Government Philosophy

Around the world today, nationalism is back - and it’s often deeply troubling. Populist politicians exploit nationalism for authoritarian, chauvinistic, racist, and xenophobic purposes, reinforcing the view that it is fundamentally reactionary and antidemocratic. But Yael (Yuli) Tamir makes a passionate argument for a very different kind of nationalism - one that revives its participatory, creative, and egalitarian virtues, answers many of the problems caused by neoliberalism and hyperglobalism, and is essential to democracy at its best.

Project President is a hilarious romp through American electoral history. From short, fat, bald John Adams' wig-throwing tantrums during the 1800 election to Abraham Lincoln's decision to grow a beard in 1860; from John F. Kennedy's choice to forgo the fedora at his inauguration to John Kerry's...

America's greatness comes from people working hard to fulfill their dreams. But today that greatness is being undermined by people using the government to steal other people's dreams (and money). Rather than participate and innovate in the marketplace, generating goods and services that benefit...

Named after Mahatma Gandhi's phrase for the schools of pre-colonial India, The Beautiful Tree recounts Tooley's journey from the largest shanty town in Africa to the hinterlands of Gansu, China. It introduces listeners to the families and teachers who taught him that the poor are not waiting for educational handouts. They are building their own schools and educating themselves.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky burst onto the world stage in November 1917 as coleader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized personalities of the 20th century, a global icon of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same Lev Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia and change the world? Where else? New York.

Margaret Wheatley proposes that citizens band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation. Turning to One Another encourages this process.

In this seminal work of political philosophy, Boétie asks one of the most obvious questions of political theory: Why is it that a minority of rulers can remain in power over a majority of subjects who pay all the taxes? The answer might be quite surprising to us all. The conclusion is that the people tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Liberty is the natural condition of the people. Servitude, however, is fostered when people are raised in subjection. It is we who enslave ourselves at the beck and call of "authority".

Against the Left explores something basic to libertarianism that many people today have forgotten. As everyone knows, libertarians view the state and the individual as fundamentally opposed. People who freely interact in the market create on their own a wonderful society that advances progress. In Against the Left, we examine some key battlegrounds in the struggle to preserve and advance real libertarianism against its enemies.

The ideological left is transforming America into something our founders never intended. Our national motto, E pluribus unum, "out of many, one," has been replaced with Ex uno, multi, "out of one, many." In divided America, it means identity consciousness reigns as we become polarized by calls for diversity, equity, and inclusion; that radical view is echoed by the intimidated business world, most media, the corrupted education establishment, and especially the deep-state big government.

FEAT DESC

If recent history has taught us anything, it's that sometimes the best guide to leadership is the negative example. But that insight is hardly new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Suetonius wrote Lives of the Caesars, perhaps the greatest negative leadership book of all time. In How to Be a Bad Emperor, Josiah Osgood provides crisp new translations of Suetonius's briskly paced, darkly comic biographies of the Roman emperors Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Entertaining and shocking, these ancient anti-role models show how power inflames leaders' worst tendencies.

From the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who finished writing this extraordinary book just days before her assassination, comes a groundbreaking vision of how to bridge the widening gap between the Islamic world and the West. Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007, after eight...

Here is a visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith have combined with the public sphere's degradation to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason. Never has there been a worse time for us to lose the capacity to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from national security to the economy, from issues of health and social welfare to the environment. As The Assault on Reason explains, we have precious little time to waste.

Anarcho-capitalism is the most exciting social philosophy of modern times. But how does it work? This book illuminates the ethical system at the heart of anarcho-capitalism. It builds the nonaggression principle from praxeological foundations and develops techniques for applying it to real world conflicts. It explores the edges of libertarianism to show where it shines and where it fails.

In four decades, bookended by the Pope’s visits to Ireland in September 1979 and August 2018, Ireland has become one of the wealthiest and most progressive nations in the world. Characteristically brilliant and timely, Renaissance Nation is a thrilling account of Ireland’s vertiginous rise and a timely exploration of its conflicted present, where stark decisions await the next generation of would-be revolutionaries.

Surviving the Future is a story drawn from the fertile ground of the late David Fleming's extraordinary Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It. That hardback consists of 404 interlinked dictionary entries, inviting listeners to choose their own path through its radical vision. Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure can be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has selected and edited one of these potential narratives to create Surviving the Future.

Why do politicians engage in nasty politics? Why do they use insult, accusations, intimidation, and in rare cases violence against their domestic political opponents? In Nasty Politics, Thomas Zeitzoff answers these questions by examining this global political trend in the US, Ukraine, and Israel and looking at how key leaders such as Trump, Zelensky, and Netanyahu use it. Nasty Politics highlights how it influences the kinds of politicians who run for office and deepens our understanding for why so many politicians now rely on outsized anger and withering insults for political gain.

Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party. These radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as "infidels" and "atheists" in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion.

Upward mobility through the path of higher education has been an article of faith for generations of working-class, low-income, and immigrant college students. While we know this path usually entails financial sacrifices and hard work, very little attention has been paid to the deep personal compromises such students have to make as they enter worlds vastly different from their own.

Musicians have often wanted to change the world, and many channel that desire through the political power of music. Music has a unique ability to unsettle the most fundamental political and social conventions - or, alternatively, to stabilize the status-quo. Sound System is the story of one musician’s journey to discover what exactly makes music so powerful. Years of touring, protesting, and performing have given Dave Randall an insider’s view of the music industry, enabling him to shed light on the most tightly held secrets of celebrity, commodification, and culture.