Political History Biography

George Bush was a throwback to a different era. A patrician figure not known for his eloquence, Bush readily dismissed ideology as "the vision thing." Yet, as Timothy Naftali argues, there was no person of his generation better prepared for the challenges facing the United States as the Cold War...

From a top speechwriter to President George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, this may be the most candid memoir ever written about official Washington–a laugh-out-loud cri de coeur that shows what can happen to idealism in a town driven by self-interest. Matt chronicles his descent into...

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, incisive portrait of the early days of the republic—and the birth of modern politics hen the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly...

No one man or woman has ever been in a position to see the presidents, and the presidency, so intimately, over so many years. They called him in for photo opportunities. They called for comfort. They asked about death and salvation; about sin and forgiveness. At a time when the nation is...

In a page-turning narrative that reads like a thriller, an award-winning journalist exposes the troubling truth behind the world’s first act of nuclear terrorism. On November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko sipped tea in London’s Millennium Hotel. Hours later the Russian émigré and former...

Detrás de los macanazos y las balas, hubo un sistema judicial que convalidó la represión y actuó convencido de su bondad. Nació el 26 de julio de 1968 y murió dos años después. Pero en su corta vida, multiplicó la iniquidad y la injusticia, provocó el encarcelamiento de decenas de jóvenes y evidenció la saña del Estado. Ésta es la historia -nunca antes contada- del proceso judicial contra los implicados en el 68 mexicano.

Bart Stupak, a nine-term Democratic Congressman from Michigan’s First Congressional District, brought two unshakable principles with him to Capitol Hill in 1992: a firm belief in the sanctity of life, and the conviction that health care was a right for all Americans and not a privilege for the fortunate few. Studies indicating that 45,000 Americans died needlessly every year for lack of access to health care inspired Congressman Stupak’s tireless efforts, often at great personal cost, to pass lifesaving legislation while remaining true to his right-to-life principles.

The Sit Room brings you inside the secretive Situation Room of the White House, the most important deliberative room in the world, during the early 1990s when the author was one of the policymakers who framed the Clinton Administration's policy toward the bloody Balkans War. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and his own notes, David Scheffer, who later became America's first Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, weaves the true story of how policy options were debated in the Sit Room among the highest national security officials.

The symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers’ dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine? Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws listeners into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era. Acclaimed author David Leach revisits his raucous memories of life as a kibbutz volunteer and returns to meet a new generation of Jewish and Arab citizens struggling to forge a better future together.

Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.

A provocative, lively deep dive into the meaning of America's first Black president and first Black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (

Vanity Fair).

Der Wirecard-Skandal ist einmalig in der deutschen Wirtschaftsgeschichte - ein einziger großer Fake. Wie konnte es zu diesem filmreifen Bankrott eines Dax-Konzerns kommen? Wer sind die Köpfe hinter dem Betrug? Wer muss dafür büßen? Und warum ist das weltumspannende kriminelle Netzwerk erst nach so langer Zeit aufgeflogen? Die Journalisten Bettina Weiguny und Georg Meck - beide federführend an der UFA-Verfilmung des Wirecard-Skandals beteiligt - entwerfen das Psychogramm eines Jahrhundertskandals.

Richard Nixon was a young Navy officer when he first saw Dwight D. Eisenhower through a storm of tickertape as Manhattan celebrated the end of the war in Europe. Seven years later, Nixon was Eisenhower's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket-the beginning of a political and personal relationship that lasted for nearly twenty years. Despite a gulf that separated them by age and temperament, their association evolved into a collaboration that helped to shape the nation's political ideology.

In 1799, at the behest of President George Washington, Patrick Henry came out of retirement to defend the Constitution that he had once opposed and to thwart Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, whom Washington accused of putting party over country and threatening the fragile union. For the People, For the Country tells the remarkable story of how the most eloquent public speaker of the American Revolutionary era and a leading antifederalist during debates over ratification of the Constitution reemerged on the side of the federalists and once again changed history.

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated. In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry state that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative - an effort not at radical reform but at "living up to" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders.

In 2008, American journalist Jere Van Dyk was kidnapped and held for 45 days. At the time, he had no idea who his kidnappers were. They demanded a ransom and the release of three of their comrades from Guantanamo, yet they hinted at their ties to Pakistan. In The Trade, Jere Van Dyk uses the sinuous path of his own kidnapping to explain the recent rise in the taking of Western hostages across the greater Middle East.

The plainspoken man from Missouri who never expected to be president yet rose to become one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century In April 1945, after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the presidency fell to a former haberdasher and clubhouse politician from Independence...

A fresh look at the only president to serve nonconsecutive terms. Though often overlooked, Grover Cleveland was a significant figure in American presidential history. Having run for President three times and gaining the popular vote majority each time -- despite losing the electoral college in...

Get the inside story on America’s most powerful political dynasty. President George W. Bush leads our nation in a time of unprecedented peril. But how well do we really know him or his remarkable family, whose history often mirrors the history of America? Now, in the first full-scale biography...

This is the story of Zev Yaroslavsky, the son of Ukrainian Jews who immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s. His memoir charts the journey of a young social activist who battled to free Soviet Jews before becoming one of the most consequential elected officials in Southern California. Fiercely independent, he combined an activist's passion with a seasoned politician's skill to challenge the region's power brokers.