Political Biographies

Congresswoman and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz challenges the nation to resolve tough issues for future generations. She conveys a vision of an America that has learned hard lessons from its recent past, an America galvanized by a renewed sense of purpose for applying that wisdom through forward-thinking policies on education, civil rights, and foreign policy.

When terrorists crashed a plane into the Pentagon, he was there, helping carry the wounded to safety. And he's been there, leading the war on terror, directing its operations around the world in both open and covert missions, and bluntly focusing on one primary goal: killing terrorists. He is Donald Rumsfeld. His great fear was a second Pearl Harbor. When it happened on September 11, 2001, he led the charge to make sure it never happens again.

John Hay, Lincoln's private secretary and later secretary of state under presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens, famous as "Mark Twain", grew up 50 miles apart on the banks of the Mississippi River in the same rural antebellum stew of race, class, and want. This shared history drew them together in the late 1860s, and their mutual admiration never waned in spite of sharp differences.

The Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003, General Tommy Franks made history leading American and Coalition forces to victory in Afghanistan and Iraq, the decisive battles that launched the war on terrorism.

Kim Philby, the so-called Third Man in the Cambridge spy ring, was the Cold War's most infamous traitor, a Soviet spy at the heart of British intelligence. Philby joined Britain's secret service MI6 during the war and went on to head the section tasked with rooting out Russian spies before becoming the service's chief liaison officer with the CIA. He betrayed hundreds of British and US agents to the Russians and compromised numerous operations inside the Soviet Union.

America is at a crossroads. We are alienated from civic engagement, and our democracy is in doubt. Yet there is a new energy in the air. Young people are again taking up the role they've often held: as leaders of change, demanding a better future, wielding their votes to uphold democracy and lead the country forward. Enter Generation Citizen, an organization dedicated to empowering youth through revitalizing civics education across America.

In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of 10 children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordinary four times in order to get a conviction, to the horror of many in the legal community. Louisa protested her innocence until the end.

A fresh, engaging, and relentlessly paced story of a Vietnam veteran's personal experiences and exploits while serving two tours of duty, one as a Cobra gunship pilot, in war-torn Vietnam.

According to Bernard Goldberg, the media crossed an important line in the 2008 presidential race, moving from their usual unthinking liberal bias to crass partisanship of the crudest kind, practically acting as spin doctors for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. In A Slobbering Love Affair, his most provocative book yet, Goldberg demonstrates how the media launched an unparalleled effort to ensure the election of the man they regarded as the One.

In this riveting, informative, and entertaining book, Stelzer draws on previously untapped material, diaries of guests, and a wide variety of other sources to tell of some of the key dinners at which Churchill presided before, during, and after World War II.

Lange bevor Joaquin "Jack" Garcia mit einigen der mächtigsten Capos der New Yorker Mafia verkehrte, war er einer der untypischsten Neuzugänge im Agentenstab des FBI: Unter falscher Identität sollte der gebürtige Kubaner in Mafiakreisen ermitteln und erhielt dafür als erster Geheimagent in der Geschichte des FBI eine fundierte "Gangsterausbildung".

On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and prompted the United States’ entry into the bloodiest war in human history. Americans have long debated the cause of the bombing; many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup or a failure of US intelligence agencies or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery - until now.

Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern nationalism and 20th-century socialism by presenting the often overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish thinker at the beginning of the 20th century. During his brief life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death.

For more than two decades, Sean Spicer had been a respected political insider, working as a campaign and communications strategist. But in December 2016, he got the call of a lifetime. President-elect Donald J. Trump had chosen him to be the White House press secretary. And life hasn’t been the same since. When he accepted the job, Spicer was far from a household name. But then he walked into the bright lights of the briefing room, and the cameras started rolling. His every word was scrutinized. Every movement was parodied. Every detail became a meme. And that’s just the public side.

“A delightful and entertaining book about one of America’s greatest humorists.”—Seth Meyers This “absorbing, illuminating” (Jon Meacham) biography of the legendary political humorist reveals the life behind his must-read Washington Post columns, featuring never-before-published...

Everyone has heard of Erdogan: Turkey’s bullish, mercurial president is the original postmodern populist. Around the world, other strongmen are now following the path that he has blazed. For the first time, Erdogan Rising tells the inside story of how a democracy on the fringe of Europe has succumbed to dictatorship. Hannah Lucinda Smith, Turkey correspondent with The Times of London, has witnessed all that has befallen Turkey and the wider region since the onset of the Arab Spring.

In April 1917, as Tsar Nicholas II's abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was far away, exiled in Zurich. To lead the revolt, Lenin needed to return to Petrograd immediately. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia's adversaries and betraying his homeland.

L'immagine delle Aule parlamentari, in cui avvengono i confronti - o spesso gli scontri - fra maggioranza e opposizione per decidere il futuro del nostro paese, è certo familiare a ogni cittadino. Non molti, invece, possono affermare di sapere con chiarezza come funzioni il sistema politico italiano e cosa accada realmente nei palazzi del potere.

El 2 de mayo de 1973, la integrante de los Panteras Negras Assata Shakur se hallaba en el hospital en estado crítico y esposada a la cama, mientras las autoridades locales y la policía federal trataban de interrogarla acerca del tiroteo en una autopista de Nueva Jersey que costó la vida a un policía blanco. Objetivo durante mucho tiempo de la campaña de Edgar Hoover para difamar, sabotear y criminalizar las organizaciones nacionalistas negras y a sus líderes, Shakur pasó cuatro años en la cárcel antes de su condena en 1977, sustentada en pruebas poco sólidas.

The dazzling, inimitable Molly Ivins is back, with her own personal Hall of Fame of America’s most amazing and outlandish politicians–the wicked, the wise, the witty, and the witless–drawn from more than twenty years of reporting on the folks who attempt to run our government (in some...