Political Biographies

The sun is shining through the bars of my window on what must be a glorious summer day. I've been incarcerated in a cell five paces by three for twelve and a half hours, and will not be let out again until midday; eighteen and a half hours of solitary confinement. There is a child of seventeen...

How states are making their legal systems more equitable, seen through the story of a Black man falsely imprisoned for thirty years for murder. In 1987, Ben Spencer, a twenty-two-year-old Black man from Dallas, was convicted of murdering white businessman Jeffrey Young—a crime he didn’t...

This is the story of the most dangerous triple-agent in US history. Peter Lance, author of the highly acclaimed 1000 Years for Revenge and Cover Up, returns to uncover the story of Ali Mohamed, a trusted security advisor of Osama bin Laden who hoodwinked the United States for more than a decade. As Lance reveals for this first time, this one man served in a series of high-security position within the United States security establishment, as a Special Forces advisor, FBI informant, and CIA operative.

This is an ideal introduction to the ideas of a man whom many regard as the greatest thinker of our time. Here we encounter the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of consciousness, his key intellectual breakthroughs, his theory of history, and his diagnosis of the political ills of the modern age. The book provides a veritable catalog of the thinkers who created the intellectual foundation of the twentieth century.

The Lord did not come as a political deliverer or social reformer. He did not rally supporters in a grandiose attempt to "capture the culture" for morality or greater political and religious freedom. Rather, His divine calling was to rescue the lost souls of individual men and women from sin and...

As much coverage as Jane Fonda has elicited through the years, the stories often skim past her prime filmmaking core. Fonda on Film spotlights the signature political films Fonda generated in the 1970s—Coming Home, The China Syndrome, 9 to 5, and more—that are still underappreciated even as Fonda endures as one of the world’s most admired and controversial performers. This is a movie book about a mega-celebrity, an origin story voyaging through Fonda’s learning years in the 1960s and the calculated payoff of the 1970s.

A no-holds-barred biography of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo is the protagonist of an ongoing political saga that reads like a novel. In many ways, his rise, fall, and rise again is an iconic story: a young American politician of vaunting ambition, aiming for nothing less than the...

New York Times White House correspondent Mark Landler takes us behind the speeches and press conferences, to the Situation Room debates and picnic-table lunches, where Obama and Clinton honed their two competing worldviews: his, cautious, inward-looking, suffused with a sense of limits; hers, muscular, optimistic, unabashedly old-fashioned.

A commanding biography of one of Australia's greatest and most visionary prime minsters by an acclaimed political journalist and author. There has been no one like Gough Whitlam in public life - a charismatic, inspirational and visionary leader who ushered in a reform revolution to modernise...

Filled with drama and anecdote, presenting familiar characters in a penetrating new light, The Roosevelts is a soaring tale of triumph over heartbreak and frailty. But it is also a daunting story of the vanity of human wishes.

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.

Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She cofounded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement. This engaging memoir relates Wells’ private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.

There is growing evidence that Trump has spent decades cultivating ties to corrupt Russians and the post-Soviet state. In Trump/Russia: A Definitive History, Seth Hettena chronicles the many years Trump has spent wooing Russian money and power. From the collapse of his casino empire - which left Trump desperate for cash - and his first contacts with Russian deal makers and financiers, on up to the White House, Hettena reveals the myriad of shady people, convoluted dealings, and strange events that suggest how indebted to Russia our 45th president might be.

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.

The Widow Spy is the firsthand account of a true Cold War spy operation in Moscow told exclusively by the CIA case officer who lived this experience. Martha D. Peterson was one of the first women to be assigned to Moscow, a very difficult operational environment. Her story begins in Laos during the Vietnam War where she accompanied her husband, a CIA officer. She describes their life in a small city in Laos, ending with the tragic death of her husband. Then her own 30-year career begins in Moscow.

A reconstruction of the life and milieu of Dan Mitrione, his work as a US police advisor in Brazil and other South American countries, and his kidnapping and murder by Uruguayan guerrillas.

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.

Leading scholars define the special contributions and qualifications of our first president Washington's legacy is a successful experiment in collective leadership, great initiatives in establishing a strong executive branch and the formulation of innovative and lasting economic and foreign...

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.

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE “Unforgettable . . . a book about Putin’s Russia that is unlike any other.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain From a Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, a groundbreaking portrait of modern Russia and...