State Politics

From a New York Times bestselling author and an expert on Middle Eastern conflict comes a riveting biography of Meir Dagan, the legendary Mossad director who transformed Israel’s intelligence service into a global powerhouse of espionage and counterterrorism. In The Architect of Espionage...

Mike Lofgren is back with a book perfectly pitched for the frenzied circus of the primaries. His argument this time is that for all of the backstabbing and money grubbing of the campaign season, the politicians we elect have as little ability to shift policy as Communist party apparatchiks. Welcome to Mike Lofgren's Washington, DC - a This Town where the political theater that is endlessly tweeted and blogged about has nothing to do with actual decision making.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s classic life of Lyndon Johnson, who presided over the Great Society, the Vietnam War, and other defining moments the tumultuous 1960s, is a monument in political biography. From the moment the author, then a young woman from Harvard, first encountered President Johnson...

For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was a German businessman, journalist philosopher, historian, political scientist, and revolutionary socialist. Engels developed Marxism together with Karl Marx. In 1848, Engels coauthored The Communist Manifesto (originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party) with Marx.

Eminent China scholar Elizabeth C. Economy provides an incisive look at the transformative changes underway in China today. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi himself; the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social, and economic life; and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world.

Así comienza este recorrido en el que Felipe Calderón reflexiona sobre la compleja tarea de gobernar y lo que significa tomar decisiones en escenarios de incertidumbre, decisiones que, a fin de cuentas, nadie más quiere tomar. Al enfrentar este reto, dice el autor, es inevitable relatar las circunstancias, las vivencias, las ideas que rodean cada hecho. Así, a partir de una concepción muy particular de la política, como vocación y deber, Felipe Calderón presenta una visión de conjunto de las decisiones más difíciles que ha tomado en su trayectoria....

From 1934 until 1944, Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that deeply affected both countries. While Germany is generally regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally. Goeschel, a scholar of 20th-century Germany and Italy, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler's key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public.

In America Walks into a Bar, Christine Sismondo recounts the rich and fascinating history of an institution often reviled, yet always central to American life. She traces the tavern from England to New England, showing how even the Puritans valued "a good Beere".

En este extraordinario primer volumen de sus esperadas memorias presidenciales, Barack Obama narra la historia de su sorprendente evolución de ser un joven en busca de su identidad a convertirse en líder del mundo occidental, describiendo con increíble detalle tanto su formación política como los momentos cumbre del primer período de su histórica presidencia, una época de una gran conmoción y de profunda transformación.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was?

More than a decade ago, the historian Tony Judt considered whether the behavior of Israel was becoming not only "bad for Israel itself" but also, on a wider scale, "bad for the Jews." Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, this issue has grown ever more urgent. In The State of Israel vs. the Jews, veteran journalist Sylvain Cypel addresses it in depth, exploring Israel's rightward shift on the international scene and with regard to the diaspora.

The Constitutional Convention affected nothing less than a revolution in the nature of the American government. Led by James Madison, a small cohort of delegates devised a plan that would radically alter the balance of power between state and national governments, and then sprung that idea on a largely unsuspecting convention.

In the first multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America's greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America's 16th president.

“Yellowstone meets Matlock” (Tom Clavin) in this dazzling tale of land lust and the American West, chronicling the rise and fall of a wind farm that triggers a 21st century range war between a struggling fifth-generation rancher and the billionaires next door. Most locals in Big Timber...

There's the Freedom of Information Act, and then there's Ventura's way. The official spin on numerous government programs is flat-out bull, according to Jesse Ventura. In this incredible collection of actual government documents, Ventura, the ultimate nonpartisan truth-seeker, proves it beyond any doubt. He and Dick Russell walk listeners through 63 of the most incriminating programs to reveal what really happens behind the closed doors.

Les Presses Universitaires de France et Frémeaux & Associés proposent cette biographie de César, analysée et expliquée par Christophe Badel, professeur d'histoire romaine et spécialiste d'histoire sociale de la noblesse romaine. Le 15 mars 44 av. J.-C., Jules César est assassiné, suspecté de vouloir rétablir la royauté à Rome. Un soupçon qui nimbe de mystère, aujourd'hui encore, la vie du grand homme.

Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness is a re-examination of the life and thoughts of Jan Smuts. It is intended to remind a contemporary listenership of the remarkable achievements of this impressive soldier-statesman. The author, a former editor of The Star, argues that Smut's role in the creation of modern South Africa should never be forgotten, not least because of his lifetime of devoted service to this country. The book draws a parallel between Smuts and President Thabo Mbeki, both architects of a new South Africa, much lionised abroad yet often distrusted at home.

Since 1980, the number of people in US prisons has increased more than 450 percent. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world". Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces conjoined to produce the prison boom.

Reaching out to listeners of all religious backgrounds, Desmond Tutu shows us how to transform suffering into joy both in our lives and in our world. He tells us that God dreams of a world where laughter, love, and peace reign, and where we realize that we are all members of one family, God's family. In this extremely personal and liberating message, Father Tutu helps us "see with the eyes of the heart" and cultivate the qualities of forgiveness, humility, generosity, and courage.