Book picks similar to
Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism by James G. Ryan
biography-socialists
nonfiction
politics-theory
history-us
Bad Boy: The Life And Politics Of Lee Atwater
John Joseph Brady - 1996
He helped to create a solid Republican south. And he became notorious for turning national politics back into a blood sport, not only using nasty attacks but reveling in his image as the bad boy of Washington. Then, at the age of 39, Atwater was struck by a brain tumor. In thirteen months, cancer ended the most controversial career in modern politics—the charismatic, colorful, and contradictory life of Lee Atwater.Even today Atwater is a fallen leader Republicans love and a rival Democrats love to hate. He was the first political handler as mediagenic as his candidates—certainly the first chairman of the Republican National Committee to record a blues album. His campaigns represent the high-water mark of the GOPs postwar dominance of the presidency, and his techniques set the tone for races across the country. Watching Washington since his death, politicians and pundits still wonder, What if Lee Atwater had lived? Bad Boy reveals how Lee Atwater began his career controlling crowds as jittery class clown, traumatized by the agonizing death of his little brother. In college he discovered the subtle intercourse of policy and public opinion and grew from party animal to party man. Bad Boy details Atwater's political strategies from the grass roots to the national level. Even more ruthless were the behind-the-scenes power games as he crossed paths, and occasionally crossed swords, with nearly every major Republican of the 1980s: Reagan, Bush, Baker, Ailes, Rollins, and many more.In Bad Boy, we also see the faces Atwater tried to spin away. He was a compulsive womanizer, climbing through windows to avoid reporters. He played radical politics but promoted ”big tent” Republicanism. Even his last public moment is controversial. Did Atwater's deathbed words really repudiate entire campaigns, or were they twisted by political enemies and second-hand reporting? Was his repentance sincere or simply one last gasp of press manipulation? Was he responsible for the infamous Willie Horton ads, or was he unfairly blamed by 1988s losers, trying for a moral victory? Is Lee Atwater, a master of spin, now being spun in his grave?In its sudden end, Atwater's remarkable life resembled the rise and fall of a fine political novel. With the probing insights of an expert interviewer and a rare stylistic verve, John Brady tells that whole frantic, fascinating story—the life of the baddest boy in D.C.
No Safe Spaces
Dennis Prager - 2019
Students lashing out at any speaker brave enough to say something they disagree with. Precious snow flakes demanding “Safe Spaces” to protect them from any idea they haven’t heard from their liberal professors. In this book and the accompanying movie, Dennis Prager, Mark Joseph, and Adam Carolla expose the attack on free speech and free thought. It began in the universities, but—fair warning—it’s coming to your neighborhood and your workplace. “No Safe Spaces is a film every American should see. I could barely move when it was over. Powerful, emotional, and a call to action for anyone worried about the intellectual fascism happening in this country. A brave, timely, and important film.” —MEGYN KELLY, former FOX News anchor and host of Megyn Kelly Today “There is no free speech in America for free thinkers! You can have free speech in America but only if you say what everybody else agrees with. It’s not enough to ‘live and let live’ now. The psycho-elite believe ‘silence is violence’ and you must actively promote what THEY want no matter how vile or reprehensible it is to you. George Orwell lives! They should’ve called Orwell ‘Nostradamus’ because his most frightening prophecies have come to pass, as you will witness in No Safe Spaces!” —MANCOW MULLER, radio phenomenon “An excellent film, the best I’ve seen on the subject of free speech. I especially like Dennis’s line, ‘They have to believe we are evil; otherwise they’d have to debate us.’ Perfect!” —CAL THOMAS, America’s #1 syndicated columnist
Chloe Sims: The Only Way Is Up: My Story
Chloe Sims - 2012
But there is more to Chloe than viewers see on the TV, and the drama doesn’t stop when the camera stops rolling. Just two years ago, Chloe was a single mother struggling to make ends meet doing a string of jobs she hated and wondering if she would ever find happiness. Since joining the cast of The Only Way Is Essex, her life is now a whirlwind of glitzy parties and jet-set holidays, but life hasn’t always dealt Chloe a good hand. Her story is one of triumph over adversity, with plenty of laughs along the way. From her turbulent childhood where she was raised by a neighbor after her mother abandoned her, to battling with bullies and struggling with an eating disorder, to the magical moment when she met the man of her dreams.
Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics
Morley Winograd - 2008
America’s demand for change in the 2008 election will cause another of our country’s periodic political makeovers. This realignment, like all others before it, will result from the coming of age of a new generation of young Americans—the Millennial Generation—and the full emergence of the Internet-based communications technology that this generation uses so well. Beginning in 2008, almost everything about American politics and government will transform—voting patterns, the fortunes of the two political parties, the issues that engage the nation, and our government and its public policy. Building on the seminal work of previous generational theorists,Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais demonstrate and describe, for the first time, the two types of realignments—“idealist” and “civic”—that have alternated with one another throughout the nation’s history. Based on these patterns, Winograd and Hais predict that the next realignment will be very different from the last one that occurred in 1968. “Idealist” realignments, like the one put into motion forty years ago by the Baby Boomer Generation, produce, among other things, a political emphasis on divisive social issues and governmental gridlock. “Civic” realignments, like the one that is coming, and the one produced by the famous GI or “Greatest” Generation in the 1930s, by contrast, tend to produce societal unity, increased attention to and successful resolution of basic economic and foreign policy issues, and institution-building. The authors detail the contours and causes of the country’s five previous political makeovers, before delving deeply into the generational and technological trends that will shape the next. The book’s final section forecasts the impact of the Millennial Makeover on the elections, issues, and public policies that will characterize America’s politics in the decades ahead. For additional information go to:Millennial Makeover website.
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
Joanne B. Freeman - 2018
Freeman offers a new and dramatically rendered portrait of American politics in its rowdiest years. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that today's hyperpolarized environment cannot compare with the turbulent atmosphere of the decades before the Civil War, when the U.S. Congress itself was rife with conflict. Legislative sessions were routinely punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slug-fests. Congressmen drew pistols and waved bowie knives at rivals. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance or silence, particularly on the issue of slavery. These fights didn't happen in a vacuum. Freeman's accounts of fistfights and threats tell a larger story of how bullying, brawling, and the press - and the powerful emotions they elicited - raised tensions between North and South and fueled the coming of the war. In the process, she brings the antebellum Congress to life, revealing its rough realities - the feel, sense, and sound of it - as well as its nation-shaping import. Funny, tragic, and rivetingly told, The Field of Blood offers a front-row view of congressional mayhem and sheds new light on the careers of luminaries such as John Quincy Adams and Thomas Hart Benton, as well as introducing a host of lesser-known but no less fascinating characters. We see slaveholders silence Northerners with threats and violence. We learn how newspapers promoted conspiracy theories that helped polarize the nation. And we witness an entire legislative chamber erupt into a massive fist-throwing, spittoon-tossing battle royal. By 1860, armed congressmen, some carrying pistols sent by their constituents, fully expected bloody combat in the House. In effect, the first battles of the Civil War were fought in Congress itself. The Field of Blood demonstrates how a country can come apart as conflicts over personal honor, party loyalty, and moral principle combine and escalate. The result is a fresh understanding of the workings of American democracy and the bonds of Union on the eve of their greatest peril.
Pearl: You are Cleared to Land
Deanna Edens - 2018
To be more precise many of these stories are hers—authentic memories written by an amazing woman. Pearl Bragg Laska Chamberlain was the first woman to fly her own plane from the Lower 48 up the Alaska Highway to Alaska. She worked as a flight instructor, bush pilot, cryptographer for the Pentagon, flew in five Powder Puff Derbies, and was also a WASP trainee and famous “99er.” Pearl was a member of the UFO’s (United Flying Octogenarians), and the mayor of Fairbanks actually declared a “Pearl Laska Chamberlain Day.” Pretty impressive, eh? I am very excited to bring you this fabulous collection of “Braggin’ Rights” stories that begin in the early 1900s on Chestnut Mountain in Summers County, West Virginia. Tales about bootleggin’ and learning to fly in the Appalachians are followed by adventures to exotic places. Narratives about living in the polar region and escapades of an aviatrix are accompanied by heartfelt memories of real-life victories and the sorrows of a lifetime. So settle down into the cockpit, buckle your seatbelt and get ready for an astonishing and amazing flight.
Mayhem 337: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Afghanistan
Chad Rickard - 2019
He was a seasoned infantryman and senior Army NCO with a burning desire to deploy to Afghanistan and join the fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces bent on keeping American influence out of the Middle East. Like many Americans Chad felt personally stricken by the attacks on 9/11 and he yearned to take part in his Nation's retaliation for the atrocities planned within the sanctity of Afghanistan's borders. When the opportunity arose to deploy as a Combat Advisor to an Afghan Infantry Battalion he seized the opportunity and headed to Fort Riley, Kansas to attend U.S. Army Combat Advisor School. After months of intensive training in Afghan customs, culture and language in addition to tactical training on the direction of close air support and artillery Rickard was dropped into a hotbed of action in Afghanistan's Khost Province. In Khost, former home to one of Osama Bin Laden's largest terror training camps, Rickard's team went toe to toe with Haqqani Taliban on numerous occasions, often leaving a staggering body count in their wake. In Mayhem 337, Rickard powerfully recounts his experiences during a nine month period of intense combat deep in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan. His graphic account guides you through intense combat from the streets of Khost City, to deadly mountain warfare while based at an austere combat outpost. He vividly describes the sights and sounds of battle as well as the heartbreaking aftermath of fallen comrades. From IED laden roads to air assault missions and hostage standoffs, Rickard's story leaves nothing to the imagination. His riveting memoir brings recognition and honor to the Embedded Transition Team legacy that is but a footnote in U.S. military history.
Queen Elizabeth II's Guide to Life
Karen Dolby - 2019
Now in her ninety-fourth year, this timely celebration sheds new light on the myriad attributes and personal qualities she brings to the nation. From fortitude in the face of adversity to standing as the nation's ambassador all over the world, no one could doubt the work ethic that powers this remarkable woman, even into her nineties. Equally, her love of family - from her rock of over sixty years' marriage, Prince Philip, to her great grandchildren - shines through. But what are the secrets of her success? How does she still approach her day-to-day with such vitality and aplomb, even when culture and society are changing rapidly all around her?The Queen on fame: When an MP commented that it must be a strain meeting so many strangers all the time, the Queen smiled, 'It is not as difficult as it might seem. You see, I don't have to introduce myself. They all seem to know who I am.'The Queen on fashion: In the late sixties when Mary Quant and the mini skirt came to epitomize all that was fashionable, Princess Anne suggested her mother might also consider shortening her hemline. The Queen was adamant, 'I am not a film star.' The Queen on family: As Great Britain's most famous great grandmother, it is no surprise that the Queen values family life. 'Marriage gains from the web of family relationships between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, cousins, aunts and uncles.'In this book Karen Dolby unpicks the key elements that make the Queen so special to - and so loved by - the nation and presents a guide to how you too could put into practice some of Her Majesty's traits to help overcome adversity, find inner strength and present yourself as wonderfully considered and calm, even when all about you seems in chaos.
WE ALL FALL DOWN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE 9/11 SURFER
Pasquale Buzzelli - 2012
He spoke to his pregnant wife on the telephone before he began his evacuation after the South Tower fell. Sensing something ominous, Pasquale crouched down and huddled into a corner of the stairwell as the 110-story tower came crashing down around him. He survived the tower collapse and woke up in the open air hours later on The Pile, a stack of debris seven stories high. The firemen who rescued Pasquale shared his remarkable story of survival with the media, as did others who cared for him that day. His story became a myth, an urban legend, and an enigma that gave rise to much speculation. Here he tells his story in captivating detail of falling and "surfing' the collapse of the North Tower.Visit www.911surfer.com for more details.
The Lockdown Diary of Tom Cooper
Spencer Brown - 2020
Stuck inside a small flat with sole responsibility for his two single-digit children, Tom is plunged into a world of home schooling, supermarket feuds and alfresco workout sessions, not to mention keeping tabs on ageing parents who won’t stay home.Faced with the problems of cash-strapped tooth fairies, buying a rat trap online and an NHS-supporting arms race with an elderly neighbour, Tom realises he must rise to the occasion, but when his girlfriend asks for an erotic photo of his rapidly deteriorating body, it may be one step too far...Join Tom as he navigates lockdown in this hilarious stand-alone novel from the author of The Rebuilding of Tom Cooper.
Led by Donkeys: How Four Friends with a Ladder Took on Brexit
Led By Donkeys - 2020
Seeking to highlight the hypocrisy of their politicians on Brexit four friends armed with nothing more than ladders, roller brushes and a treasure trove of damning statements from their leaders slapped up the politicians' biggest lies on billboards around the country. This guerrilla operation wasn't easy, but it wasn't long before the British public enabled them to take things into their own hands - and the rest is history. Leave the EU or remain? An apparently simple question divided the nation in historic fashion. Many believed the words of these politicians. By putting up their quotes as billboards, self-styled 'Led By Donkeys' had clear intentions - to compare the promises that have been made across the years with the damning reality.
Wilson
A. Scott Berg - 2013
Scott Berg comes the definitive—and revelatory—biography of one of the great American figures of modern times.One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson--the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the 28th President.In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, Berg was the first biographer to gain access to two recently-discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, Berg was able to add countless details--even several unknown events--that fill in missing pieces of Wilson’s character and cast new light on his entire life.From the scholar-President who ushered the country through its first great world war to the man of intense passion and turbulence , from the idealist determined to make the world “safe for democracy” to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity and the subterfuges around it were among the century’s greatest secrets, the result is an intimate portrait written with a particularly contemporary point of view – a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon – but Wilson the man.
The Mind of a Madman: Norway's Struggle to Understand Anders Breivik
Richard Orange - 2012
When he was arrested, he claimed to act on behalf of the Knights Templar, a militant network sworn to protect Europe from Islam. But Norwegian police could find no evidence such a group existed. Was Breivik a genuine terrorist, driven by far-right ideology, or a deluded madman? Over the next year, this question would draw in police specialists, lawyers, psychiatrists, and experts in the far-right, culminating in a trial that ceased to be simply about guilt or innocence. Instead, the court would confront a more troubling question: how could such brutal acts become possible for a young man brought up in some of the most privileged parts of Oslo? In "Mind of a Madman", journalist Richard Orange draws on his own court reporting, three court psychiatric reports, police interviews, and transcripts from the trial to give the most complete account yet of a shocked society's attempt to understand the killer.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams
Darwin Porter - 2014
So does Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who lives again in this "warts-and-all" portrait. It's being released on the 20th anniversary of the tragic death, in 1994, of the icon who changed America's beliefs about what a woman of style, power, and influence could accomplish "behind the throne" of men whose careers changed the course of history. During her tumultuous life, she zealously guarded her privacy and her secrets, but in the wake of her death, more and more revelations have emerged about her frustrations, her rage, her passions, her towering strengths, and her delicate fragility, which she hid from the glare of the world behind oversized sunglasses. Within this posthumous biography, a three-dimensional woman emerges through the compilation of some 1,000 eyewitness testimonials from men and women who knew her over a period of decades. The public epitome of charm, grace, and elegance, the private, chain-smoking Jackie was known for her sharp wit and her acid tongue, dissing some of the great men and women she encountered. Examples include such figures as Nancy Reagan ("I heard she used to give the best head in Hollywood when she was a starlet at MGM"); Queen Elizabeth II ("pompous, stuffy, a heavy trip, and seriously pissed off at me for turning on Philip"); or Martin Luther King, Jr. ("a terrible man and a tricky, phony, skirt-chaser and race baiter"). This outspoken testimonial to the flimsier side of Camelot contains a cornucopia of gossip and intrigue, including details about Jackie's scandalous love affairs with her two brothers-in-law (Bobby and Teddy), and her penchant for movie star seductions (Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, William Holden). Also detailed are her famous feuds with Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Maria Callas; her almost unknown love affairs with Spain's greatest matador and with Peter Lawford; her night in Georgetown coping with LBJ's aborted seduction; her friend Rudolf Nureyev's pursuit of both her and Bobby; her interchanges with Lem Billings, JFK's homosexual "First Friend" whom Bobby defined as "Jack's other wife"); her blood feud with Christina Onassis; her sibling rivalry with Lee Radziwill; her illicit affair with a senator nicknamed "Gorgeous George; her love-hate relationship with Frank Sinatra; and her Italian fling with Fiat's kingpin, Gianni Agnelli, who taught her all about La Dolce Vita during the summer of 1962. Conceived in direct and sometimes defiant contrast to the avalanche of more breathlessly respectful testimonials to the life and legacy of "America's Queen," this book is the latest installment in Blood Moon's endlessly irreverent BABYLON series.
Clara Brown: The Rags to Riches Story of a Freed Slave
Julie McDonald - 2016
After being freed at the age of 57, she begins a tireless search for her only remaining family member, her daughter Eliza Jane. What Clara accomplishes in her 28 years of freedom will simply astound you! I first wrote about Clara Brown in my book Unbreakable Dolls, Too. This single story eBook is the expanded version, with much more information and 9 photos.