What's Our Problem?Tim Urban
- Genre: Political Science
- Publish Date: February 6, 2023
- Publisher: Wait But Why
- Buy on Apple Books | $15.99Buy on Amazon
The top most popular and best selling ebooks about politics and current events available at the Apple iBookstore. Chart of the top political and current event iBook best sellers is updated daily.
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What's Our Problem?Tim Urban
From the creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why, a fun and fascinating deep dive into what the hell is going on in our strange, unprecedented modern times. Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world’s most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articles about everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff? This massive topic sent Tim tumbling down his deepest rabbit hole yet, through mountains of history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience, and modern-day political movements, as he tried to figure out the answer to a simple question: What’s our problem? Six years later, he emerged from the hole holding this book. What’s Our Problem? is a deep and expansive analysis of our modern times, in the classic style of Wait But Why, packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and 300 drawings. The book provides an entirely new framework and language for thinking and talking about today’s complex world. Instead of focusing on the usual left-center-right horizontal political axis, which is all about what we think, the book introduces a vertical axis that explores how we think, as individuals and as groups. Readers will find themselves on a delightful and fascinating journey that will ultimately change the way they see the world around them. Anyway he wanted to say a lot more about all of this but there was a word limit on this book description so just go read the book.
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The Courage to Be FreeRon DeSantis
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER / #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER / #1 PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY BESTSELLER / #1 AMAZON BESTSELLER No American leader has accomplished more for his state than Governor Ron DeSantis. Now he reveals how he did it. He played baseball for Yale, graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, and served in Iraq and in the halls of Congress. But in all these places, Ron DeSantis learned the same lesson: He didn’t want to be part of the leftist elite. His heart was always for the people of Florida, one of the most diverse and culturally rich states in the union. Since becoming governor of the Sunshine State, he has fought—and won—battle after battle, defeating not just opposition from the political left, but a barrage of hostile media coverage proclaiming the end of the world. When he implemented COVID-19 policies based on evidence and focused on freedoms, the press launched a smear campaign against him, yet Florida’s economy thrived, its education system outperformed the nation, and Florida’s COVID mortality rate for seniors was lower than that in thirty-eight states. When he enacted policies to keep leftist political concepts like critical race theory and woke gender ideology out of Florida’s classrooms, the media demagogued his actions, but parents across Florida rallied to his cause. Dishonest attacks from the media don’t deter him. In fact, DeSantis keeps racking up wins for Floridians. In 2022, the governor delivered a historic, record-setting victory, winning by nearly 20 points and more than 1.5 million votes. A firsthand account from the blue-collar boy who grew up to take on Disney and Dr. Fauci, The Courage to Be Free delivers something rare from an elected leader: stories of victory. This book is a winning blueprint for patriots across the country. And it is a rallying cry for every American who wishes to preserve our liberties.
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Climate Cover-UpJames Hoggan & Richard Littlemore
This “must-read book describes in disturbing detail” how the energy industry has fueled a bogus controversy about manmade climate change ( Toronto Star ). This book rips the lid off the campaign to discredit scientists, confuse journalists, and deny climate change. The tactics have been slick, but PR expert James Hoggan and investigative journalist Richard Littlemore have compiled a readable, accessible guidebook through the muck. Beginning with leaked memos from the coal industry, the oil industry and the tobacco-sponsored lie-about-science industry, the authors expose the plans to "debunk" global warming; they track the execution of those plans; and they illuminate the results—confusion, inaction, and an epidemic of public mistrust. Climate Cover-Up names names, identifying bogus experts who are actually paid lobbyists and flaks. The authors reveal the PR techniques used to misinform, to mangle the language, and to intimidate the media into maintaining a phony climate change debate. Exposing the seedy origins of that debate, this book will leave you fuming at the extent, the effect, and the ethical affront of the climate cover-up.
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WildlandEvan Osnos
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER After a decade abroad, the National Book Award – and Pulitzer Prize – winning writer Evan Osnos returns to three places he has lived in the United States—Greenwich, CT; Clarksburg, WV; and Chicago, IL—to illuminate the origins of America’s political fury. Evan Osnos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first reporting from the Middle East before becoming the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then the China correspondent for The New Yorker . While abroad, he often found himself making a case for America, urging the citizens of Egypt, Iraq, or China to trust that even though America had made grave mistakes throughout its history, it aspired to some foundational moral commitments: the rule of law, the power of truth, the right of equal opportunity for all. But when he returned to the United States, he found each of these principles under assault. In search of an explanation for the crisis that reached an unsettling crescendo in 2020—a year of pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil—he focused on three places he knew firsthand: Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois. Reported over the course of six years, Wildland follows ordinary individuals as they navigate the varied landscapes of twenty-first-century America. Through their powerful, often poignant stories, Osnos traces the sources of America’s political dissolution. He finds answers in the rightward shift of the financial elite in Greenwich, in the collapse of social infrastructure and possibility in Clarksburg, and in the compounded effects of segregation and violence in Chicago. The truth about the state of the nation may be found not in the slogans of political leaders but in the intricate details of individual lives, and in the hidden connections between them. As Wildland weaves in and out of these personal stories, events in Washington occasionally intrude, like flames licking up on the horizon. A dramatic, prescient examination of seismic changes in American politics and culture, Wildland is the story of a crucible, a period bounded by two shocks to America’s psyche, two assaults on the country’s sense of itself: the attacks of September 11 in 2001 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans in three cities and across two decades, Osnos illuminates the country in a startling light, revealing how we lost the moral confidence to see ourselves as larger than the sum of our parts.
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Get TrumpAlan Dershowitz
In Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law, Alan Dershowitz—#1 New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—analyses the unremitting efforts by political opponents of Donald Trump to “get” him—to stop him from running in 2024—at any cost. Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek . Get Trump makes clear that unconstitutional efforts to stop Trump from retaking the presidency challenge the very foundations of our liberty: due process, right to counsel, and free speech. Those who justify these dangerous departures from the rule of law argue that the threat posed by a second Trump presidency is “different” and “immediate,” while the departures from constitutional norms are longer term and more abstract. Dershowitz explains that defenders of Trump’s constitutional rights—even those like him who oppose Trump politically—are sought to be silenced; their free speech rights attacked, their integrity questioned, and their careers threatened. Much of the media substitutes advocacy against Trump for objective reporting, while many in academia petition and propagandize against rights they previously valued—all in the interest of getting Trump. The essence of justice is that it must be equally applicable to all, Dershowitz notes. No one is above the law but digging to find crimes in order to influence an election does not constitute the equal application of the law. In order to assure equal application in comparable situations, he proposes two criteria for indicting a likely candidate of the opposing party: the Richard Nixon standard and the Hillary Clinton standard—and most recently, the Joe Biden standard. Get Trump warns that regardless of whether this anti-democratic effort to stop Trump from running succeeds or fails, it is likely to create dangerous precedents that will lie around like loaded weapons ready to be deployed against other controversial candidates, officials, or citizens about whom it can be argued that the danger they pose “is different.”
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Chip WarChris Miller
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. Here, In this paperback edition of the book, the author has added intriguing new material focused on "America's Chip Comeback,” which overviews the global consequences of the just passed CHIPS Act, the new export controls on China, and the effort to rally allies to better guard chip technology. Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study" (London Times).
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Mein KampfAdolf 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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It's OK to Be Angry About CapitalismSenator Bernie Sanders & John Nichols
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A progressive takedown of the uber-capitalist status quo that has enriched millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the working class, and a blueprint for what transformational change would actually look like It’s OK to be angry about capitalism. Reflecting on our turbulent times, Senator Bernie Sanders takes on the billionaire class and speaks blunt truths about our country’s failure to address the destructive nature of a system that is fueled by uncontrolled greed and rigidly committed to prioritizing corporate profits over the needs of ordinary Americans. Sanders argues that unfettered capitalism is to blame for an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality, is undermining our democracy, and is destroying our planet. How can we accept an economic order that allows three billionaires to control more wealth than the bottom half of our society? How can we accept a political system that allows the super rich to buy elections and politicians? How can we accept an energy system that rewards the fossil fuel corporations causing the climate crisis? Sanders believes that, in the face of these overwhelming challenges, the American people must ask tough questions about the systems that have failed us and demand fundamental economic and political change. This is where the path forward begins. It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism presents a vision that extends beyond the promises of past campaigns to reveal what would be possible if the political revolution took place, if we would finally recognize that economic rights are human rights, and if we would work to create a society that provides a decent standard of living for all. This isn’t some utopian fantasy; this is democracy as we should know it.
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The Rise of the Fourth ReichJim Marrs
Throw out everything you think you know about history. Close the approved textbooks, turn off the corporate mass media, and whatever you do, don't believe anything you hear from the government—The Rise of the Fourth Reich reveals the truth about American power. In this explosive new book, the legendary Jim Marrs, author of the underground bestseller Rule by Secrecy, reveals the frighteningly real possibility that today the United States is becoming the Fourth Reich, the continuation of an ideology thought to have been vanquished more than a half century ago. This concept may seem absurd to those who cannot see past the rose-colored spin, hype, and disinformation poured out daily by the media conglomerates—most of which are owned by the very same families and corporations who supported the Nazis before World War II. But as Marrs precisely explains, National Socialism never died, but rather its hideous philosophy is alive and active in modern America. Unfortunately, most people cannot understand the shadowy links between fascism and corporate power, the military, and our elected leaders. While the United States helped defeat the Germans in World War II, we failed to defeat the Nazis. At the end of the war, ranking Nazis, along with their young and fanatical protégés, used the loot of Europe to create corporate front companies in many countries, including the United States of America. Utilizing their stolen wealth, men with Nazi backgrounds and mentalities wormed their way into corporate America, slowly buying up and consolidating companies into giant multinational conglomerates. Many thousands of other Nazis came to the United States under classified programs such as Project Paperclip. They brought with them miraculous weapon technology that helped win the space race but they also brought their insidious Nazi philosophy within our borders. This ideology based on the authoritarian premise that the end justifies the means—including unprovoked wars of aggression and curtailment of individual liberties—has gained an iron hold in the "land of the free and the home of the brave." For the first time Jim Marrs has gathered compelling evidence that an effort has been underway for the past sixty years to bring a form of National Socialism to modern America, creating in essence a modern empire—or "Fourth Reich"!
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The U.S. Constitution with The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of ConfederationThe Founding Fathers
Collected here in one affordable volume are the most important documents of the United States of America: The Constitution of the United States of America, with the Bill of Rights and all of the Amendments; The Declaration of Independence; and the Articles of Confederation. These three documents are the basis for our entire way of life. Every citizen should have a copy.
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Final BattleDavid Horowitz
"My great friend and author of 'Dark Agenda,' David Horowitz, is out with a new book, 'Final Battle: The Next Election Could Be the Last.' It is great! Get your copy."—PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP “I could not be a bigger fan…David Horowitz has been telling the truth for decades, in a way that almost nobody else has been willing to.”—PETE HEGSETH “Nothing less than a handbook for the salvation of the United States of America.”—DENNIS PRAGER “Exposes the outrages perpetrated by the Biden Administration and the Democratic Left.”—DINESH D’SOUZA “An ominous warning about what the future may hold if the present course is not reversed. Don’t miss it.”—PETER SCHWEIZER Democrats have conducted a sustained assault on the spirit of compromise that binds the union together and set the nation on the path to a one-party state. Final Battle exposes the real threat that Democrats pose to freedom. The rise of socialism and critical race theory, coupled with threats to the Electoral College and Senate, an independent judiciary, and the integrity of the electoral system, now threaten to destroy the traditions that bring Americans together — the heart of our democracy. Attacks on these quintessentially American customs codified by the Founding Fathers undermine the possibility of bipartisan solutions to common problems like viral pandemics and civil disorders. Americans now speak in different and antagonistic political languages, and the two parties are so polarized that the American way of life itself is at risk. In his devastating exposé of the Democrats’ nefarious goals, New York Times bestselling author David Horowitz reveals the hallmarks of their strategies, including: The double standard in justice: Antifa and BLM versus January 6 Citizenship as disposable: granting noncitizens privileges like voting, welfare, and healthcare So-called “cancel culture” and collusion in the defamation of conservative voices “Empires and states rise and fall while everybody is watching. Although the watchers may be surprised when the actual collapse occurs, with the hindsight provided by the end itself, everybody can see how it fell.” Read Final Battle before it’s too late!
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The Fire Next TimeJames Baldwin
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movementin the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. • "The finest essay I’ve ever read.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle … all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.
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The Looming TowerLawrence Wright
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11” ( The New York Times Book Review ), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. A gripping narrative that spans five decades, The Looming Tower explains in unprecedented detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Lawrence Wright re-creates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John O’Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is the definitive history of the long road to September 11.
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People vs. Donald TrumpMark Pomerantz
People vs. Donald Trump is a fascinating inside account of the attempt to prosecute former president Donald Trump, written by one of the lawyers who worked on the case and resigned in protest when Manhattan’s district attorney refused to act. Mark Pomerantz was a retired lawyer living a calm suburban life when he accepted an unexpected offer to join the staff of the district attorney of New York County in February 2021 to work on the investigation of former president Donald Trump. The Manhattan DA was interested in Pomerantz because he brought vast experience in litigating white collar and organized crime cases, having worked as a federal prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney for decades. Pomerantz had prosecuted and defended cases involving murder, drug trafficking, political corruption, tax evasion, and financial fraud. His clients had included governors and senators, business leaders, financial institutions, and also gangsters and murderers. Over the next year, Pomerantz investigated the world of Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. He interviewed potential witnesses, scrutinized financial records, and learned everything he could about Trump’s business practices. The investigation led him to believe that the former president’s approach to business had much in common with the business practices of another well-known public figure—former mob boss John J. Gotti. Ultimately, Pomerantz gathered enough evidence to support the view—held by many of his colleagues on the case, including former Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.—that former president Donald Trump should be indicted for a number of financial crimes. But that indictment never happened. This book explains why. Pomerantz’s work ultimately led to the indictment of the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud. But that indictment was merely the prelude to a larger criminal case that Pomerantz urged the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, to bring against Donald Trump. When the DA refused to authorize that prosecution, Pomerantz and his colleague Carey Dunne resigned. Aspects of the case Pomerantz wanted to bring are currently being pursued against Trump by the attorney general of New York State in a civil fraud case that does not involve criminal penalties. In People vs. Donald Trump , Pomerantz tells the story of his unprecedented investigation, why he believes Donald Trump should be prosecuted, and what we can learn about the nature of justice in America from this extraordinary case. Pomerantz draws from a lifetime of legal experience to tell a devastating and frequently entertaining story of how prosecutors think, how criminals act, and how our justice system works—and sometimes doesn’t work. Pomerantz has written a cautionary tale that illuminates the challenges of prosecuting Donald Trump, why Trump manages to dance between the raindrops of accountability, and how others might bring him to justice.
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The Hundred-Year MarathonMichael Pillsbury
One of the U.S. government's leading China experts reveals the hidden strategy fueling that country's rise – and how Americans have been seduced into helping China overtake us as the world's leading superpower. For more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China's rise will bring us cooperation, diplomacy, and free trade. But what if the "China Dream" is to replace us, just as America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot? Based on interviews with Chinese defectors and newly declassified, previously undisclosed national security documents, The Hundred-Year Marathon reveals China's secret strategy to supplant the United States as the world's dominant power, and to do so by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. Michael Pillsbury, a fluent Mandarin speaker who has served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government since the days of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, draws on his decades of contact with the "hawks" in China's military and intelligence agencies and translates their documents, speeches, and books to show how the teachings of traditional Chinese statecraft underpin their actions. He offers an inside look at how the Chinese really view America and its leaders – as barbarians who will be the architects of their own demise. Pillsbury also explains how the U.S. government has helped – sometimes unwittingly and sometimes deliberately – to make this "China Dream" come true, and he calls for the United States to implement a new, more competitive strategy toward China as it really is, and not as we might wish it to be. The Hundred-Year Marathon is a wake-up call as we face the greatest national security challenge of the twenty-first century.
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The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New MillenniumMartin Gurri
In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process, and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence. “All over the world, elite institutions from governments to media to academia are losing their authority and monopoly control of information to dynamic amateurs and the broader public. This book, until now only in samizdat (and Kindle) form, has been my No. 1 handout for the last several years to anyone seeking to understand this unfolding shift in power from hierarchies to networks in the age of the internet.” —Marc Andreessen, cofounder, Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz “We are in an open war between publics with passionate and untutored interests and elites who believe they have the right to guide those publics. Gurri asks the essential question: Can liberal representative democracy survive the rise of the public?” —Roger Berkowitz, founder and academic director of the Hannah Arendt Center, professor of politics and human rights at Bard College
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The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its FutureTheodore 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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How to Blow Up a PipelineAndreas Malm
Property will cost us the earth The science on climate change has been clear for a very long time now. Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emission levels, and a rising temperature. With the stakes so high, why haven't we moved beyond peaceful protest? In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop--with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines. Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women's suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change. In a braided narrative that moves from the forests of Germany and the streets of London to the deserts of Iraq, Malm offers us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire.
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Disloyal: A MemoirMichael Cohen
A #1 New York Times Bestseller! "I read it cover-to-cover. I did not intend to, but I started at the beginning and didn’t put it down until it was over."—Rachel Maddow, MSNBC This book almost didn’t see the light of day as government officials tried to bar its publication. The Inside Story of the Real President Trump, by His Former Attorney and Personal Advisor—The Man Who Helped Get Him Into the Oval Office Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried. This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,” Cohen not only witnessed firsthand but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration. This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or electronic fraud by rigging an online survey, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches. He shows Trump’s relentless willingness to lie, exaggerate, mislead, or manipulate. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips off small business owners, a con man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country. At the heart of Disloyal , we see how Cohen came under the spell of his charismatic "Boss" and, as a result, lost all sense of his moral compass. The real "real" Donald Trump who permeates these pages—the racist, sexist, homophobic, lying, cheating President—will be discussed, written about, and analyzed for years to come.
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The Avoidable WarKevin Rudd
A war between China and the US would be catastrophic, deadly, and destructive. Unfortunately, it is no longer unthinkable. The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault—of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer, and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily. Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has studied, lived in, and worked with China for more than forty years, is one of the very few people who can offer real insight into the mindsets of the leadership whose judgment will determine if a war will be fought. The Avoidable War demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other. Geopolitical disaster is still avoidable, but only if these two giants can find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests through what Rudd calls “managed strategic competition.” Should they fail, down that path lies the possibility of a war that could rewrite the future of both countries, and the world.
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Still the Best HopeDennis Prager
Conservative radio host and syndicated columnist Dennis Prager provides a bold, sweeping look at the future of civilization with Still the Best Hope, and offers a strong, cogent argument for why basic American values must triumph in a dangerously uncertain world. Humanity stands at a crossroads, and the only alternatives to the “American Trinity” of liberty, natural rights, and the melting-pot ideal of national unity are Islamic totalitarianism, European democratic socialism, capitalist dictatorship, or global chaos if we should fail. America is Still the Best Hope, as this eminently sensible, profoundly inspiring volume so powerfully proves.
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SpeechlessMichael Knowles
“Every single American needs to read Michael Knowles’s Speechless. I don’t mean ‘read it eventually.’ I mean: stop what you’re doing and pick up this book.” — CANDACE OWENS "The most important book on free speech in decades—read it!” — SENATOR TED CRUZ A New Strategy: We Win, They Lose The Culture War is over, and the culture lost. The Left’s assault on liberty, virtue, decency, the Republic of the Founders, and Western civilization has succeeded. You can no longer keep your social media account—or your job—and acknowledge truths such as: Washington, Jefferson, and Columbus were great men. Schools and libraries should not coach children in sexual deviance. Men don’t have uteruses. How did we get to this point? Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire exposes and diagnosis the losing strategy we have fallen for and shows how we can change course—and start winning. In the groundbreaking Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Knowles reveals: How the “free speech absolutists” gave away the store The First Amendment does not require a value-neutral public square How the Communists figured out that their revolution could never succeed as long as the common man was attached to his own culture Where political correctness came from How, comply or resist, political correctness is a win-win game for the bad guys Why taking our stand on “freedom of speech” helps put atheism, decadence, and nonsense on the same plane with faith, virtue, and reality The real question: Will we shut down drag queen story hour, or cancel Abraham Lincoln? For 170 years the First Amendment was compatible with prayer in public school How the atheists got the Warren Court to rule their way To this day, there’s a First Amendment exception for obscenity. What exactly is the argument that perverts’ teaching toddlers to twerk is not obscene? Read Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds if you want to learn how to take the fight to the enemy.
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A WarningAnonymous
#1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller: An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation's capital. On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell essay and took the rare step of granting its writer anonymity. Described only as "a senior official in the Trump administration," the author provided eyewitness insight into White House chaos, administration instability, and the people working to keep Donald Trump's reckless impulses in check. With the 2020 election on the horizon, Anonymous is speaking out once again. In this book, the original author pulls back the curtain even further, offering a first-of-its-kind look at the president and his record -- a must-read before Election Day. It will surprise and challenge both Democrats and Republicans, motivate them to consider how we judge our nation's leaders, and illuminate the consequences of re-electing a commander in chief unfit for the role. This book is a sobering assessment of the man in the Oval Office and a warning about something even more important -- who we are as a people.
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Half the SkyNicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation—the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. F rom the bestselling authors of Tightrope, two of our most fiercely moral voices With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS. Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.
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The Ages of GlobalizationJeffrey D. Sachs
Today’s most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity’s story has always been on a global scale. In this book, Jeffrey D. Sachs, renowned economist and expert on sustainable development, turns to world history to shed light on how we can meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Sachs takes readers through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today’s globalization. Along the way, he considers how the interplay of geography, technology, and institutions influenced the Neolithic revolution; the role of the horse in the emergence of empires; the spread of large land-based empires in the classical age; the rise of global empires after the opening of sea routes from Europe to Asia and the Americas; and the industrial age. The dynamics of these past waves, Sachs demonstrates, offer fresh perspective on the ongoing processes taking place in our own time—a globalization based on digital technologies. Sachs emphasizes the need for new methods of international governance and cooperation to prevent conflicts and to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives aligned with sustainable development. The Ages of Globalization is a vital book for all readers aiming to make sense of our rapidly changing world.
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The Triple AgentJoby Warrick
A stunning narrative account of the mysterious Jordanian who penetrated both the inner circle of al-Qaeda and the highest reaches of the CIA, with a devastating impact on the war on terror. In December 2009, a group of the CIA’s top terrorist hunters gathered at a secret base in Khost, Afghanistan, to greet a rising superspy: Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian double-agent who infiltrated the upper ranks of al-Qaeda. For months, he had sent shocking revelations from inside the terrorist network and now promised to help the CIA assassinate Osama bin Laden’s top deputy. Instead, as he stepped from his car, he detonated a thirty-pound bomb strapped to his chest, instantly killing seven CIA operatives, the agency’s worst loss of life in decades. In The Triple Agent , Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Joby Warrick takes us deep inside the CIA’s secret war against al-Qaeda, a war that pits robotic planes and laser-guided missiles against a cunning enemy intent on unleashing carnage in American cities. Flitting precariously between the two sides was Balawi, a young man with extraordinary gifts who managed to win the confidence of hardened terrorists as well as veteran spymasters. With his breathtaking accounts from inside al-Qaeda’s lair, Balawi appeared poised to become America’s greatest double-agent in half a century—but he was not at all what he seemed. Combining the powerful momentum of Black Hawk Down with the institutional insight of Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side , Warrick takes the readers on a harrowing journey from the slums of Amman to the inner chambers of the White House in an untold true story of miscalculation, deception, and revenge.
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The Tyranny of MeritMichael J. Sandel
A Times Literary Supplement ’s Book of the Year 2020 A New Statesman 's Best Book of 2020 A Bloomberg 's Best Book of 2020 A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020 The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.
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The Five Thousand Year LeapW. Cleon Skousen
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America created the first free people in modern times. They wrote a new kind of Constitution which is now the oldest in existence. They built a new kind of commonwealth designed as a model for the whole human race. They believed it was thoroughly possible to create a new kind of civilization; giving freedom, equality, and justice to all. The Founders created a new cultural climate that gave wings to the human spirit. They built a free-enterprise culture to encourage industry and prosperity. They gave humanity the needed ingredients for a gigantic 5,000-year leap in which more progress has been made in the past 200 years than all of prior recorded human history. All of this came about because of 28 basic principles the Founders discovered, upon which all free nations must be built in order to succeed. This eBook includes the original index, illustrations, footnotes, table of contents and page numbering from the printed format.
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The Nordic Theory of EverythingAnu Partanen
A Finnish journalist, now a naturalized American citizen, asks Americans to draw on elements of the Nordic way of life to nurture a fairer, happier, more secure, and less stressful society for themselves and their children Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life—from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare—was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first, she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension. To understand why life is so different in the U.S. and Finland, Partanen began to look closely at both. In The Nordic Theory of Everything, Partanen compares and contrasts life in the United States with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships—parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens. She debunks criticism that Nordic countries are socialist “nanny states,” revealing instead that it is we Americans who are far more enmeshed in unhealthy dependencies than we realize. As Partanen explains step by step, the Nordic approach allows citizens to enjoy more individual freedom and independence than we do. Partanen wants to open Americans’ eyes to how much better things can be—to show her beloved new country what it can learn from her homeland to reinvigorate and fulfill the promise of the American dream—to provide the opportunity to live a healthy, safe, economically secure, upwardly mobile life for everyone. Offering insights, advice, and solutions, The Nordic Theory of Everything makes a convincing argument that we can rebuild our society, rekindle our optimism, and restore true freedom to our relationships and lives.
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Pity the BillionaireThomas Frank
From the bestselling author of What's the Matter with Kansas? , a wonderfully insightful and sardonic look at why the worst economy since the 1930s has brought about the revival of conservatism Economic catastrophe usually brings social protest and demands for change—or at least it's supposed to. But when Thomas Frank set out in 2009 to look for expressions of American discontent, all he could find were loud demands that the economic system be made even harsher on the recession's victims and that society's traditional winners receive even grander prizes. The American Right, which had seemed moribund after the election of 2008, was strangely reinvigorated by the arrival of hard times. The Tea Party movement demanded not that we question the failed system but that we reaffirm our commitment to it. Republicans in Congress embarked on a bold strategy of total opposition to the liberal state. And TV phenom Glenn Beck demonstrated the commercial potential of heroic paranoia and the purest libertarian economics. In Pity the Billionaire , Frank, the great chronicler of American paradox, examines the peculiar mechanism by which dire economic circumstances have delivered wildly unexpected political results. Using firsthand reporting, a deep knowledge of the American Right, and a wicked sense of humor, he gives us the first full diagnosis of the cultural malady that has transformed collapse into profit, reconceived the Founding Fathers as heroes from an Ayn Rand novel, and enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the prosperous. The understanding Frank reaches is at once startling, original, and profound.
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The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Martin Malia & Stephen Kotkin
Featuring an extensive, provocative introduction by historian Martin Malia, this authorized English translation of The Communist Manifesto , edited and annotated by Engels, with prefaces to editions published between 1872 and 1888, provides a new opportunity to examine the document that shook the world. In 1848, two young men published what would become one of the defining documents of modern history, The Communist Manifesto . It rapidly realigned political faultlines all over the world and its aftershock resonates to this day. In the many years since its publication, no other social program has inspired such divisive and violent debate. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world’s first regime to adopt the Manifesto’s tenets, historians have debated its intent and its impact. In the current era of market democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe, nationalism on every continent, and an ever tightening global economy, does the specter of Communism still haunt the world? Were the seeds of Communism’s ultimate destruction already planted in 1848? Is there anything to be learned from Marx’s envisioned utopia? With an Introduction by Martin Malia and an Afterword by Stephen Kotkin
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The BreachDenver Riggleman
Instant New York Times Bestseller “Winners make history.” —Kevin McCarthy Make no mistake: modern information warfare is here and January 6th was just the first battle. That day, an unhinged mindset led to an attack on the Capitol, the most serious assault on American democracy since the end of the Civil War. And that thinking portends even darker days ahead. In The Breach , a former House Republican and the first member of Congress to sound the alarm about QAnon, Denver Riggleman, provides readers with an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the January 6th select committee’s investigation. Riggleman, who joined the committee as senior technical advisor after he was asked to help, lays out the full intent and scope of the plot to overturn the election. The book includes previously unpublished texts from key political leaders. And it also contains shocking details about the Trump White House’s links to militant extremist groups—even during the almost-eight-hour period on January 6th when the White House supposedly had no phone calls. The man responsible for unearthing Mark Meadows’s infamous texts shows how data analysis shapes the contours of our new war, telling how the committee uncovered many of its explosive findings and sharing revealing stories from his time in the Trump-era GOP. With unique insights from within the far-right movement and from the front lines of the courageous team investigating it, Riggleman shows how our democracy is balanced on a knife’s edge between disinformation and truth. Here is a revelatory peek at the inner workings of the January 6th committee and a clear-eyed look at the existential threats facing our republic—and a blueprint for how America can fight to survive the darkest night before the dawn.
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Gray DayEric O'Neill
A cybersecurity expert and former FBI “ghost” tells the thrilling story of how he helped take down notorious FBI mole Robert Hanssen, the first Russian cyber spy. “Both a real-life, tension-packed thriller and a persuasive argument for traditional intelligence work in the information age.”—Bruce Schneier, New York Times bestselling author of Data and Goliath and Click Here to Kill Everybody Eric O’Neill was only twenty-six when he was tapped for the case of a lifetime: a one-on-one undercover investigation of the FBI’s top target, a man suspected of spying for the Russians for nearly two decades, giving up nuclear secrets, compromising intelligence, and betraying US assets. With zero training in face-to-face investigation, O’Neill found himself in a windowless, high-security office in the newly formed Information Assurance Section, tasked officially with helping the FBI secure its outdated computer system against hackers and spies—and unofficially with collecting evidence against his new boss, Robert Hanssen, an exacting and rage-prone veteran agent with a fondness for handguns. In the months that follow, O’Neill’s self-esteem and young marriage unravel under the pressure of life in Room 9930, and he questions the very purpose of his mission. But as Hanssen outmaneuvers an intelligence community struggling to keep up with the new reality of cybersecurity, he also teaches O’Neill the game of spycraft. The student will just have to learn to outplay his teacher if he wants to win. A tension-packed stew of power, paranoia, and psychological manipulation, Gray Day is also a cautionary tale of how the United States allowed Russia to become dominant in cyberespionage—and how we might begin to catch up.
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The Utopia of RulesDavid Graeber
From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.
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The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False PropheciesJosef Joffe
“A bracing and intelligent reminder that, for all its woes, America remains extraordinarily dynamic, innovative, and resilient.”—Fareed Zakaria Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of 2013, The Myth of America’s Decline is a highly provocative look at how the United States, for all its failings, continues to be the leading business, political, and intellectual model for all other nations. In a world where America bashers constantly chortle that the United States is in decline, Josef Joffe, using lively historical examples and empirical economic models, demonstrates that these doomsday contentions are flawed, and that America—even when compared with a resurgent China—is the land where the future is being born.
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The Origins Of TotalitarianismHannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism—an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history. The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.
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One Thought Scares Me...Richard Dreyfuss
We’ve let the meaning of America be reduced to guesswork. It might not be too late. Our democratic republic is failing, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. We can’t fly a plane without training; we can’t practice medicine without attending medical school. And yet we expect the American people to wield the full power of their citizenship, the product of the most revolutionary governmental thinking in human history, without any education. We no longer teach our children the Bill of Rights or Constitution. We don’t teach the Enlightenment values that underpin them. We don’t teach the critical thinking skills and mental agility necessary for our own sovereignty. We’ve stopped teaching civics, and now we can’t have a civil political discussion. The American experiment may fail if we don’t act. Richard Dreyfuss is a forceful advocate for civic education. His latest work, One Thought Scares Me… , explains how the lack of civics education in American education for the last fifty years has led to the deterioration of all aspects of the lives of us, the people. And it shows us the path to reclaiming our American ideals.
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Culture and ImperialismEdward W. Said
A landmark work from the author of Orientalism that explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the Western powers built empires that stretched from Australia to the West Indies, Western artists created masterpieces ranging from Mansfield Park to Heart of Darkness and Aida. Yet most cultural critics continue to see these phenomena as separate. Edward Said looks at these works alongside those of such writers as W. B. Yeats, Chinua Achebe, and Salman Rushdie to show how subject peoples produced their own vigorous cultures of opposition and resistance. Vast in scope and stunning in its erudition, Culture and Imperialism reopens the dialogue between literature and the life of its time.
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Triple CrossPeter Lance
"A chilling account of a killer who slipped through the hands of a daft justice system….Triple Cross chronicles one of the most vicious spies of our time."—Toronto Sun In the years prior to 2001, no single agent of al Qaeda was more successful in compromising the U.S. intelligence community than Ali Mohamed. For almost two decades the former Egyptian army commando succeeded in living a double life—marrying an American woman, becoming a naturalized citizen, and infiltrating the CIA in Europe, the Green Berets at Fort Bragg, and the FBI in California—even as he helped orchestrate the campaign of terror that culminated in the 9/11 attacks. Triple Cross is award-winning investigative reporter Peter Lance's chilling true account of the career of the master spy known to his al Qaeda brothers as "Ali the American"—an explosive narrative revealing the gaping holes in our nation's security net. Finally, coming off his previous FBI exposé, Cover Up, Lance also chronicles the collapse of the Brooklyn murder trial of former FBI agent Lin DeVecchio, a case that could well have revolutionized public understanding of the background of 9/11.
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The Conquest of BreadPeter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin was born a Russian prince whose father owned 1,200 serfs. As he aged, he came to hate the inequality in his society, and renounced his royal title. He was imprisoned and spent decades in exile for his views, which he has laid out in this book. He points out the flaws inherent in feudalism and capitalism, and how our current economic system creates poverty and scarcity even though there are enough resources for everybody, and outlines a better system based on people working together as a society.
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Created EqualMichael Pack & Mark Paoletta
Drawing on historical documents and exclusive interviews, authors tell the inspiring story of Clarence Thomas's rise from a childhood of poverty and prejudice in the segregated South to Supreme Court Justice. Companion to blockbuster documentary Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, but a fascinating stand alone read, as well! *The full story behind the wildly successful documentary film, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words* Born into dire poverty in the segregated South and abandoned by his father as a child, Justice Clarence Thomas triumphed over seemingly insurmountable odds to become one of the most influential justices on the Supreme Court. Yet after three decades of honorable service, few know him beyond his contentious confirmation and the surrounding media firestorm. Who is Justice Clarence Thomas, in his own words? In the follow-up to the wildly successful documentary by the same name, Created Equal builds on dozens of hours of groundbreaking, one-on-one interviews with Thomas to share a new, expanded account of his powerful story for the first time. Producer Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta, a lawyer who worked alongside Thomas during his confirmation, dive deep into the Justice’s story. Drawing on a rich array of historical documents and unreleased conversations with Thomas, his wife, and those who knew him best, Created Equal is a timeless account of faith, race, power, and personal resilience.
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The Whole PictureAlice Procter
"Probing, jargon-free and written with the pace of a detective story... [Procter] dissects western museum culture with such forensic fury that it might be difficult for the reader ever to view those institutions in the same way again. " Financial Times 'A smart, accessible and brilliantly structured work that encourages readers to go beyond the grand architecture of cultural institutions and see the problematic colonial histories behind them.' - Sumaya Kassim Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall? How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today. The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.
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Do What You LoveMiya Tokumitsu
The American claim that we should love and be passionate about our job may sound uplifting, or at least, harmless, but Do What You Love exposes the tangible damages such rhetoric has leveled upon contemporary society. Virtue and capital have always been twins in the capitalist, industrialized West. Our ideas of what the “virtues” of pursuing success in capitalism have changed dramatically over time. In the past, we believed that work undertaken with an ethos of industriousness promised financial stability and basic comfort and security for our families. Now, our working life is conflated with the pursuit of pleasure. Fantastically successful—and popular—entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey command us. “You’ve got to love what you do,” Jobs tells an audience of college grads about to enter the workforce, while Winfrey exhorts her audience to “live your best life.” The promises made to today’s workers seem so much larger and nobler than those of previous generations. Why settle for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage and a perfectly functional eight-year-old car when you can get rich becoming your “best” self and have a blast along the way? But workers today are doing more and more for less and less. This reality is frighteningly palpable in eroding paychecks and benefits, the rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny few, and workers’ loss of control over their labor conditions. But where is the protest and anger from workers against a system that tells them to love their work and asks them to do it for less? While winner-take-all capitalism grows ever more ruthless, the rhetoric of passion for labor proliferates. In Do What You Love , Tokumitsu articulates and examines the sacrifices people make for a chance at loveable, self-actualizing, and, of course, wealth-generating work and the conditions facilitated by this pursuit. This book continues the conversation sparked by the author’s earlier Slate article and provides a devastating look at the state of modern America’s labor and workforce.
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The Society of the SpectacleGuy Debord & Fredy Perlman
'The Debordian analysis of modern life resonates more deeply and darkly than perhaps even its creator thought possible...' - The New Yorker 'Never before has Debord's work seemed quite as relevant as it does now' - The Guardian 'Guy Debord is a time bomb, and a difficult one to defuse.' - Michael Löwy First published in 1967, Guy Debord's stinging revolutionary critique of contemporary society, The Society of the Spectacle has since acquired a cult status. The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text, and the main theoretical work of the Situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960's up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life. 'In Society of the Spectacle, Debord sets out his best-known statement of how the categories of capitalism colonise everyday life to such an extent that we can barely imagine an existence beyond them.' - Sydney Review of Books 'The Society of the Spectacle [is] about not just the clamor of images but also the silence of power, a silence which, since the seventies, has become deafening.' - McKenzie Wark 'Never before has Debord's work seemed quite as relevant as it does now, in the permanent present that he so accurately foretold? Open his book, read it, be amazed, pour yourself a glass of supermarket wine - as he would wish - and then forget all about it, which is what the Spectacle wants.' - Will Self 'In The Society of the Spectacle, Debord made plain that a 'unified critique of culture' implied a critique of the social totality. This was his practico-theoretical method throughout his career as a revolutionary: he saw no distinction between cultural work and political work.' - Bruce Russell 'I read [The Society of the Spectacle] again and I thought, "This is a f*****g amazing book!" I had forgotten how terrific it was, and it was actually quite different to how I remembered it. I insist that the key chapter is not the first one, on the spectacle itself, but the second to last - the chapter on détournement. To me, that concept is the great gift of the Situationists. [They] realized that one can exploit this critically - one can copy and correct in the direction of hope.' - Los Angeles Review of Books About the author Guy Debord (1931-1994) was a Marxist theorist, writer, poet, filmmaker, hypergraphist, cultural revolutionary and a founding member of the Lettrist International and Situationist International - groups that fused avant-garde art and politics as an anti-capitalist weapon. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Debord's Society of the Spectacle, which decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and contemporary life.
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How To Win A Local Election, RevisedM. Andrew Grey
Revised and updated, this is the most practical, most detailed handbook ever published on the techniques and approaches you need to run a successful campaign for any local office.
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NSA SecretsThe Washington Post
The Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation into surveillance abuses and the Edward Snowden case that brought them to light. The NSA's extensive surveillance program has led Americans to question threats to their privacy. As reported by the Washington Post , in their Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of whistleblower Edward Snowden's NSA leaks, NSA Secrets delves into the shadowy world of information gathering, exposing how data about you is being collected every day. From his earliest encrypted exchanges with reporters, Edward Snowden knew he was a man in danger. Sitting on a mountain of incriminating evidence about the NSA surveillance programs, Snowden was prepared to risk his freedom, and his very life, to let the world know about the perceived overreach of the NSA and the massive collection of personal information that was carried out in the name of national security by the U.S. government. The Washington Post ’s complete coverage of the NSA spying scandal, which it helped break, is now collected in one place to give as comprehensive a view of the story as is known. From the first contact with Snowden to the latest revelations in worldwide cellphone tracking, the award-winning reporters at the Post have vigorously reported on the scope of the NSA’s surveillance. Snowden called the internet “a TV that watches you,” and accused the government of “abusing [it] in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate.” Here, the secrets of those who tried in vain to remain in the shadows are revealed.
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We RiseXiuhtezcatl Martinez
Challenge the status quo, change the face of activism, and confront climate change head on with the ultimate blueprint for taking action. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is a 16-year-old climate activist, hip-hop artist, and powerful new voice on the frontlines of a global youth-led movement. He and his group the Earth Guardians believe that today’s youth will play an important role in shaping our future. They know that the choices made right now will have a lasting impact on the world of tomorrow, and people—young and old—are asking themselves what they can do to ensure a positive, just, and sustainable future. We Rise tells these stories and addresses the solutions. Beginning with the empowering story of the Earth Guardians and how Xiuhtezcatl has become a voice for his generation, We Rise explores many aspects of effective activism and provides step-by-step information on how to start and join solution-oriented movements. With conversations between Xiuhtezcatl and well-known activists, revolutionaries, and celebrities, practical advice for living a more sustainable lifestyle, and ideas and tools for building resilient communities, We Rise is an action guide on how to face the biggest problems of today, including climate change, fossil fuel extraction, and industrial agriculture. If you are interested in creating real and tangible change, We Rise will give you the inspiration and information you need to do your part in making the world a better place and leave you asking, What kind of legacy do I want to leave?
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The Struggle for CataloniaRaphael Minder
Every year on 11 September, Catalonia celebrates its Diada, its National Day. But the Diada of 2012 was like none other, as an enormous crowd calling for Catalan independence took over the heart of Barcelona. Despite the carnival-like atmosphere that day, the people were very serious about their demands. On the back of this show of force, Catalonia's governing politicians turned secessionist claims into a new headache for a government in Madrid that had only just survived a near-meltdown of Spain's financial system. Four years later, the separatist challenge has neither come to fruition, nor faded away. This book looks at how and why Catalan separatism reached the top of Spain's political agenda, as well as its connection to the broader European malaise generated by flawed political responses to financial and other crises. Through extensive travel and reporting, as well as over fifty interviews with leading Catalan personalities, Raphael Minder explains how Catalans feel about their economy, history and culture, and how secessionist forces have tried to reshape Catalan identity.
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The Care ManifestoThe Care Collective, Andreas Chatzidakis, Jamie Hakim, Jo Litter & Catherine Rottenberg
We are in the midst of a global crisis of care. How do we get out of it? The Care Manifesto puts care at the heart of the debates of our current crisis: from intimate care--childcare, healthcare, elder care--to care for the natural world. We live in a world where carelessness reigns, but it does not have to be this way. The Care Manifesto puts forth a vision for a truly caring world. The authors want to reimagine the role of care in our everyday lives, making it the organising principle in every dimension and at every scale of life. We are all dependent on each other, and only by nurturing these interdependencies can we cultivate a world in which each and every one of us can not only live but thrive. The Care Manifesto demands that we must put care at the heart of the state and the economy. A caring government must promote collective joy, not the satisfaction of individual desire. This means the transformation of how we organise work through co-operatives, localism and nationalisation. It proposes the expansion of our understanding of kinship for a more 'promiscuous care'. It calls for caring places through the reclamation of public space, to make a more convivial city. It sets out an agenda for the environment, most urgent of all, putting care at the centre of our relationship to the natural world.
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Billions of EntrepreneursTarun Khanna
China and India are home to one-third of the world's population. And they're undergoing social and economic revolutions that are capturing the best minds--and money--of Western business. In Billions of Entrepreneurs, Tarun Khanna examines the entrepreneurial forces driving China's and India's trajectories of development. He shows where these trajectories overlap and complement one another--and where they diverge and compete. He also reveals how Western companies can participate in this development. Through intriguing comparisons, the author probes important differences between China and India in areas such as information and transparency, the roles of capital markets and talent, public and private property rights, social constraints on market forces, attitudes toward expatriates abroad and foreigners at home, entrepreneurial and corporate opportunities, and the importance of urban and rural communities. He explains how these differences will influence China's and India's future development, what the two countries can learn from each other, and how they will ultimately reshape business, politics, and society in the world around them. Engaging and incisive, this book is a critical resource for anyone working in China or India or planning to do business in these two countries.