Political Biographies

Researchers spend most of their time mired in the "messy middle" of science, the opposite of a Eureka moment. It is these hidden stories that science journalist Roberta Kwok uncovers in Lost in Curiosity. The word "science" often brings to mind the image of a lone genius struck with a brilliant...

The Bureau takes listeners behind the scenes of the FBI, from its creation in 1908 to the scandals of present day. Based on exclusive interviews, Kessler reveals the inside story surrounding the events of September 11 and the investigation into the anthrax mailings. The Bureau delves deep within the agency, presenting the organization in its historical context and answering questions concerning its somewhat checkered past.

“A rare voice, someone who challenges orthodoxies in the way that many journalists and public intellectuals claim to do but don’t. It is bracing to spend time in the company of such a smart, plain-spoken and unpredictable person.”—Wall Street Journal A striking collection of essays from...

From the admired judicial authority, author of Louis D. Brandeis (“Remarkable”—Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books; “Monumental”—Alan M. Dershowitz, The New York Times Book Review), Division and Discord, and Supreme Decisions—Melvin Urofsky’s major new book looks at the...

For nearly 90 years, Lord Charnwood’s Abraham Lincoln has been the standard life history of the Great Emancipator. It has become one of the great classics of modern biography and has been read by millions. Charnwood describes the frontier life and continual self-education that developed Lincoln’s rare character and helped him to adapt to great events and demands such as few other men have experienced. Lincoln’s administrative genius, his war strategy, and his neglect of the lesser for the greater are all treated in this masterly portrait.

The landmark New York Times bestselling biography of Richard M. Nixon, a political savant whose gaping character flaws would drive him from the presidency and forever taint his legacy. “A biography of eloquence and breadth . . . No single volume about Nixon’s long and interesting life...

Ronald Reagan carried a conservative vision of America to the White House, where his administration gave it life. Peggy Noonan followed Reagan to Washington as his speechwriter— and gave his vision voice. As speech writer for George Bush during his Presidential campaign, Noonan dispelled her candidate's "wimpy" image and replaced it with one of quiet strength by coining such eloquent phrases as "a thousand points of light" and "a kinder, gentler nation."

In a sense, Cnut the Great was practically destined for greatness, if only because he came from a distinguished Danish royal family. Cnut's father was Sweyn Forkbeard, and his grandfather was Harald Bluetooth, both prominent and legendary kings of Denmark. Thanks to his background and his abilities, Cnut became the most prominent of the Danish kings of England, but he was also, at times, king of Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden.

1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father's wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad, when Mum and the four closely connected Wood girls are set adrift. Funny and to-the-bone moving, When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum's youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply.

When Lions Roar begins in the mid-1930s at Chartwell, Winston Churchill's country estate, with new revelations surrounding a secret business deal orchestrated by Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of future American president John F. Kennedy. From London to America, these two powerful families shared an ever-widening circle of friends, lovers, and political associates - soon shattered by World War II, spying, sexual infidelity, and the tragic deaths of JFK's sister Kathleen and his older brother Joe Jr.

A CIA station chief, later Jordan's lawyer in Washington, reveals the secret history of a lost peace.

Jack O'Connell possessed an uncanny ability to be at the center of things. On his arrival in Jordan in 1958, he unraveled a coup aimed at the young King Hussein, who would become America's most reliable Middle East ally. Over time, their bond of trust and friendship deepened. His narrative contains secrets that will revise our understanding of the Middle East.

An insider of both the Bush and Obama administrations offers an irrefutable indictment of the mishandling of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailouts and the extreme degree to which our government officials—from both parties—served the interests of Wall Street at the expense of the public. From his first day on the job as the special inspector general in charge of overseeing the distribution of the bailout money, Neil Barofsky found that the officials at the Treasury Department in charge of the bailouts were in thrall to the interests of the big banks.

A leading thinker on Canada's place in the world contends that our country's greatest untapped resource may be the three million Canadians who don't live here. Entrepreneurs, educators, humanitarians: an entire province's worth of Canadian citizens live outside Canada. Some will return, others...

The award-winning author presents a provocative, thoroughly modern revisionist biographical history of one of America’s greatest and most influential families—the Roosevelts—exposing heretofore unknown family secrets and detailing complex family rivalries with his signature cinematic flair...

Enter The Audacity to Win Book Club Discussion Contest Watch David Plouffe discuss The Audacity to Win on "Meet the Press" David Plouffe not only led the effort that put Barack Obama in the White House, but he also changed the face of politics forever and reenergized the idea of democracy itself...

Munoz provides new insight into Benazir Bhutto’s unprecedented rise and an unflinching, minute-by-minute narrative of the assassination itself. With impeccable research, Munoz also situates Bhutto in the decades-long history of U.S.-Pakistan relations and the emergence of global terrorism, pinpointing her death as the moment when those relations changed forever. The result is a gripping narrative of Pakistan’s turbulent political realities and the death of its leading politician.

It officially began on February 28, 2006, when a handful of protesters from the nearby Six Nations reserve walked onto Douglas Creek Estates, then a residential subdivision under construction, and blocked workers from entering. Over the course of the spring and summer of that first year, the...

THE DISSIDENT is the story of how one fearless man, offended by the dishonesty and criminality of the Russian political system, mounted a relentless opposition movement and became President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable rival—so despised that the Russian leader makes a point of never uttering Navalny’s name.

1968 was an unprecedented year in terms of upheaval on numerous scales: political, military, economic, social, cultural. In the United States, perhaps no one was more undone by the events of 1968 than President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kyle Longley leads his listeners on a behind-the-scenes tour of what Johnson characterized as the 'year of a continuous nightmare'. Longley explores how LBJ perceived the most significant events of 1968, including the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The action-filled, moving story of George Washington for young listeners. Character shapes a nation as Jim Weiss tells the story of George Washington, a man of remarkable physical strength and equally powerful emotions. Amid bullets and ballots, as commander-in-chief and constitutionalist, political leader and peaceful farmer, family man and father of a nation, here’s a very “human” man who won a war and refused a crown.