Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Politics & Government

Economist Richard Holden examines the virtues and risks of low interest rates, mobile money, and cryptocurrencies and explains how these three elemental forces will continue to play out—in our wallets, on the blockchain, and throughout major economies—in the decades to come. Holden weaves in the stories of three people who have exerted massive influence over the future of modern money: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, and Raghuram Rajan, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisolm rose from being the child of immigrants to running for the highest office in the land. She was both the first African American woman elected to the US Congress and the first African American woman of a major political party to make a serious run for president of the United States. These achievements were not in spite of her background but rather because of it. She persevered by being steadfast in her political convictions and unwilling to compromise on the issues she believed in.

Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain is the remarkable story of a couple who came together during the Civil Rights Movement and made fighting for equality and civil and workers’ rights their purpose for more than sixty years, overcoming adversity—with the strength of their love and commitment—to bring about meaningful change.

Plenty Good Room lays out in clear terms the hope of democratic socialism for a country ravaged by intensifying capitalism. If economic inequality, racial injustice, and liberatory spirituality compel you, this book will unleash your political and economic ingenuity for systems that offer plenty good room—not for just a few but for all.

At a moment when our democratic abilities seem to have eroded, and political, economic, and technological forces have weakened the capacity for collective action, People, Power, and Change is a once-in-a-generation book for anyone who wants to create real and lasting change. Marshall Ganz is one of the world's leading authorities on democratic organizing, and this book is the culmination of his decades of teaching, research, and work. 

While the Boko Haram conflict has reached a certain level of culturation saturation, what is known about the conflict remains patchy. This collection, featuring interviews with 47 people of all genders, ages and a variety of religious backgrounds, foregrounds the realities of those who are living through the conflict and presenting the humanity of all concerned. Even as they discuss the conflict, their narratives also reflect realities beyond violence, making this an essential cultural archive.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is one of the finest historians of our age. A former special assistant to President Kennedy, he received the National Humanities Medal in 1998. In this first volume of memoirs Schlesinger turns a keen eye on his own remarkable life--from his Midwestern upbringing, through his days at Harvard, to his involvement with World War II. The engrossing story of his life reads like a timeline of the 20th century.

The United States' ignominious exit from Afghanistan in 2021 topped two decades of failure and devastation wrought by the war on terror. A long-running “fight against migration” has stoked chaos and rights abuses while pushing migrants onto more dangerous routes. For its part, the war on drugs has failed to dampen narcotics demand while fueling atrocities from Mexico to the Philippines. Why do such “failing” policies persist for so long? And why do politicians keep feeding the very crises they say they are combating?

When COVID-19 began spreading rapidly, the world was taken by surprise. As the ensuing pandemic raged, we faced one constant—a lack of consistent, scientifically sound, and trusted information about dangers, risks, and mitigation strategies that the average person could understand and put into practice to keep themselves and their families safe. Now, the former Surgeon General of the United States—freed from the many constraints he worked under in public office—reveals critical lessons learned from both mistakes and successes overlooked during the pandemic.

A feminist biography of the only woman to become prime minister of Israel In this authoritative and empathetic biography, Pnina Lahav reexamines the life of Golda Meir (1898-1978) through a feminist lens, focusing on her recurring role as a woman standing alone among men. The Only Woman in the Room is the first book to contend with Meir’s full identity as a woman, Jew, Zionist leader, and one of the founders of Israel, providing a richer portrait of her persona and legacy.

Original, Unconventional & Inconvenient is an analysis of the Donald J. Trump administration and its impact on America’s culture, both party establishments, and a strong but bitterly divided nation. The Trump years were so full of controversy that many observers failed to digest the meaning and impact of the “Make America Great Again” movement. Original, Unconventional & Inconvenient delves into the historic wake-up call that was the Trump administration—and how its leader popularized a uniquely American brand of 21st-century populism.

In this sweeping, authoritative account, Daniel Byman traces the key moments in the white power movement’s evolution in the United States and around the world and then details its many facets today. Using a wide range of sources, Byman explodes several myths about white power terrorism and identifies dangerous gaps in current policies. Spreading Hate will be essential listening for anyone worried about this increasingly networked movement that threatens to grow more dangerous in the years to come.

If we face America’s racial history squarely, will it mean that the American project is a failure? Conversely, if we think the American project is a worthy endeavor, do we have to lie, downplay, or equivocate about our past? In this book, we use the classical liberal lens to ask Americans on the political right to seriously reckon with America’s deep racial pain—much of which arises from violations of rights that conservatives say they deeply value.

More than one hundred years ago, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, perpetrated a massacre against its Black residents. For generations, the true story was ignored, covered up, and diminished by those in power and in a position to preserve the status quo. Blending memoir and immersive journalism, RJ Young shows how, today, Tulsa combats its racist past while remaining all too tolerant of racial injustice.

Hamilton: The Energetic Founder is a brief introduction to the life, thought, work, and legacy of Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), but it is not a traditional biography. Public curiosity about Hamilton, his life, and his work has swelled, particularly among those intrigued by popular-culture portrayals in the Broadway musical Hamilton: An American Musical. This book presents a summary of Hamilton's life and explores his role in revolution, constitutionalism, economics, diplomacy, and war, as well as his relationship to honor culture and dueling. The epilogue considers Hamilton's legacies.

In Modernizing Medicare, editors Robert Emmet Moffit and Marie Fishpaw bring together a rare combination of leading scholars and policy practitioners to outline a vision for Medicare reform and provide solutions for the millions of seniors whose health care depends on it. Contributors include a former Medicare trustee, a former Medicare administrator, and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

In 2015 and 2016, Baltimore was reeling after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody and the protests that followed. In the midst of this unrest, the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) roamed the city, robbing people, selling drugs and guns back onto the same streets they were supposed to be policing, and dividing the loot and profit among themselves. Created to trace guns back to the criminals responsible for Baltimore's high crime rates, instead, on March 1, 2017, all members of the GTTF were arrested on federal racketeering charges.

In the past, it was assumed that men, as good citizens, would serve in the armed forces in wartime. In the present, however, liberal democratic states increasingly rely on small all-volunteer militaries deployed in distant wars of choice. While few people now serve in the armed forces, our cultural myths and narratives of warfare continue to reproduce a strong connection between military service, citizenship, and normative masculinity. Katharine M. Millar provides an empirical overview of "support the troops" discourses in the US and UK during the early years of the global war on terror.