Book picks similar to
Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen's Guide to Rebuilding America by Stephen D. Palmer
freedom
politics
leadership
history
The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America
Nick Gillespie - 2011
Everywhere, that is, except in our politics. There we are held hostage to an eighteenth century system, dominated by two political parties whose ever-more-polarized rhetorical positions mask a mutual interest in maintaining a stranglehold on power.The Declaration of Independents is a compelling and extremely entertaining manifesto on behalf of a system better suited to the future--one structured by the essential libertarian principles of free minds and free markets. Gillespie and Welch profile libertarian innovators, identify the villains propping up the ancien regime, and take aim at do-something government policies that hurt most of those they claim to protect. Their vision will resonate with a wide swath of frustrated citizens and young voters, born after the Cold War's end, to whom old tribal allegiances, prejudices, and hang-ups about everything from hearing a foreign language on the street to gay marriage to drug use simply do not make sense.
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Barack Obama - 2006
Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward.
The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789
Joseph J. Ellis - 2015
It was these men who shaped the contours of American history by diagnosing the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation, manipulating the political process to force a calling of the Constitutional Convention, conspiring to set the agenda in Philadelphia, orchestrating the debate in the state ratifying conventions, and, finally, drafting the Bill of Rights to assure state compliance with the constitutional settlement.
God's Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling
Lance Wallnau - 2016
America is already in turmoil. When Jeb Bush referred to Donald Trump as “the chaos candidate” he may have been tapping into something more prophetic than he realized. Transformational teacher and thought leader, Dr. Lance Wallnau, offers a timely prophetic blueprint into the state of America and offers a proposed solution that would tip the scales in favor of the nation fulfilling its divine assignment. In this book you will: Be awakened to the state of chaos in America that impacts you and your family — learn how your voice can help shape the future. Discover what America’s “Fourth Crucible” is and how this catalytic moment in history can either make or break the nation. Receive a vision of hope about America’s unfinished assignment and how this is your call to both prayer and action. Tune Into the prophetic words about how Donald Trump is a “Cyrus” candidate who would be a wrecking ball to political correctness.
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.
Character Makes a Difference: Where I'm From, Where I've Been, and What I Believe
Mike Huckabee - 2007
That same day, Tucker resigned, and Huckabee would serve as governor of Arkansas until 2007, winning many national honors along the way.
Character Makes a Difference
is Mike Huckabee’s biographical account of how he handled that potentially major constitutional crisis and why he believes character is the key issue in everyone’s life, “in the work you do, the candidates you vote for, the people who look to you for leadership.”
935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity
Charles Lewis - 2013
Unfortunately, for citizens in the United States and throughout the world, distinguishing between fact and fiction—always a formidable challenge— is now more difficult than ever, as a constant stream of questionable information pours into media outlets.In The Future of Truth, Charles Lewis reminds us of the history of public dishonesty in the United States—from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s cover-up of real motives behind the Vietnam War, to George W. Bush’s public rationales for military action in Iraq and Afghanistan— and how courageous investigative journalists stood up to power to bring truth to light. He then explores the implications for today: what are the root causes and consequences of deception?Lewis argues forcefully that while data points and factoids abound, it is much harder to get to the whole truth of complex issues in time for that truth to guide citizens, voters, and decision-makers.
On Mutiny
David Speers - 2018
If we really do get the government we deserve, On Mutiny might provoke a civilian rebellion.
Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
Joshua Green - 2017
Based on dozens of interviews conducted over six years, Green spins the master narrative of the 2016 campaign from its origins in the far fringes of right-wing politics and reality television to its culmination inside Trump’s penthouse on election night. The shocking elevation of Bannon to head Trump’s flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who’d never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet Bannon’s hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plot to destroy Hillary Clinton paved the way for Trump’s unlikely victory. Trump became the avatar of a dark but powerful worldview that dominated the airwaves and spoke to voters whom others couldn’t see. Trump’s campaign was the final phase of a populist insurgency that had been building up in America for years, and Bannon, its inscrutable mastermind, believed it was the culmination of a hard-right global uprising that would change the world. Any study of Trump’s rise to the presidency is unavoidably a study of Bannon. Devil’s Bargain is a tour-de-force telling of the remarkable confluence of circumstances that decided the election, many of them orchestrated by Bannon and his allies, who really did plot a vast, right-wing conspiracy to stop Clinton. To understand Trump's extraordinary rise and Clinton’s fall, you have to weave Trump’s story together with Bannon’s, or else it doesn't make sense.
The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster
Edward Lucas - 2014
"The Snowden Operation", demolishes Snowden's claim to be a whistleblower. Drawing on 30 years' experience observing the world of intelligence, Lucas depicts Snowden as at best reckless and naïve, and at worst a saboteur. He stole far more secrets than were necessary to make his case and did so in a deliberately damaging matter. Any benefits to the public debate about issues such as meta-data and encryption are far outweighed by the damage done to the West’s security, diplomacy and economic interests. “The Snowden Operation” highlights the inconsistencies and puzzles in the account of events given by the “Snowdenistas”. It explains how Russia could have sponsored Snowden’s data heist -- the greatest disaster ever to hit Western intelligence, and one whose effects have neatly suited Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
How Do We Fix This Mess? The Economic Price of Having it all, and the Route to Lasting Prosperity
Robert Peston - 2012
'How do we fix this mess? I don't know. But don't stop reading now. Perhaps if we have a clearer understanding of what went wrong, we'll have a better idea of what needs to be done. This book is a map of what needs to be fixed.' The record-breaking unbroken growth between 1992 and 2008 wasn't the economic miracle that it seemed. It was based on a number of dangerous illusions - most notably that it didn't matter that the UK and US year after year consumed more than they earned. But we couldn't go on increasing our indebtedness forever. The financial crash of 2007/8 and the subsequent economic slump in much of the west was the moment when we realised we had borrowed more than we could afford to repay. So who got it wrong? Bankers, investors and regulators? And were they greedy, stupid or asleep? What was the role of government? And what part did we, as consumers, play in all this? How do we get through this difficult period of transition to a more sustainable economy, one based on investment and exports, rather than on borrowing and consumption? With the same probing lucidity he brought to WHO RUNS BRITAIN?, Robert Peston takes us step-by-step towards a common sense way to fix this mess.
The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind
Raghuram G. Rajan - 2019
In The Third Pillar he offers up a magnificent big-picture framework for understanding how these three forces--the state, markets, and our communities--interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane.The "third pillar" of the title is the community we live in. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That's not just myopic, Rajan argues; it's dangerous. All economics is actually socioeconomics - all markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. As he shows, throughout history, technological phase shifts have ripped the market out of those old webs and led to violent backlashes, and to what we now call populism. Eventually, a new equilibrium is reached, but it can be ugly and messy, especially if done wrong.Right now, we're doing it wrong. As markets scale up, the state scales up with it, concentrating economic and political power in flourishing central hubs and leaving the periphery to decompose, figuratively and even literally. Instead, Rajan offers a way to rethink the relationship between the market and civil society and argues for a return to strengthening and empowering local communities as an antidote to growing despair and unrest. Rajan is not a doctrinaire conservative, so his ultimate argument that decision-making has to be devolved to the grass roots or our democracy will continue to wither, is sure to be provocative. But even setting aside its solutions, The Third Pillar is a masterpiece of explication, a book that will be a classic of its kind for its offering of a wise, authoritative and humane explanation of the forces that have wrought such a sea change in our lives.
Growing Pains: the future of democracy (and work)
Gwynne Dyer - 2018
But how did this come about? And what does it mean for the future?Populism and ultra-nationalism brought about the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s. Now, as Trump sits in the White House, Britain negotiates its way out of the EU, and countries across Europe see substantial gains in support for the extreme Right, award-winning journalist, author, and historian Gwynne Dyer asks how we got here, and where we go next. Dyer examines the global challenges facing us all today and explains how they have contributed to a world of inequality, poverty, and joblessness, conditions which he argues inevitably lead to the rise of populism. The greatest threat to social and political stability lies in the rise of automation, which will continue to eliminate jobs, whether politicians admit that it is happening or not. To avoid a social and political catastrophe, we will have to find ways of putting real money into the pockets of those who have no work. But this is not a book without hope. Our capacity for overcoming the worst has been tested again and again throughout history, and we have always survived. To do so now, Dyer argues, we must embrace radical solutions to the real difficulties facing individuals, or find ourselves back in the 1930s with no way out.
Defending Identity
Natan Sharansky - 2008
Better to have hostile identities framed by democracy than democrats indifferent to identity.In a vigorous, insightful challenge to the left and right alike, Natan Sharansky, as he has proved repeatedly, is at the leading edge of the issues that frame our times.
The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land
Andrew P. Napolitano - 2006
Today that parchment has been shred to ribbons, explains Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, as the federal government trounces state and individual rights and expands its reach far beyond what the Framers intended.An important follow-up to Judge Napolitano's best-selling Constitutional Chaos, this book shows with no-nonsense clarity how Congress has "purchased" regulations by bribing states and explains how the Supreme Court has devised historically inaccurate, logically inconsistent, and even laughable justifications to approve what Congress has done.It's an exciting excursion into the dark corners of the law, showing how do-gooders, busybodies, and control freaks in government disregard the limitations imposed upon Congress by the Constitution and enact laws, illegal and unnatural, in virtually every area of human endeavor.Praise for The Constitution in Exile from Left, Right, and Center"Does anyone understand the vision of America's founding fathers? The courts and Congress apparently don't have a clue. But Judge Andrew P. Napolitano does, and so will you, if you read The Constitution in Exile."-BILL O'REILLY"Whatever happened to states rights, limited government, and natural law? Judge Napolitano, in his own inimitable style, takes us on a fascinating tour of the destruction of constitutional government. If you want to know how the federal government got so big and fat, read this book. Agree or disagree, this book will make you think."-SEAN HANNITY"In all of the American media, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is the most persistent, uncompromising guardian of both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, very much including the Bill of Rights. Increasingly, our Constitution is in clear and present danger. Judge Napolitano--in The Constitution in Exile--has challenged all Americans across party lines to learn the extent of this constitutional crisis." -NAT HENTOFF"Judge Napolitano engages here in what I do every day on my program-make you think. There's no question that potential Supreme Court nominees and what our Constitution says and doesn't say played a major role for many voters in our last couple of elections. What the judge does here is detail why the federal government claims it can regulate as well as tax everything in sight as it grows and grows. Agree or disagree with him-you need to read his latest book, think, and begin to arm yourself as you enter this important debate." -RUSH LIMBAUGH"At a time when we are, in Benjamin Franklin's words, sacrificing essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, here comes the judge with what should be mandatory reading for the executive branch cronies who are busy stealing power while they think we're not watching. Thank goodness the judge is watching and speaking truth to power. More than a book, this is an emergency call to philosophical arms, one we must heed before it's too late." -ALAN COLMES