textualism dominates the Supreme Court. Textualists claim that the right way to interpret the Constitution and statutes is to read the text carefully and examine the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written. This, however, is not Justice Breyer’s philosophy nor has it been the traditional way to interpret the Constitution since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall. Justice Breyer recalls Marshall’s exhortation that the Constitution must be a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations. Most important in interpreting law, says Breyer, is to understand the purposes of statutes as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. He illustrates these principles by examining some of the most important cases in the nation’s history, among them the Dobbs and Bruen decisions from 2022 that he argues were wrongly decided and have led to harmful results.

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Prequel - Rachel Maddow Cover Art

Prequel

Prequel An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Rachel Maddow traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis.   “A ripping read—well rendered, fast-paced and delivered with the same punch and assurance that she brings to a broadcast. . . . The parallels to the present day are strong, even startling.”— The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.   That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.   At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court.   None of it went as planned.   While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality it involved a large number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.   That failure of the legal system had consequences. The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times.

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Blood Money - Peter Schweizer Cover Art

Blood Money

Blood Money Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans by Peter Schweizer

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It’s often said that China is in a cold war with America. The reality is far worse: the war is hot, and the body count is one-sided. China is killing Americans and working aggres­sively to maximize the carnage while our leaders remain passive and, in some cases, compliant. Why? If anyone could crack the code, it’s the renowned nonpartisan investigator Peter Schweizer. Schweizer’s previous three number one New York Times bestsellers sent shock waves through official Wash­ington, sparking FBI investigations and congres­sional probes that continue to this day. For Blood Money, Schweizer and his team of forensic investigators spent more than two years scouring a trove of restricted Chinese military documents, data-mining a mountain of American financial records, and tracking US political lead­ers’ investments and family businesses. Schweizer unloads bombshell after bombshell, exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s covert operations in the American drug trade, social justice movement, and medical establishment to sow chaos and deca­dence in the United States. A towering achievement of investigative jour­nalism, Blood Money is one of those rare books that makes you clearly see the world anew.

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Target Tehran - Yonah Jeremy Bob & Ilan Evyatar Cover Art

Target Tehran

Target Tehran How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East by Yonah Jeremy Bob & Ilan Evyatar

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year/Politics The remarkable story of how Israel used sabotage, assassination, cyberwar—and diplomacy—to thwart Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and, in the process, reshaped the Middle East. Yonah Bob and Ilan Evyatar describe how Israel has used cyberwarfare, targeted assassinations, and sabotage of Iranian facilities to great effect, sometimes in cooperation with the United States. Even as it takes lethal action Israel has managed to alter the politics of the Middle East, culminating in the Abraham Accords of 2020. Arab states, such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, normalized relations with Israel while giving a faint nod to the Palestinian issue, and the holy grail of normalization with Saudi Arabia may be achieved in a way which will inject at least some new energy into improving Israeli-Palestinian relations. Now, they share Israel’s concern with Iran—even as they negotiate with Tehran—remaining silent while Israel undermines Iran’s nuclear program. Bob and Evyatar reveal how Israel has used documents stolen from Tehran in a daring, secret Mossad raid to show the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency how Iran has repeatedly violated the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement and lied about its active nuclear weapons program. Drawing from interviews with top confidential Israeli and US sources, including from the Mossad and the CIA, the authors tell the inside story of the tumultuous, and often bloody, history of how Israel has managed to outmaneuver Iran—so far.

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Global Heartland - Faranak Miraftab Cover Art

Global Heartland

Global Heartland Displaced Labor, Transnational Lives, and Local Placemaking by Faranak Miraftab

Global Heartland is the account of diverse, dispossessed, and displaced people brought together in a former sundown town in Illinois. Recruited to work in the local meat-processing plant, African Americans, Mexicans, and West Africans re-create the town in unexpected ways. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the US, Mexico, and Togo, Faranak Miraftab shows how this workforce is produced for the global labor market; how the displaced workers' transnational lives help them stay in these jobs; and how they negotiate their relationships with each other across the lines of ethnicity, race, language, and nationality as they make a new home. Beardstown is not an exception but an example of local-global connections that make for local development. Focusing on a locality in a non-metropolitan region, this work contributes to urban scholarship on globalization by offering a fresh perspective on politics and materialities of placemaking.

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The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary - Melissa Murray & Andrew Weissmann Cover Art

The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary

The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary by Melissa Murray & Andrew Weissmann

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Collecting the four unprecedented indictments against Donald Trump, this essential volume features extensive commentary by NYU law professors and MSNBC contributors Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann. In the long span of American history, Donald Trump is the first former president to face criminal indictment. He is the subject of a series of explosive charges across four cases: the January 6 case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith; the election interference case in Georgia; the classified documents case also brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith; and the "hush money" case in New York. The Trump Indictments includes: • An introduction offering historical background and international comparisons for criminal charges against a former political leader. • The four indictments with annotations throughout, including insider notes from an eminent scholar (Murray) and a former federal prosecutor (Weissmann). • A cast of characters, from Trump and his alleged co-conspirators to notable Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who face prison sentences as a result of related January 6 cases. • A timeline that brings together in one place the critical events that led to the four indictments. A necessary handbook for anyone following the trials in 2024, The Trump Indictments will endure as an indispensable record of a democracy at the crossroads.

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White Rural Rage - Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman Cover Art

White Rural Rage

White Rural Rage The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing portrait and damning takedown of America’s proudest citizens—who are also the least likely to defend its core principles “This is an important book that ought to be read by anyone who wants to understand politics in the perilous Age of Trump.”—David Corn, New York Times bestselling author of American Psychosis White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States. Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become to rural Whites who, despite legitimate grievances, are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, to believe in conspiracy theories, to accept violence as a legitimate course of political action, and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. Rural White Americans’ attitude might best be described as “I love my country, but not our country,” Schaller and Waldman argue. This phenomenon is the patriot paradox of rural America: The citizens who take such pride in their patriotism are also the least likely to defend core American principles. And by stoking rural Whites’ anger rather than addressing the hard problems they face, conservative politicians and talking heads create a feedback loop of resentments that are undermining American democracy. Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures that permit rural Whites’ disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects for creating a pluralist, inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both rural people and the rest of America.

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Barons - Austin Frerick Cover Art

Barons

Barons Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry by Austin Frerick

“In this eye-opening debut study, Frerick, an agricultural policy fellow at Yale University, reveals the ill-gained stranglehold that a handful of companies have on America’s food economy…It’s a disquieting critique of private monopolization of public necessities.” --Publishers Weekly , starred Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take Mike McCloskey, Chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd to running the Disneyland of agriculture, where school children ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tens of thousands of cows that never see the light of day. What was the key to his success? Hard work and exceptional business savvy? Maybe. But more than anything else, Mike benefitted from deregulation of the American food industry, a phenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation’s rural towns and local businesses. Along with Mike McCloskey, readers will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee industry in less than a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. They will discover how a small grain business transformed itself into an empire bigger than Koch Industries, with ample help from taxpayer dollars. And they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay—especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil. These, and the other stories in this book, are simply examples of the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that today define American food. The tycoons profiled in these pages are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulated our lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of our neighborhoods, livelihoods, and our democracy itself. Barons paints a stark portrait of the consequences of corporate consolidation, but it also shows we can choose a different path. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible—if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it.

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Great Decisions 2024 - Foreign Policy Association Cover Art

Great Decisions 2024

Great Decisions 2024 by Foreign Policy Association

Great Decisions is a briefing book with eight articles on various U.S. foreign policy topics. Many people use the book as background for discussion programs that are held all over the U.S. and in some other countries.

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Forged in Crisis - Nancy Koehn Cover Art

Forged in Crisis

Forged in Crisis The Making of Five Courageous Leaders by Nancy Koehn

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER “Five gritty leaders whose extraordinary passion and perseverance changed history…a gripping read on a timeless and timely topic” —Angela Duckworth, #1 bestselling author of Grit An enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights, Forged in Crisis , by celebrated Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn, spotlights five masters of crisis: polar explorer Ernest Shackleton; President Abraham Lincoln; legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass; Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and environmental crusader Rachel Carson. What do such disparate figures have in common? Why do their extraordinary stories continue to amaze and inspire? In delivering the answers to those questions, Nancy Koehn offers a remarkable template by which to judge those in our own time to whom the public has given its trust. She begins each of the book’s five sections by showing her protagonist on the precipice of a great crisis: Shackleton marooned on an Antarctic ice floe; Lincoln on the verge of seeing the Union collapse; escaped slave Douglass facing possible capture; Bonhoeffer agonizing over how to counter absolute evil with faith; Carson racing against the cancer ravaging her in a bid to save the planet. The narrative then reaches back to each person’s childhood and shows the individual growing—step by step—into the person he or she will ultimately become. Significantly, as we follow each leader’s against-all-odds journey, we begin to glean an essential truth: leaders are not born but made. In a book dense with epiphanies, the most galvanizing one may be that the power to lead courageously resides in each of us. Whether it’s read as a repository of great insight or as exceptionally rendered human drama, Forged in Crisis stands as a towering achievement.

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The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda - Fawaz A. Gerges Cover Art

The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda

The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda by Fawaz A. Gerges

In this concise and fascinating book, Fawaz A. Gerges argues that Al-Qaeda has degenerated into a fractured, marginal body kept alive largely by the self-serving anti-terrorist bureaucracy it helped to spawn. In The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, Gerges, a public intellectual known widely for his expertise on radical ideologies, including jihadism, argues that the Western powers have become mired in a "terrorism narrative," stemming from the mistaken belief that America is in danger of a devastating attack by a crippled al-Qaeda. To explain why al-Qaeda is no longer a threat, he provides a briskly written history of the organization, showing its emergence from the disintegrating local jihadist movements of the mid-1990s-not just the Afghan resistance of the 1980s, as many believe-in "a desperate effort to rescue a sinking ship by altering its course." During this period, Gerges interviewed many jihadis, gaining a first-hand view of the movement that bin Laden tried to reshape by internationalizing it. Gerges reveals that transnational jihad has attracted but a small minority within the Arab world and possesses no viable social and popular base. Furthermore, he shows that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a major miscalculation--no "river" of fighters flooded from Arab countries to defend al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as bin Laden expected. The democratic revolutions that swept the Middle East in early 2011 show that al-Qaeda today is a non-entity which exercises no influence over Arabs' political life. Gerges shows that there is a link between the new phenomenon of homegrown extremism in Western societies and the war on terror, particularly in Afghanistan-Pakistan, and that homegrown terror exposes the structural weakness, not strength, of bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Gerges concludes that the movement has splintered into feuding factions, neutralizing itself more effectively than any Predator drone. Forceful, incisive, and written with extensive inside knowledge, this book will alter the debate on global terrorism.

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Ten Years to Save the West - Liz Truss Cover Art

Ten Years to Save the West

Ten Years to Save the West by Liz Truss

Can the West Be Saved? Liz Truss, the former Conservative prime minister of Great Britain, thinks that’s an open question. During her ten years at the highest levels of the British government, she often found that she was the only conservative in the room. She witnessed, first-hand, the machinations of globalists who would like nothing more than to impose corporate state-socialism on the world. Freedom is at risk, she warns, and the Conservative Party in Britain—and the Republican Party in the United States—are ill-equipped to defend it. The problem? Conservatives have accepted too many of the left’s taking points, allowed the left to set the political agenda, and capitulated endlessly whenever the left has sought to impose bigger government and curtail individual freedoms. The dictatorial excesses during the Covid-19 lockdowns should have been a stark warning because they are a precursor of things to come if conservatives continue to waffle on principle, surrender on policy, and fail with the electorate. In Ten Years to Save the West , Liz Truss reveals: • Why socialism—despite its endless record of failure—remains popular, both with global elites and with the next generation • The clear and present danger of the ever-expanding “administrative state” • How conservative parties are complicit in policies of “managed decline” • Why we cannot ignore the threat of an aggressive China • Why Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher should remain the guiding lights for conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic Urgent, detailed, and full of insights gleaned from the highest levels of politics, Liz Truss’s warning to the West cannot be ignored.

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The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future - Theodore Kaczynski Cover Art

The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future

The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore Kaczynski

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.

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Break It Up - Richard Kreitner Cover Art

Break It Up

Break It Up Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union by Richard Kreitner

From journalist and historian Richard Kreitner, a "powerful revisionist account" of the most persistent idea in American history: these supposedly United States should be broken up (Eric Foner). The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: The United States has never lived up to its name—and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn’t limited to the South or the nineteenth century. It was there at our founding and has never gone away.   With a scholar’s command and a journalist’s curiosity, Richard Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region. Each New England town after Plymouth was a secession from another; the thirteen colonies viewed their Union as a means to the end of securing independence, not an end in itself; George Washington feared separatism west of the Alleghenies; Aaron Burr schemed to set up a new empire; John Quincy Adams brought a Massachusetts town’s petition for dissolving the United States to the floor of Congress; and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison denounced the Constitution as a pro-slavery pact with the devil.   From the “cold civil war” that pits partisans against one another to the modern secession movements in California and Texas, the divisions that threaten to tear America apart today have centuries-old roots in the earliest days of our Republic. Richly researched and persuasively argued, Break It Up will help readers make fresh sense of our fractured age.  

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Some People Need Killing - Patricia Evangelista Cover Art

Some People Need Killing

Some People Need Killing A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista

TIME ’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A “riveting” ( The Atlantic ) account of the Philippines’ state-sanctioned killings of its citizens under President Rodrigo Duterte, hailed as “a journalistic masterpiece” ( The New Yorker )   “Tragic, elegant, vital . . . Evangelista risked her life to tell this story.”—Tara Westover, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated   FINALIST FOR THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY’S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Economist, Chicago Public Library, CrimeReads, The Mary Sue  “My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don’t wait very long.” Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte. Some People Need Killing is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines’ drug war. For six years, Evangelista documented the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs—a crusade that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of terror created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others. The book takes its title from a vigilante, whose words demonstrated the psychological accommodation many across the country had made: “I’m really not a bad guy,” he said. “I’m not all bad. Some people need killing.” A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an investigation into the human impulses to dominate and resist.

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Stealing America - Dinesh D'Souza Cover Art

Stealing America

Stealing America What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party by Dinesh D'Souza

#1 New York Times –bestselling Author: Why Hillary, Obama, and the entire Democratic Party are no better than a gang of thieves. In the fall of 2014, outspoken author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza found himself hauled into federal court for improperly donating money to an old friend’s Senate campaign. D’Souza pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight months in a state-run confinement center. There he lived among hardened criminals—drug dealers, thieves, gangbangers, rapists, and murderers. Now the bestselling author explains how this experience not only changed his life, but fundamentally transformed his view of his adopted country. Previously, D’Souza had seen America through the eyes of a grateful immigrant who became successful by applying and defending conservative principles. Again and again, D’Souza made the case that America is an exceptional nation, fundamentally fair and just. In book after book, he argued against liberalism as though it were a genuine movement of ideas capable of being engaged and refuted. But his prolonged exposure to the criminal underclass provided an eye-opening education in American realities. In the view of hardened criminals, D’Souza learned, America is anything but fair and just. Instead, it is a jungle in which various armed gangs face off against one another, with the biggest and most powerful gangs inhabiting the federal government. As for American liberalism, it is not a movement of ideas at all but a series of scams and cons aimed at nothing less than stealing the entire wealth of the nation, built up over more than two centuries: the total value of the homes, the lifelong savings of the people, the assets of every industry, and all the funds allocated to health and education and every other service, both public and private. “The thieves I am speaking about want all of it.” And who are the leading figures in this historically ambitious scam that has turned the federal government into a vast and unprecedented shakedown scheme? Why, none other than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. This pair of smooth-talking con artists, trained in the methods of radical activist Saul Alinsky, have taken his crude but effective political shakedown techniques to a level even he never dreamed of. Stealing America  is an urgent wakeup call for all Americans who want to prevent this theft from being completed.

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The Fourth Turning Is Here - Neil Howe Cover Art

The Fourth Turning Is Here

The Fourth Turning Is Here What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End by Neil Howe

The visionary behind the bestselling phenomenon The Fourth Turning looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in this startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has. Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly eighty to one hundred years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about twenty years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution. Now, right on schedule, our own fourth turning has arrived. And so Neil Howe has returned with an extraordinary new prediction. What we see all around us—the polarization, the growing threat of civil conflict and global war—will culminate by the early 2030s in a climax that poses great danger and yet also holds great promise, perhaps even bringing on America’s next golden age. Every generation alive today will play a vital role in determining how this crisis is resolved, for good or ill. Illuminating, sobering, yet ultimately empowering, The Fourth Turning Is Here takes you back into history and deep into the collective personality of each living generation to make sense of our current crisis, explore how all of us will be differently affected by the political, social, and economic challenges we’ll face in the decade to come, and reveal how our country, our communities, and our families can best prepare to meet these challenges head-on.

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The Return of Great Powers - Jim Sciutto Cover Art

The Return of Great Powers

The Return of Great Powers Russia, China, and the Next World War by Jim Sciutto

Instant New York Times Bestseller “An absorbing account of 21st-century brinkmanship . . . . one that should be read by every legislator or presidential nominee sufficiently deluded to think that returning America to its isolationist past or making chummy with Putin is a viable option in today’s world.” – New York Times Book Review The essential new book by CNN anchor and chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto, identifying a new, more uncertain global order with reporting on the frontlines of power from existing wars to looming ones across the globe. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dawned what Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History.” Three decades later, Jim Sciutto said on CNN’s air as the Ukraine war began, that we are living in a “1939 moment.” History never ended—it barely paused—and the global order as we long have known it is now gone. Powerful nations are determined to assert dominance on the world stage. And as their push for power escalates, a new order will affect everyone across the globe. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a part of it, but in reality, this power struggle impacts every corner of our world—from Helsinki to Beijing, from Australia to the North Pole. This is a battle with many fronts: in the Arctic, in the oceans and across the skies, on man-made islands and redrawn maps, and in tech and cyberspace.   Through globe-spanning, exclusive interviews with dozens of political, military, and intelligence leaders, Sciutto defines our times as a return of great power conflict, “a definitive break between the post–Cold War era and an entirely new and uncertain one.” With savvy, thorough, in-person reporting, he follows-up his 2019 bestseller, The Shadow War: Inside Russia’s and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America , which focused on the covert tactics of a hidden conflict.   The Return of Great Powers analyzes a historic and visible shift in real time. It details the realities of this new post–post–Cold War era, the increasingly aligned Russian and Chinese governments, and the flashpoint of a new, global nuclear arms race. And it poses a question: As we consider uncertain, even terrifying, outcomes, will it be possible for the West and Russia and China to prevent a new World War?

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We've Got Issues - Phillip C. McGraw Cover Art

We've Got Issues

We've Got Issues How You Can Stand Strong for America's Soul and Sanity by Phillip C. McGraw

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and beloved television host comes We’ve Got Issues: How You Can Stand Strong for America’s Soul and Sanity, a new book on how to come home to our core values, fortify our families, and re-embrace self-determination and self-governance. Do you think mainstream America needs to find its voice? If so, you’re not alone. The country is under attack by extremists at the fringes who put ideology before sanity and stoke division for their own gain. They are trying to rob America of its common sense and deny empirical truths, and we’re all suffering the consequences. In We’ve Got Issues: How You Can Stand Strong for America’s Soul and Sanity , Dr. Phil employs his signature no-nonsense approach to analyze America’s cultural crisis and offers practical, empirically based, action-oriented strategies to restore and support our country’s collective mental health. This compelling work combines a brutally honest look at the sustained attack on the core values that have defined America at its best and offers prescriptive guidance on what you can do in your own life to stop the madness. With his ten working principles for a healthy society, Dr. Phil provides the tools for mainstream America to fight back against the forces of division with sensible and urgently needed advice supported by the latest social, medical, and psychological findings. Dr. Phil demystifies the “tyranny of the fringe” and deconstructs their assault on the principles that made our nation prosperous, free, and powerful. With the hard-earned wisdom of years spent working with Americans of all backgrounds, Dr. Phil charts a course from cancel culture to counsel culture, from fear to acceptance, from victimhood to community, and from the tyranny of the fringe to a more civil society where we heal our divides and every one of us decides to be who we are on purpose. Dr. Phil is here to show us how.

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The Devil's Chessboard - David Talbot Cover Art

The Devil's Chessboard

The Devil's Chessboard Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government by David Talbot

An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful—and secretive—colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers. America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials—Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures. Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. An exposé of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.

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