Freedom Democracy

An expert on American authoritarianism offers a searing rebuke of the exceptional narrative that dominates our understanding of US history. In 12 lessons, Matthew C. MacWilliams' On Fascism exposes the divisive rhetoric, strongman tactics, violent othering, and authoritarian attitudes that...

Education is Freedom explores the transformative power of education and its ability to liberate individuals and societies from the constraints of ignorance, inequality, and oppression. In this book, author James Keyes explores the ways education empowers people to take control of their lives, to pursue their dreams, and to contribute to the world in meaningful and fulfilling ways. He provides a roadmap to the “why,” “what,” and “how” of learning.

As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny, and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism?

The Ghosts of Langley is a provocative and panoramic new history of the Central Intelligence Agency that relates the agency's current predicament to its founding and earlier years, telling the story of the agency through the eyes of key figures in CIA history, including some of its most troubling covert actions around the world. It reveals how the agency, over seven decades, has resisted government accountability, going rogue in a series of highly questionable ventures that reach their apotheosis with secret overseas prisons and torture programs.

The inside story of how our political class enabled an era of unaccountable corporate might that left ordinary Americans isolated and powerless—and how we can fight back—from the acclaimed author of The Unbroken Thread “In Tyranny, Inc., Sohrab Ahmari, one of the leading thinkers of our...

A “timely and brilliant original” (Michael B. Mukasey, former US attorney general) look at freedom of speech—our most basic right and the one that protects all the others. Free speech is a human right, and the free expression of thought is at the very essence of being human. The United...

Senator Frank Church of Idaho was an unlikely hero. He led congressional opposition to the Vietnam War and had become a scathing, radical critic of what he saw as American imperialism around the world. But he was still politically ambitious, privately yearning for acceptance from the foreign policy establishment that he hated and eager to run for president. Despite his flaws, Church would show historic strength in his greatest moment, when in the wake of Watergate he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community.

Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, Marine Le Pen, Hugo Chávez - populists are on the rise across the globe. But what exactly is populism? Should everyone who criticizes Wall Street or Washington be called a populist? What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? In this groundbreaking volume, Jan-Werner Müller argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism.

From award-winning journalist Jack Shenker, The Egyptians is the essential book about Egypt and radical politics. In early 2011 Cairo's Tahrir Square briefly commanded the attention of the world. Half a decade later, the international media has largely moved on from Egypt's explosive cycles of revolution and counter-revolution - but the Arab world's most populous nation remains as volatile as ever, its turmoil intimately bound up with forms of authoritarian power and grassroots resistance that stretch right across the globe.

It has long been a truism that prior to George W. Bush, politics stopped at the water's edge - that is, that partisanship had no place in national security. In Arsenal of Democracy, historian Julian E. Zelizer shows this to be demonstrably false: Partisan fighting has always shaped American foreign policy and the issue of national security has always been part of our domestic conflicts.

The United States is being bombarded with cyber-attacks. From the surge in ransomware groups targeting critical infrastructure to nation states compromising the software supply chain and corporate email servers, malicious cyber activities have reached an all-time high. Russia attracts the most attention, but China is vastly more sophisticated. They have a common interest in exploiting the openness of the Internet and social media—and our democracy—to erode confidence in our institutions and to exacerbate our societal rifts to prevent us from mounting an effective response.

The untold story of generations of Middle Eastern freedom fighters—horsewomen who safeguarded an ancient breed of Caspian horse—and their efforts to defend their homelands from the Taliban and others seeking to destroy them. "A breathtaking book that revisits nearly one hundred years of...

This program is read by the author. "A necessary discourse about power and control, and who ultimately has a voice versus whose is often stifled." —Preston D. Mitchum, LGBTQIA attorney, activist, and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University The first major case for cancel culture as a...

Learn about how the dichotomous twins of idealism and pragmatism, of freedom and power, and of hope and fear are pitched against each other, wrestling for the future of Cambodia. This is Cambodia through the lens of human stories in what journalists and politicians have called 'gripping', 'a tour de force' and 'a must read'.

They Know Everything About You is a groundbreaking exposé of how government agencies and tech corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce defense of privacy and democracy. The revelation that the government has access to a vast trove of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a surveillance society. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government.

A “gripping and important” (The Guardian) account of nine tumultuous days, as the assassination of Nelson Mandela’s protégé by a white supremacist threatens to derail South Africa’s democratic transition and plunge the nation into civil war. Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson...

Historian David Williams has written the first account of the American Civil War as viewed though the eyes of ordinary people - foot soldiers, slaves, women, prisoners of war, draft resisters, Native Americans, and others. Richly illuminated with little-known anecdotes and firsthand testimony, this path-breaking narrative moves beyond presidents and generals to tell a new and powerful story about America's most destructive conflict.

In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, best-selling author Naomi Wolf illustrates the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells you how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately the nation.

Interventions, by Noam Chomsky, is getting new press after the Pentagon banned the book from Guantanamo Bay's prison library. Interventions is Noam Chomsky at his best. Not since his all-time best-selling title, 9/11, published in the Open Media series in 2001, have readers and listeners had a timely, short, affordable Chomsky. Unlike 9/11, Interventions is a writerly work - a series of more than 30 tightly argued essays aimed at various aspects of U.S. power and politics in the post-9/11 world. While critical of U.S. military interventions around the globe, each piece in the book is in itself an intellectual intervention.

John Perry Barlow’s wild ride with the Grateful Dead was just part of a Zelig-like life that took him from a childhood as ranching royalty in Wyoming to membership in the Internet Hall of Fame as a digital free speech advocate. Mother American Night is the wild, funny, heartbreaking, and often...