In addition to multiple ground wars, it has pioneered drone strikes and industrial-scale digital surveillance, as well as detaining people indefinitely and torturing them. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory, but they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized, paranoid feature of American politics and security, expanding the possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other targets at home. A politically divided country turned the War on Terror into a cultural and then tribal struggle, first on the ideological fringes and ultimately expanding to conquer the Republican Party, often with the timid acquiescence of the Democratic Party. Today's nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by the 9/11 era.Reign of Terror will show how these policies created a foundation for American authoritarianism and, though it is not a book about Donald Trump, it will provide a critical explanation of his rise to power and the sources of his political strength. It will show that Barack Obama squandered an opportunity to dismantle the War on Terror after killing Osama bin Laden. That mistake turns out to have been portentous. By the end of his tenure, the war metastasized into a broader and bitter culture struggle in search of a demagogue like Trump to lead it.A union of journalism and intellectual history, Reign of Terror will be a pathbreaking and definitive book with the power to transform how America understands its national security policies and their catastrophic impact on its civic life.

    Few, then, would describe the writing of it as a process fraught with highly improbable circumstances, coincidences, compromises, and largely unexpected outcomes. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men, no matter how talented, bring with them "all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views." One need not deny that the Framers had good intentions in order to believe that—inevitably—they also had interests. Based on prodigious research and told largely through the voices of the participants, Michael Klarman's The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution tells the story of how the Framers' interests shaped the constitution, and what that means for our use of the document today.The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, or not happened at all. Without the heroic efforts of James Madison, George Washington's last-minute decision to attend, and the countless negotiations in the midst of debate and gridlock, the constitution we know today may never have been ratified. Had anything gone wrong and the convention been dissolved without consensus, any number of events may have occurred, such as a civil war, or reversion to monarchy. Klarman's narration of these events is full of colorful characters and riveting stories: the rebellion by debtor farmers in Massachusetts; the deal that induced John Hancock to support ratification; the secretive dealings of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay at the New York ratifying convention that produced an improbable victory. The constitution, he shows, was not created by rousing national consensus—an impractical concept at the time—but by the personal preferences of its creators. Moreover, the convention produced a constitution very different from what most Americans anticipated. How did the Framers convince Americans to approve a scheme so unrepresentative of national opinion? And to what extent should Americans rely on it today?Towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson noted that each generation has "a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness," and that constitutions should not be deemed, "too sacred to be touched." As Jefferson would have recognized, and as Klarman depicts in this captivating retelling of one of America's most famous stories, the Constitution is and has always been used as a tool to defend particular interests, and its sanctity should not go unchallenged.

    Wade decision, here is the engrossing story of the case by the attorney who successfully argued it in the Supreme Court--now with a new chapter on the current situation. B/W photos.

    Carter's unpopularity helped Republicans win seats in the House and gain control over the Senate for the first time in over 20 years. The Reagan Era had begun, ushering in a generation of conservative power. Democrats blamed Carter for this catastrophe and spent the next decade pretending he had never existed. Republicans cheered his demise and trotted out his name to scare voters for years to come. Carter and his wife Rosalynn returned to their farm in the small town of Plains, Georgia. They were humiliated, widely unpopular, and even in financial debt. 35 years later, Carter has become the most celebrated post-president in American history. He has won the Nobel Peace Prize, written bestselling books, and become lauded across the world for his efforts on behalf of peace and social justice. Ex-presidents now adopt the Carter model of leveraging their eminent status to benefit humanity. By pursuing diplomatic missions, leading missions to end poverty and working to eradicate disease around the world, Carter has transformed the idea of what a president can accomplish after leaving the White House.This is the story of how Jimmy Carter lost the biggest political prize on earth--but managed to win back something much greater. Jordan Michael Smith is a contributing writer at Salon and the Christian Science Monitor. His writing has appeared in print or online for the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate, BBC, and many other publications. Born in Toronto, he holds a Master's of Arts in Political Science from Carleton University. He lives in New York City. www.jordanmichaelsmith.typepad.com.Cover design by Adil Dara.

    Robert J. Darling organizes President Bush's trip to Florida on Sept. 10, 2001, he believes the next couple of days will be quiet. He has no idea that a war is about to begin. The next day, after terrorists crash airliners into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, Maj. Darling rushes to the president's underground chamber at the White House. There, he takes on the task of liaison between the vice president, national security advisor and the Pentagon. He works directly with the National Command Authority, and he's in the room when Vice President Cheney orders two fighter jets to get airborne in order to shoot down United Flight 93. Throughout the attacks, Maj. Darling witnesses the unprecedented actions that leaders are taking to defend America. As Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others make decisions at a lightning pace with little or no deliberation, he's there to lend his support. Follow Darling's story as he becomes a Marine Corps aviator and rises through the ranks to play an incredible role in responding to a crisis that changed the world in 9-11-01: The White House: Twenty-Four Hours inside the President's Bunker.