Change the World for a Fiver


We Are What We Do - 2004
    It has illustrations of 50 everyday actions presented with directness, whimsy and wit.

Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger


Laurence Leamer - 2005
    Universe, and the Terminator. Now he answers to "Governor." From humble beginnings in a small Austrian village, Arnold Schwarzenegger pumped himself into the greatest bodybuilder in history, the biggest movie star in the world, and a political force to be reckoned with--all with raw ambition and driving self-confidence. In Fantastic, esteemed biographer Laurence Leamer captures Arnold's amazing story as no one else could. Drawing on unprecedented interviews with Arnold, his wife Maria Shriver, and Arnold's friends, family, lovers, competitors, business partners, and political adversaries, Leamer offers a brilliant, uniquely detailed portrait of this self-made man who married a Kennedy princess and scaled the heights of America's elite. Readers will discover:· A troubled youth: growing up the son of a strict former Nazi and overcoming adversity by discovering the potential of weight training· The superhuman: the arrogant showman who revolutionized bodybuilding--and his astounding string of Mr. Olympia titles· Blockbuster stardom: why a heavy accent and wooden acting style couldn't keep Arnold and his publicist from marketing him into the world's largest grossing film icon · The unlikeliest Kennedy: his marriage to Maria Shriver and her role in Arnold's rise to governor of the Golden State...and more!

Runaway: How a Slave Defied America's First President (Kindle Single)


Bill Donahue - 2016
    Runaway introduces us to the only one of those enchained people to escape and tell her story. Ona Judge was the young personal attendant to Martha Washington. On a spring evening in 1796, she slipped out of the president's home, throwing her master and mistress into a consternation that lingered for years. Why had Ona fled, and where had she gone? Join Harper's and New York Times Magazine contributor Bill Donahue as he traces the flight of America's most intriguing fugitive slave.Journalist Bill Donahue has written for Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, The Atlantic, Runner’s World, The New Yorker, and Harper’s. In reporting stories from over 20 countries, he has searched for fallen meteorites in the Sahara Desert, biked the streets of Shanghai, snuck into Manuel Noriega’s abandoned beach house in Panama, and taste-tested moonshine in the snowy Caucasus mountains of Georgia. He is the author of The Secret World of Saints, an e-book about the Catholic Church and its saintmaking process, and his work has been reprinted in Best American Sports Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and many other anthologies. He lives in rural New Hampshire, where he runs the Scriven Arts Colony.Cover Design by Kerry Ellis.

Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism


Perry Anderson - 1974
    Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, the companion volume to Perry Anderson’s highly acclaimed and influential Lineages of the Absolutist State, is a sustained exercise in historical sociology to root the development of absolutism in the diverse routes taken from the slave-based societies of Ancient Greece and Rome to fully-fledged feudalism. In the course of this study Anderson vindicates and refines the explanatory power of a Marxist conception of history, whilst casting a fascinating light on Greece, Rome, the Germanic invasion, nomadic society, and the different patterns of the evolution of feudalism in Northern, Mediterranean, Eastern and Western Europe.

As America Has Done to Israel


John P. McTernan - 2006
    These disasters have included earthquakes, raging fires, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and tornadoes. What can you do as an individual—and what can America do—to change the direction of our country in relation to Israel and prevent the increasing number of calamities?

Nathuram Godse: The Hidden Untold Truth


Anup SarDesai - 2017
    This person is Nathuram Vinayakrao Godse, India’s most hated criminal. Yes …. Nathuram Godse is the very man who assassinated ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, the ‘Father of the Nation’ on 30th January 1948 as he was walking towards his prayer ground at the Birla House, New Delhi. He was arrested at the scene of the crime and sentenced to death by hanging after a trial that lasted for over a year. Almost seven decades have passed since the ‘Apostle of Peace’ was assassinated but, even today the story of his murder continues to remain one of the most closely guarded secrets in Indian history. Since independence, various political organizations in India have resorted to a total misuse of state machinery to suppress information on the life of Nathuram Godse and have made the people of India believe in fictional cooked up stories based on unfound theories that the murder of the ‘Mahatma’ was an act of religious fanaticism. Through extensive research the author of this book has succeeded in unearthing facts that lay suppressed for almost seven decades and has managed to uncover the truth that the murder of ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ was not an act of religious fanaticism but an act of devout patriotism. This book covers the entire lifespan of Nathuram Godse, from his birth till his death. The motive behind writing this book is neither to denigrate the Mahatma nor to glorify his assassin but to unmask the people of India from the delusion that the ‘Mahatma’ was a victim of religious fanaticism.

Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America


Jeffrey L. Stout - 2010
    But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it.Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes.The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

Hold On Edna!


Aneira Thomas - 2020
    This heartbreaking, heartwarming, true story following the history of a family in Wales is one of the most important books ever written. The birth of the National Health Service - the UK's greatest asset - coincided with the birth of one little girl in South Wales, Aneira 'Nye' Thomas, the first baby to be delivered by the NHS.Nye's story follows generations of her family who battled to survive before the NHS was launched, through to those who went on to dedicate their lives to working for the NHS - and also, ultimately, to be saved by it.An emotive, extraordinary and yet uplifting reminder of a time not so long ago, when the value of your life came down to how much you had in your pocket. It is a touching and entertaining human drama, but more importantly - a fierce defence of the most important accomplishment this country has ever and will ever achieve.

Marley and Me: The Real Bob Marley Story


Don Taylor - 1994
    Since that terrible day the myths and legends which surround his life have continued to grow. Only one man knows the real truth. That man is Don Taylor, Bob Marley's manager, friend and confidant. Now, in this astonishing and brilliantly written book, Don Taylor tells: How he and Bob were shot down and left for dead by gangsters wielding Uzi submachine guns. Of Bob's love affairs with scores of women, including a beautiful princess and former Miss World Cindy Breakspeare. The secret of the millions of pounds Bob placed around the world. How Bob foiled a plot to kidnap Mick Jagger. How Rita Marley was able to sign Bob's signature on checks for huge sums of money. How Bob secretly carried guns or knives and threatened to kill those who crossed him. The bizarre and curious circumstances which led to Bob Marley's death. All these stories, and hundreds more, are told with deep affection and a simple, direct honesty which makes this book indispensible for anyone who is interested in this towering figure of world music.

Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression


Robin D.G. Kelley - 1990
    Hammer and Hoe documents the efforts of the Alabama Communist Party and its allies to secure racial, economic, and political reforms. Sensitive to the complexities of gender, race, culture and class without compromising the political narrative, Robin Kelley illustrates one of the most unique and least understood radical movements in American history.The Alabama Communist Party was built from scratch by working people who had no Euro-American radical political tradition. It was composed largely of poor blacks, most of whom were semiliterate and devoutly religious, but it also attracted a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, iconoclastic youth, and renegade liberals. Kelley shows that the cultural identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the development of the Party. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.In the South race pervaded virtually every aspect of Communist activity. And because the Party's call for voting rights, racial equality, equal wages for women, and land for landless farmers represented a fundamental challenge to the society and economy of the South, it is not surprising that Party organizers faced a constant wave of violence.Kelley's analysis ranges broadly, examining such topics as the Party's challenge to black middle-class leadership; the social, ideological, and cultural roots of black working-class radicalism; Communist efforts to build alliances with Southern liberals; and the emergence of a left-wing, interracial youth movement. He closes with a discussion of the Alabama Communist Party's demise and its legacy for future civil rights activism.

Our Word is Our Weapon: Selected Writings


Subcomandante Marcos - 2000
    Introduced by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, and illustrated with beautiful black and white photographs, Our Word Is Our Weapon crystallizes "the passion of a rebel, the poetry of a movement, and the literary genius of indigenous Mexico."Marcos first captured world attention on January 1, 1994, when he and an indigenous guerrilla group calling themselves Zapatistas revolted against the Mexican government and seized key towns in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas. In the six years that passed since their uprising, Marcos altered the course of Mexican politics and emerged an international symbol of grassroots movement-building, rebellion, and democracy. The prolific stream of poetic political writings, tales, and traditional myths which Marcos penned from 1994 to 2000 fill more than four volumes. Our Word Is Our Weapon presents the best of these writings, many of which have never been published before in English.Throughout this remarkable book we hear the uncompromising voice of indigenous communities living in resistance, expressing through manifestos and myths the universal human urge for dignity, democracy, and liberation. It is the voice of a people refusing to be forgotten the voice of Mexico in transition, the voice of a people struggling for democracy by using their word as their only weapon.

Obama's Last Stand: Playbook 2012 (POLITICO Inside Election 2012)


Glenn Thrush - 2012
    The third edition, Obama’s Last Stand, follows the reelection campaign of President Barack Obama as it struggles to find the winning formula in a political landscape that has changed dramatically since his history-making victory in 2008. Though battered and bruised after nearly four years in office, Barack Obama remains the most competitive player on the field in American politics today. In Obama’s Last Stand, POLITICO White House correspondent Glenn Thrush chronicles the efforts of the president and his team to secure a second term in the face of a determined opposition, unfavorable economic headwinds, and a series of missteps by his own team. This is a revealing portrait of the president at the most precarious moment in his political life, with insights and anecdotes drawn straight from the notebook of one of the most perceptive reporters in America. The trash-talking schoolyard athlete in Obama is very much in evidence, especially when he speaks caustically about his Republican rivals, including the man he thinks is trying to steal his legacy, Mitt Romney. Yet apart from Romney and the uncertain economy, Obama’s greatest obstacle on the road to reelection may be Obama 2008. He and his team of talented advisers must try to reconcile their nostalgia for that once-in-a-lifetime campaign with the realities of an election fundamentally altered by the advent of super PACs and the evaporation of Obama’s superstar popularity. That challenge has led a campaign operation that once prided itself on flawless execution of strategy to commit several of the most dangerous unforced errors of Obama’s political career. Yet the game is far from over. If Obama is sometimes his own worst enemy, he also has the talent and drive to reclaim this race. Spurred on by the realistic prospect of losing, and growing ever more impatient with the foibles of his campaign staff, Obama the competitor is gearing up for the most critical fourth quarter of his career. This is the story of the last stand that will either cement his legacy forever—or consign him to a roster of once-promising one-term presidents.

The Gilded Age


Milton Rugoff - 2018
    Treasury. And Alva Vanderbilt squandered tens of thousands on one evening to crack the closed social circle of the Mrs. Astor. And when Jay Gould, of Black Friday fame, sent his card to one of the Rothschilds, it was returned with the comment, "Europe is not for sale." It was this climate of mid- and late-nineteenth-century excess that fostered the most rapid period of growth in the history of the United States, replacing the unyielding Puritanism of Cotton Mather with the flexible creed of Henry Ward Beecher. National Book Award nominee Milton Rugoff gives his uniquely revealing view of the Gilded Age in this collective biography of Americans from 1850 to 1890. Writing on the political spoilsmen, money kings, parvenus, forty-niners, lords of the press, sexual transgressors, and women's rights leaders, Rugoff focuses on thirty-six men and women from almost every walk of life. His exponents include U.S. Grant, John Charles Frémont, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horatio Alger, free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull, first female surgeon Bethenia Owens-Adair, Brigham Young's rebellious nineteenth wife Anna Eliza Young, Boston Brahmin Charles Eliot Norton, Gold Rush pioneer Sarah Royce, black visionary Sojourner Truth, and to critique American society, Walt Whitman. In examining the Gilded Age, Milton Rugoff offers fresh glimpses into the lives of the celebrities of the era, as well as some lesser-known Americans, while at the same time revealing the roots of problems that still plague us today.

A Party with Socialists in It: A History of the Labour Left


Simon Hannah - 2018
    But has it ever truly been on the side of workers? Where do its interests really lie, and can it be relied on to provide a check on right-wing forces?             A Party with Socialists in It addresses those questions and more, telling the story of the Labour Party from its origins to today, showing how at every turn it has struggled with the tension between the rights and demands of workers and a more centrist position. As Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership attempts to revitalize the party after the initial success of the Blair years turned into disappointment and disenchantment, this clear-eyed history could not be more timely.

Khaki Files: Inside Stories of Police Missions


Neeraj Kumar Neeraj Kumar - 2019
    In Khaki Files, Neeraj Kumar, a former Delhi Police Commissioner revisits many such high profile police cases of his career -from investigation of one of the biggest lottery frauds in the country to foiled ISI attempt to kill Tarun Tejpal and Anirudh Behal of Tehalka-bringing to light numerous achievements of the country's police force, otherwise largely reviled and ridiculed.