Digging deep into shattering memories, Dallaire has written a powerful story of betrayal, naïveté, racism & international politics. His message is simple, undeniable: Never again. When Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire was called to serve as force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in '93, he thought he was heading off on a straightforward peacekeeping mission. Thirteen months later he flew home from Africa, broken, disillusioned & suicidal, having witnessed the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in 100 days. In Shake Hands with the Devil, he takes readers with him on a return voyage into hell, vividly recreating the events the international community turned its back on. This book is an unsparing eyewitness account of the failure by humanity to stop the genocide, despite timely warnings. Woven thru the story of this disastrous mission is his own journey from confident Cold Warrior, to devastated UN commander, to retired general engaged in a painful struggle to find a measure of peace, hope & reconciliation. This book is a personal account of his conversion from a man certain of his worth & secure in his assumptions to one conscious of his own weaknesses & failures & critical of the institutions he'd relied on. It might not sit easily with standard ideas of military leadership, but understanding what happened to him & his mission to Rwanda is crucial to understanding the moral minefields peacekeepers are forced to negotiate when we ask them to step into dirty wars.

    Their machinations made the collapse much worse. This Pulitzer Prize-winning series reveals how they did it.

    By his late forties, he'd gone from Princeton to Harvard Law to dramatic success as a prosecutor and attorney general to the governorship of New York. Many thought he would become the first Jewish president of the United States. Then came the prostitution scandal that shocked and mystified the nation. Peter Elkind's definitive account gets at all sides of this complex man: the well-intentioned do-gooder, the aggressive lawyer, the hardball politician, the dutiful son, the loving husband and father, and the secretive "Client 9" of the Emperor's Club escort service. Elkind interviewed dozens of key sources ranging from Spitzer's family, friends, and closest aides, to targets of his high-profile investigations, to central players in the prostitution ring. He reveals many groundbreaking new details about Spitzer's rise, his short time as governor, and the way his enemies plotted against him. The result is a gripping, almost Shakespearean narrative-a tragedy of one man's noble intentions and fatal flaws and the powerful forces (both internal and external) that destroyed him.

    The talks ultimately resulted in failure for Labour amid recriminations on both sides and the accusation that the Lib Dems had conducted a dutch auction, inviting Labour to outbid the Tories on a shopping list of demands. Despite calls for him to give his own account of this historic sequence of events, Adonis has kept his own counsel until now. Published to coincide with the third anniversary of the general election that would eventually produce an historic first coalition government since the Second World War, 5 Days In May is a remarkable and important insider account of the dramatic negotiations that led to its formation. It also offers the author's views on what the future holds as the run-up to the next election begins. 5 Days in May presents a unique eyewitness account of a pivotal moment in political history.

    In recent years, it has become notorious for the piracy off its coast and the rise of Islamic extremism, opening it up as a new "southern front" in the war on terror. At least that is how it is inevitably presented by politicians and in the media. In Getting Somalia Wrong?, Mary Harper presents the first comprehensive account of the chaos into which the country has descended and the United States' renewed involvement there. In doing so, Harper argues that viewing Somalia through the prism of al-Qaeda risks further destabilizing the country and the entire Horn of Africa, while also showing that though the country may be a failed state, it is far from being a failed society. In reality, alternative forms of business, justice, education, and local politics have survived and even flourished. Provactive and eye-opening, Getting Somalia Wrong? shows that until the international community starts to "get it right," the consequences will be devastating, not just for Somalia, but for the world.

    A riveting and candid memoir of life behind the diplomatic scenes, Meyer's book is an honest account of what he saw, what he heard, and how he felt.

    It can be read in a variety of ways: as a psychological investigation of Trump, as a philosophical meditation on the relationship between language and power, as a satirical compilation of the “collected wit and wisdom of Donald Trump,” and above all as a dagger into the rhetoric of American political discourse—a dissection of the politesse that gave rise to and sustains Trump. The book’s central thesis is that we have met the enemy and he is us. Who else but David Shields would make such an argument, let alone pull it off with such intelligence, brio, and wit, not to mention leaked off-air transcripts from Fox News? ------------- PRAISE ------------- “Shields has written the best book on the political and cultural implications of Trump’s presidency, and he nails it at least a hundred times, and in dozens of unique ways. Shields writes that Trump “seems not to have an inner life,” which explains a number of things no one else has gotten at. Bravo. I’m sending copies to everyone I can think of. My take—written on the inside cover of the book at 3 A.M. is this: “Donald Trump is the culture hero for all those people in the world wearing wigs and toupees and dignity diapers and prosthetic arms and legs, all those people who have false teeth and hearing aids, breast implants, and those rods that make your penis seem hard when it really isn’t. And there are more of those people in the world than we can imagine. Commercial fiction is far too slow and getting slower daily as it puckers its lips to the nether parts of the marketplace, and most discursive writing isn’t much faster. Shields’s deployment of self-reflexivity has moved the whole project beyond post-modernism. His self-reflexivity isn’t, as it has become with nearly everyone, a calcifying style or posture. It’s fully integrated, and thus it moves at the same speed as perception, even becoming an accelerant to meaning. Shields has earned the designation of being the writer most likely to be picked up and murdered should either the right or leftist fundamentalists take power. And this designation hasn’t been conferred on an American writer since Philip K. Dick. Shields is that good. He is one of a very small group of true 21st century writers, and I salute him as a master.” —Brian Fawcett “I wasn’t going to read it because I’m so tired of anti-Trump shit, but I love the book, agree with everything Shields nails about this moment. It’s the best summation of Trump I’ve come across. Such a relief to see someone get it. I was reading passages to my millennial Communist ‘Trump is going to kill us all’ bf, who didn’t say anything, just rolled away.” —Bret Easton Ellis“Shields’s most ‘accessible’ book and probably his best. Impossible to put down—a polyphonic bricolage that is both absolutely of this moment and deserving of a burial in a time capsule to be opened at another age. The clinical depression of our current historical circumstances is never absent from these pages, but while reading them, one does so with exultation at seeing Trump and his era so exactly skewered.” —Jonathan Raban “No other book approaches the man and the situation in quite this way: the problem isn’t out there; it’s in us. A book (deserving of a wide readership) for those who have a bit of trouble with the left and a ton of trouble with the right.

    In 47 Percent, Corn recounts how the 47 percent video fit into the ongoing narrative of the 2012 election and greatly changed the course of the campaign. This instant, on-the-news book also features an astute review of the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate as they head into the final stretch of this historical election.

    Lincoln became an instant martyr, immortalized as the "The Great Emancipator." After Lincoln's assassination, the commonest of men tried to fill the gigantic void. Andrew Johnson, a self-educated tailor from Tennessee, became the 17th President of the United States, and the first to enter office after the murder of his predecessor. Rising above an impoverished childhood, Johnson was truly a self-made man, learning a useful trade and developing his own successful business. At the same time, he rapidly ascended the poltical ladder--Alderman, Mayor, State Legislator, Congressman, Governor of Tennessee, United States Senator, Military Governor of Union-occupied Tennessee, Vice-President, and President of the United States. As the only lawmaker from the South to remain in Congress after the outbreak of the Civil War, Andrew Johnson was the ultimate "Loyalist." In recognition for his dedication to the Union, Johnson was nominated as Abraham Lincoln's running mate in the 1864 presidential election. Barely a month into his vice-presidency, Johnson was thrust on the center stage of America politics. After Lincoln was murdered, the tailor from Tennessee ascended into the unenviable position of succeeding a legend. Johnson's obstinancy and rigid interpretaion of the Constitution soon placed him at odds with the Republican congression leadership and the national press. The bitter chasm widened as the Johnson presidency lurched forward, and ultimately led to his being the first President in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. By a single vote, Johnson avoided conviction by the Senate, and forfeiture of of office. After narrowly surving this constitutional crisis, Johnson's historical legacy was irrevocably damaged, and his hopes for an elected term as President were dashed. Returning to Tennessee after his presidency, Johnson was determined to return to political office. In remarkable fashion, he was elected to the United States Senate, marking the first and only time that a former President has returned to serve in that legislative body. Ambitous, lacking humility, and largely humorless, Johnson was unable to tolerate criticism. He angrily attacked his foes, once likening himself to Christ on the Crucifix. His combative personality and intemperate remarks readily allowed his enemies to portray him as vindictive and unstable. "The Loyalist: The Life and Times of Andrew Johnson" is a concise biography of the 17th President of the United States, focusing upon the tumultuous years surrounding the American Civil War. Sustained by courage and ambition, Johnson was inevitably doomed by petulance, leading to a remarkable rise, dramatic fall, and partial vindication.

    This debut book by one of America's most acclaimed young journalists illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary--lives that are too often hidden, underreported, or ignored by the rest of the world.

    A page-turning true story of international scandal and corruption at the very highest levels of corporate America, this thriller unveils botched crimes, courtroom drama, suicide attempts, and an immense tangle of lies and deception.

    I fought in Cuba, and I began to be a revolutionary in Guatemala.' Che Guevara was the most admired and beloved revolutionary of his time, the first man since Simon Bolivar seriously to plan to unite the countries of Latin America. This concise biography unravels Che's life, from his birth in 1928, the child of free-thinking radical Argentinian aristocrats, his youthful membership of Accion Argentina and his training as a doctor in Buenos Aires, through his witnessing of the fall of the new revolutionary government in Guatemala alongside its leader, Arbenz, his action as a commander in the guerrilla war in Cuba with Fidel Castro and his part in the reforming Marxist Cuban government, to his fight for liberation of the Congo and, finally, of Bolivia, where he was executed.

    An analysis of Vladimir Putin and the key role a resurgent Russia has to play in world affairs.

    About one-quarter of the children on Kristof's old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. And while these particular stories unfolded in one corner of the country, they are representative of many places the authors write about, ranging from the Dakotas and Oklahoma to New York and Virginia. But here too are stories about resurgence, among them: Annette Dove, who has devoted her life to helping the teenagers of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as they navigate the chaotic reality of growing up poor; Daniel McDowell, of Baltimore, whose tale of opioid addiction and recovery suggests that there are viable ways to solve our nation's drug epidemic. Taken together, these accounts provide a picture of working-class families needlessly but profoundly damaged as a result of decades of policy mistakes. With their superb, nuanced reportage, Kristof and WuDunn have given us a book that is both riveting and impossible to ignore.

    Dispatches from the Edge, Cooper's memoir of "war, disasters and survival," is a brief but powerful chronicle of Cooper's ascent to stardom and his struggle with his own tragedies and demons. Cooper was 10 years old when his father, Wyatt Cooper, died during heart bypass surgery. He was 20 when his beloved older brother, Carter, committed suicide by jumping off his mother's penthouse balcony (his mother, by the way, being Gloria Vanderbilt). The losses profoundly affected Cooper, who fled home after college to work as a freelance journalist for Channel One, the classroom news service. Covering tragedies in far-flung places like Burma, Vietnam, and Somalia, Cooper quickly learned that "as a journalist, no matter ... how respectful you are, part of your brain remains focused on how to capture the horror you see, how to package it, present it to others." Cooper's description of these horrors, from war-ravaged Baghdad to famine-wracked Niger, is poignant but surprisingly unsentimental. In Niger, Cooper writes, he is chagrined, then resigned, when he catches himself looking for the "worst cases" to commit to film. "They die, I live. It's the way of the world," he writes. In the final section of Dispatches, Cooper describes covering Hurricane Katrina, the story that made him famous. The transcript of his showdown with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (in which Cooper tells Landrieu people in New Orleans are "ashamed of what is happening in this country right now") is worth the price of admission on its own. Cooper's memoir leaves some questions unanswered--there's frustratingly little about his personal life, for example--but remains a vivid, modest self-portrait by a man who is proving himself to be an admirable, courageous leader in a medium that could use more like him. --Erica C. Barnett