And the aftershocks are being felt far beyond the corridors of power in Whitehall... This book, written by the man who orchestrated that extraordinary rise, is not an autobiography, but rather the untold story of the journey UKIP has travelled under Farage's leadership, from the icy fringes of British politics all the way to Westminster, where it is poised to claim the popular vote. In it, he reveals for the first time exactly how, over the last few years, Farage and his supporters have ushered in a very English revolution: secretly courting MPs right under the nose of the political establishment, in the tearooms and wine bars of the House of Lords. With characteristic wit and candour, Farage takes us beyond the caricature of the beerdrinking, chain-smoking adventurer in Jermyn Street double-cuffs as he describes the values that underpin his own journey: from successful City trader to (very) outspoken critic of the European Union and champion of Britain's right to govern itself.

    . .We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert, but what was it like for a commoner? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Dress in whalebone and feed opium to the baby? Catch the omnibus to work and wash laundry while wearing a corset? How To Be A Victorian is a new approach to history, a journey back in time more intimate, personal, and physical than anything before. It is one told from the inside out--how our forebears interacted with the practicalities of their world--and it's a history of those things that make up the day-to-day reality of life, matters so small and seemingly mundane that people scarcely mention them in their diaries or letters. Moving through the rhythm of the day, from waking up to the sound of a knocker-upper man poking a stick at your window, to retiring for nocturnal activities, when the door finally closes on twenty-four hours of life, this astonishing guide illuminates the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work, and play.If you liked The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century or 1000 Years of Annoying the French, you will love this book.

    Oh, he may win again but he won’t get a majority. Oh, his trick bag is emptying fast, the ads are backfiring, the people are onto him, and soon his own party will turn on him. And let me tell you, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy . . .Despite a constant barrage of outrage and disbelief from his detractors, Stephen Harper is on his way to becoming one of Canada’s most significant prime ministers. He has already been in power longer than Lester B. Pearson and John Diefenbaker. By 2015, and the end of this majority term, he’ll have caught up to Brian Mulroney. No matter the ups and downs, the triumphs and the self-inflicted wounds, Harper has been moving to build the Canada he wants—the Canada a significant proportion of Canadian voters want or they wouldn’t have elected him three times. As Wells writes, “He could not win elections without widespread support in the land. . . . Which suggests that Harper has what every successful federal leader has needed to survive over a long stretch of time: a superior understanding of Canada.”In The Longer I’m Prime Minister, Paul Wells explores just what Harper’s understanding of Canada is, and who he speaks for in the national conversation. He explains Harper not only to Harper supporters but also to readers who can’t believe he is still Canada’s prime minister. In this authoritative, engaging and sometimes deeply critical account of the man, Paul Wells also brings us an illuminating portrait of Canadian democracy: “glorious, a little dented, and free.”

    They could be seen in news reports, clad all in black with balaclavas covering their faces, fighting police at the presidential inauguration, and on California college campuses protesting right-wing speakers…Simply, antifa aims to deny fascists the opportunity to promote their oppressive politics—by any means necessary. Critics say shutting down political adversaries is anti-democratic; antifa adherents argue that the horrors of fascism must never be allowed the slightest chance to triumph again.In a smart and gripping investigation, historian and former Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray provides a one-of-a-kind look inside the movement, including a detailed survey of its history from its origins to the present day—the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism in English. Based on interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, Antifa details the tactics of the movement and the philosophy behind it, offering insight into the growing but little understood resistance fighting back against the alt-right.

    Pot dealers draped in Dolce. Divorce settlements that include the Birkins at their current retail price. Air kisses, landing strips, and lounge-chair bribery. For most of us, the idea of life inside the golden triad of Park Avenue, Sagaponack, and St. Barths is just as exotic as the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. Luckily, Richard Kirshenbaum has a VIP pass to the Upper East Side and is willing to share the wealth—of gossip. His New York Observer column on uptown social life provides a fascinating glimpse behind the gilded curtain into the swanky restaurants and eye-popping vacation destinations where the 1 percent gathers.Isn’t That Rich? features highlights from Kirshenbaum’s monthly column as well as several brand-new essays. From cash-strapped blue bloods willing to trade their good names for a taste of nouveau riche treasure to the fine art of donning a cashmere sweater in Capri, our intrepid correspondent exposes the preoccupations of the posh. His insider sources may be anonymous, but “his up-to-the-minute portrait of today’s 1 percent is both insightful and a joy to read, no matter what tax bracket you’re in.” (Mortimer Zuckerman)

    The marketplace now operates through every hour of the clock, pushing us into constant activity and eroding forms of community and political expression, damaging the fabric of everyday life.Jonathan Crary examines how this interminable non-time blurs any separation between an intensified, ubiquitous consumerism and emerging strategies of control and surveillance. He describes the ongoing management of individual attentiveness and the impairment of perception within the compulsory routines of contemporary technological culture. At the same time, he shows that human sleep, as a restorative withdrawal that is intrinsically incompatible with 24/7 capitalism, points to other more formidable and collective refusals of world-destroying patterns of growth and accumulation.

    Reserved and quiet, she didn't set out to be a trailblazer, but there was something in her way: the law. Hundreds of years of legal precedent, a line of devastating Supreme Court cases, and countless statutes depriving women of equal citizenship and keeping them from full participation in the legal and political process.Mixing social and legal history with a moving and intimate biography, award-winning author Teri Kanefield captures a turbulent era and tells the story of how Ruth Bader Ginsburg defied expectations to become one of the most influential and powerful women in America."We hear many voices in this wonderfully engaging biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and come away with a far richer understanding of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and of what the rise of feminism has meant for all of us, whatever our gender, whatever our politics."--Kathleen Vanden Heuvel, Law Library Director, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law"An absorbing personal biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that is also equal parts legal history and political philosophy. Like Ginsburg herself, Kanefield's narrative is precise, candid, logical, yet filled with humor and irony. She shows the reader the warmth and humility behind a serious legal mind. Free to Be Ruth Bader Ginsburg will appeal to a wide range of readers and is a valuable addition to all types of libraries."--Suzy Szasz Palmer, Past President, Virginia Library Association"An engrossing biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that doubles as a primer on how America's champions for gender equality pressed their cause in the courts. Recommended for every law student, lawyer, and lay reader looking for an authoritative yet readable treatment of how the law shapes women's lives, and vice-versa."--Kathleen Morris, Associate Professor of Law, Golden Gate Law School"Free to Be is a richly detailed biography offering fascinating insights into the groundbreaking career of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and at the same time charting for readers a thorough and engaging history of the law of sex discrimination and equal protection jurisprudence that she helped to shape. Kanefield's book is a must read, not only for fans of RBG but for anyone interested in a more complete understanding of the evolution of women's rights and legal status in the U.S."--Sharmilla Lodhia, Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies, Santa Clara University"Free to Be is a must read for those who love history, want to know more about the women's rights movement, or have an interest in modern politics and culture. I highly recommend it!"--Kristi Jensen, Librarian, University of Minnesota

    The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of shipping off its convicts to a largely unexplored landmass at the other end of the world.Using the personal journals and documents that were kept during this expedition, historian/novelist Thomas Keneally re-creates the grueling overseas voyage, a hellish, suffocating journey that claimed the lives of many convicts. Miraculously, the fleet reached the shores of what was then called New South Wales in 1788, and after much trial and error, the crew managed to set up a rudimentary yet vibrant settlement. As governor of the colony, Phillip took on the challenges of dealing with unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, a bewildered, sometimes hostile native population, as well as such serious matters as food shortages and disease. Moving beyond Phillip, Keneally offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines, who both aided and opposed Phillip, and of the settlers, including convicts who were determined to overcome their pasts and begin anew.With the authority of a renowned historian and the narrative grace of a brilliant novelist, Thomas Keneally offers an insider’s perspective into the dramatic saga of the birth of a vibrant society in an unfamiliar land. A Commonwealth of Thieves immerses us in the fledgling penal colony and conjures up colorful scenes of the joy and heartbreak, the thrills and hardships that characterized those first four improbable years. The result is a lively and engrossing work of history, as well as a tale of redemption for the thousands of convicts who started new lives thousands of miles from their homes.

    With the publication of the new European Constitution, authors have condensed some of the early history in order to make space for an examination of the new European Constitution and to argue that in it are all the tricks and traps at the heart of this European Idea and the disastrous consequences.

    The chafing restrictions of a typical upbringing in upper-class, small town Alabama simply did not apply to Zelda, who was described as an unusual child and permitted to roam the streets with little supervision. Zelda refused to blossom into a typical 'Southern belle' on anyone's terms but her own and while still in high school enjoyed the status of a local celebrity for her shocking behavior. Everybody in town knew the name Zelda Sayre. Queen of the Montgomery social scene, Zelda had a different beau ready and willing to show her a good time for every day of the week. Before meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda's life was a constant pursuit of pleasure. With little thought for the future and no responsibilities to speak of, Zelda committed herself fully to the mantra that accompanied her photo in her high school graduation book: "Why should all life be work, when we all can borrow. Let's think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow." But for now Zelda was still in rehearsal for her real life to begin, a life she was sure would be absolutely extraordinary. Zelda Sayre married F. Scott Fitzgerald on the 3rd of April 1920 and left sleepy Montgomery behind in order to dive headfirst into the shimmering, glamourous life of a New York socialite. With the publication of Scott's first novel, This Side of Paradise, Zelda found herself thrust into the limelight as the very epitome of the Flapper lifestyle. Concerned chiefly with fashion, wild parties and flouting social expectations, Zelda and Scott became icons of the Jazz Age, the personification of beauty and success. What Zelda and Scott shared was a romantic sense of self-importance that assured them that their life of carefree leisure and excess was the only life really worth living. Deeply in love, the Fitzgeralds were like to sides of the same coin, each reflecting the very best and worst of each other. While the world fell in love with the image of the Fitzgeralds they saw on the cover of magazines, behind the scenes the Fitzgerald's marriage could not withstand the tension of their creative arrangement. Zelda was Scott's muse and he mercilessly mined the events of their life for material for his books. Scott claimed Zelda's memories, things she said, experiences she had and even passages from her diary as his possessions and used them to form the basis of his fictional works. Zelda had a child but the domestic sphere offered no comfort or purpose for her. The Flapper lifestyle was not simply a phase she lived through, it formed the very basis of her character and once the parties grew dull, the Fitzgeralds' drinking became destructive and Zelda's beauty began to fade, the world held little allure for her. Zelda sought reprieve in work and tried to build a career as a ballet dancer. When that didn't work out she turned to writing but was forbidden by Scott from using her own life as material. Convinced that she would never leave her mark on the world as deeply or expressively as Scott had, Zelda retreated into herself and withdrew from the people she knew in happier times. The later years of Zelda's life were marred by her detachment from reality as, diagnosed with schizophrenia, Zelda spent the last eighteen years of her life living in and out of psychiatric hospitals. As Scott's life unraveled due to alcohol abuse, Zelda looked back on the years they had spent together, young and wild and beautiful, as the best of her life. She may have been right but she was wrong about one thing, Zelda did leave her mark on the world and it was a deep and expressive mark that no one could have left but her. Zelda Fitzgerald: The Biography

    A rash of art exhibitions, pop albums and coffee table books arrived on the scene, all desperate to recover England's lost national soul. But when we sweep away the patriotic stereotypes, we begin to see that England is a country that does not and perhaps should not exist in any essential sense.In this provocative text combining polemic and memoir, Alex Niven argues that the map of the British Isles should be torn apart completely as we look towards a time of radical political reform. Rejecting outdated nationalisms, Niven argues for a renovated model of culture and governance for the islands a fluid, dynamic version of regionalism preparing the way for a new dream archipelago .

    The Great Recession is more than four years old, and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge, all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all, remain in a state of intense pain." How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how do we free ourselves? Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight. He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four years: a quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the "intellectual clarity and political will" to end this depression now.

    These diaries start in 1990 when Brandreth, after a career in theatre, television, and publishing, decided that he wanted to become a Tory MP. There is an all-star cast, including Princess Diana, Bill Clinton, Joanna Lumley, Jeffrey Archer, and Norman Lamont.

    In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

    But the great promise of "Change We Can Believe In" was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama's historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery.InThe Promise: President Obama, Year One,Jonathan Alter, one of the country's most respected journalists and historians, uses his unique access to the White House to produce the first inside look at Obama's difficult debut.What happened in 2009 inside the Oval Office? What worked and what failed? What is the president really like on the job and off-hours, using what his best friend called "a Rubik's Cube in his brain"? These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election, made trillion-dollar decisions on the stimulus and budget before he was inaugurated, engineered colossally unpopular bailouts of the banking and auto sectors, and escalated a treacherous war not long after settling into office.The Promiseis a fast-paced and incisive narrative of a young risk-taking president carving his own path amid sky-high expectations and surging joblessness. Alter reveals that it was Obama alone"feeling lucky"who insisted on pushing major health care reform over the objections of his vice president and top advisors, including his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who admitted that "I begged him not to do this."Alter takes the reader inside the room as Obama prevents a fistfight involving a congressman, coldly reprimands the military brass for insubordination, crashes the key meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, and realizes that a Senate candidate's gaffe about baseball in a Massachusetts special election will dash the big dream of his first year.In Alter's telling, the real Obama is an authentic, demanding, unsentimental, and sometimes overconfident leader. He adapted to the presidency with ease and put more "points on the board" than he is given credit for, but neglected to use his leverage over the banks and failed to connect well with an angry public. We see the famously calm president cursing leaks, playfully trash-talking his advisors, and joking about even the most taboo subjects, still intent on redeeming more of his promise as the problems mount.This brilliant blend of journalism and history offers the freshest reporting and most acute perspective on the biggest story of our time. It will shape impressions of the Obama presidency and of the man himself for years to come.