High Challenge, Low Threat: How the Best Leaders Find the Balance


Mary Myatt - 2016
    It is the quality of these, whatever the size of the organisation, which make the difference between organisations which thrive, and those which stagnate.This is not to argue for soft, easy and comfortable options. Instead it considers how top leaders manage to walk the line between the impossible and the possible, between the undoable and the doable, and to create conditions for productive work which transcend the difficulties which come towards us every day. Instead of dodging them, they embrace them. And by navigating high challenge, low threat, they show how others how to do the same.

Unaccountable: Truth and Lies on Parliament Hill


Kevin Page - 2015
    The move fulfilled a Tory campaign promise to deliver greater government transparency and accountability. He was later denounced by the same people who appointed him to scrutinize their spending. When he challenged the government on several issues--most notably about the true costs of the F-35 fighter planes--and publicly claimed the government was misleading Canadians, Page was vilified. He was called "unbelievable, unreliable and incredible" by then-Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Page's term was not extended and he retired from the civil service.     Page's assessment of the F-35 procurement was proven right, a major embarrassment to the Harper government. But Page's overriding concern is that Parliament does not get the information and analysis it needs to hold the executive (the prime minister and cabinet) to account. Parliament, he argues, is broken, with power centralized in the PMO. The civil service appears cowed, and members of parliament almost never see enough financial analysis to support the policy decisions they make. That was true at various times on the tough-on-crime legislation, new military procurement as well as changes to the Canada Health Transfer and Old Age Security.      In this shocking insider's account, Page argues that democracy is being undermined by an increasingly autocratic government that does not respect facts that run counter to its political agenda. Elected officials need accurate, independently verified data to support the implementation of policies and programs. In Unaccountable, Page tells all Canadians why we should be concerned.

The English Civil War: At First Hand


Tristram Hunt - 2002
    As well as the most famous and lively documents, diaries and court cases of the period, the author has uncovered less known sources which added together offer a new angle on the years between 1637 and 1652 when Cromwell's Roundheads and Charles I's Cavaliers fought over Anglican reforms and Scottish rule.

To America with Love


A.A. Gill - 2011
    Gill traverses the Atlantic to become the freshest chronicler of American identity in recent memory. With a fiery temper, a sharp-tongued wit, and an insatiable curiosity to figure out what makes more than 300 million of the world’s population tick, Gill traces the history and logic of our nation’s habits, collecting wild stories and startling facts along the way. From Colorado, where he meets a local vegeta­tion expert and learns which flowers were in Poca­hontas’s nuptial bouquet, to Kentucky, where he visits the Creationist Museum and drinks moonshine with a hog farmer, and to Harlem, where he misses a turn and stumbles into the wrong barbershop for a once-in-a-lifetime haircut, Gill embarks on a tour of not only the nation’s landscape but also its psyche, playing adventurer, philosopher, statistician, and raconteur all at once. In inimitable fashion he explains why pressing a button in a Manhattan elevator means entering a social contract of American etiquette and inverting conventional hierarchies of space; why browsing through Playboy centerfolds becomes the perfect litmus test for a generation’s political views; and how Hollywood is the metaphysical marketplace for movies, the place where Americans are sold on American romance and taught how to dream the American dream.Weaving together a tapestry of historical erudition and outrageous anecdotes, Gill ultimately captures the scope and spirit of a nation that started off as a conceptual experiment and became a political, sci­entific, and cultural fortress. This humorous and revelatory book shows us why we are who we are by transforming ordinary experiences into extraordinary lessons and promising to never let us look in the mirror the same way again.

Feardom: How Politicians Exploit Your Emotions and What You Can Do to Stop Them


Connor Boyack - 2014
    Sometimes the fear derives from a pre-existing threat. At other times, crises are created or intensified to invoke a sense of panic and anxiety where none previously existed.This pattern is as predictable as it is destructive. The end result is the same: a loss of liberty. Policies that are costly, oppressive, and harmful are supported by people who abandon any interest in freedom or personal responsibility in hopes of feeling safe.Manufactured fear, with its negative impact on liberty, is a societal plague. There have been widespread casualties. We need an antidote. Feardom offers its readers a much-needed immunization.

Firebrand: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the MAGA Revolution


Matt Gaetz - 2020
    Join me with ideas, energy, images, and stories. This is not my chronological diary. You can watch me on television for that. This is how we prevail with joy—and exactly how an exciting president is leading the way against all odds.” —Congressman Matt Gaetz

Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics


David M. O'Brien - 1986
    In a balanced treatment of the Court's power and curbs on its power, O'Brien (government and foreign affairs, U. of Virginia) expands discussion of how changes in the Court's compos

It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes


Jeffrey Tucker - 2011
    Meanwhile, the public sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter. Jeffrey Tucker, in this follow-up to his Bourbon for Breakfast, draws detailed attention to both. He points out that the products of digital capitalism are amazing, astounding, beyond belief-more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine. With this tiny box in hand, we can do a real-time video chat with anyone on the planet and pay nothing more than my usual service fee. This means that anyone on the planet can do business with and be friends with any other person on the globe. The borders, the limits, the barriers-they are all being blasted away. The pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal correspondence. Today young people are brief instant messaging through social media, but that's only for now, and who knows what next year will bring. Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this possible, which is the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of "miracle fatigue"-too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all. And why? It has something to do with the nature of the human mind, Tucker argues, which does not and This book will inspire love for free markets - and loathing of government.

John Key: Portrait of a Prime Minister


John Roughan - 2014
    As Key and his Government begin campaigning for a third term in Parliament, this in-depth portrait will give a clearer idea of Key, the man and politician. Journalist John Roughan has secured unprecedented access to John Key and his closest advisors. This book will provide insights into what motivates a multi-millionaire to become Prime Minister and examines his thoughts and aspirations. It will provide the clearest picture yet of what drives this country's Prime Minister. The book will follow Key's early life, starting with the break-up of his parents, his upbringing in a state house with an interesting Jewish refugee mother and his years at high school and university. It will follow his early career as a finance trader, his move into politics and his performance in power so far. Roughan will explore how Key's political views were formed by his life experiences, and how his political decisions fit within the context of his life story. John Key and his wife Bronagh have agreed to be interviewed for the book.

Jane Jacobs: The Last Interview and Other Conversations


Jane Jacobs - 2016
    In the decades that followed, Jacobs remained a brilliant and revered commentator on architecture, urban life, and economics until her death in 2006. These interviews capture Jacobs at her very best and are an essential reminder of why Jacobs was—and remains—unrivaled in her analyses and her ability to cut through cant and received wisdom.

The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela


Sisonke Msimang - 2018
    On one side, her legacy was cast by the media and public in the shadow of her sanctified ex-husband. Winnie was history’s loser. She was damaged goods; Nelson Mandela was whole and pure.A younger generation, in particular women, took a different view and so a battle of ideas began that sought to reframe Winnie’s career and reclaim her identity as an extraordinary woman and fierce political activist.Sisonke Msimang, an acclaimed author and public commentator, wasted little time in jumping into the fray. And when the dust settled, what emerged is this short but razor-sharp book which reflects critically on the turbulent yet remarkable life of Winnie. Msimang situates her political career and legacy in the contemporary context, what she means today in social and political terms, by exploring different aspects of her iconic persona.The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela is an astute examination of one of South Africa’s most controversial political figures, of the rise and fall – and rise, again, – of a woman who not only battled the apartheid regime, but the patriarchal character of the struggle itself. In telling Winnie’s story, Msimang shows us that activism matters, and that the meaning of women’s lives can be reclaimed.

Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea


Jasper Becker - 2005
    As over two million of his subjects starved to death, Kim Jong Il roamed between palaces staffed by beautiful girls and stocked with expensive international delicacies. Outside, the steel mills shut down, the trains stopped running, the power went out, and the hospitals ran out of medicine. When the population threatened to revolt, Kim imposed a reign of terror, deceived the United Nations, and plundered the country's dwindling resources to become a nuclear power. Now this tiny bankrupt nation is using her nuclear capability to blackmail the United States. Veteran correspondent Jasper Becker takes us inside one of the most secretive countries in the world, exposing the internal chaos, blind faith, rampant corruption, and terrifying cruelty of its rulers. Becker details the vain efforts to change North Korea by actors inside and outside the country and the dangers this highly volatile country continues to pose. This unique land, ruled by one family's megalomania and paranoia, seems destined to survive and linger on, a menace to its own people and to the rest of the world. But should the nations of the world allow this regime to survive? That's the question with which this book concludes.

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate


Scott D. Sagan - 2012
    The new edition, An Enduring Debate, continues the important discussion of nuclear proliferation and the dangers of a nuclear-armed world. With new chapters on the questions surrounding a nuclear North Korea, Iran, and Iraq and the potential for a world free of nuclear weapons, this Third Edition will continue to generate a lively classroom experience.

United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis


Mark McDonald - 2021
    

World Politics Since 1945


Peter Calvocoressi - 1971
    This edition has been revised to cover the opening up of Eastern and Central Europe; the enlargement of the EU and the Maastricht Treaty; the disintegration of the USSR, the end of the cold war and the issues raised by post-Soviet states; and the Yugoslavian war.