Hoover Dam: An American Adventure


Joseph E. Stevens - 1988
    Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.Construction of the giant dam was a triumph of human ingenuity, yet the full story of this monumental endeavor has never been told. Now, in an engrossing, fast-paced narrative, Joseph E. Stevens recounts the gripping saga of Hoover Dam. Drawing on a wealth of material, including manuscript collections, government documents, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and personal interviews and correspondence with men and women who were involved with the construction, he brings the Hoover Dam adventure to life.Described here in dramatic detail are the deadly hazards the work crews faced as they hacked and blasted the dam’s foundation out of solid rock; the bitter political battles and violent labor unrest that threatened to shut the job down; the deprivation and grinding hardship endured by the workers’ families; the dam builders’ gambling, drinking, and whoring sprees in nearby Las Vegas; and the stirring triumphs and searing moments of terror as the massive concrete wedge rose inexorably from the canyon floor.Here, too, is an unforgettable cast of characters: Henry Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and Harry Morrison, the ambitious, headstrong construction executives who gambled fortune and fame on the Hoover Dam contract; Frank Crowe, the brilliant, obsessed field engineer who relentlessly drove the work force to finish the dam two and a half years ahead of schedule; Sims Ely, the irascible, teetotaling eccentric who ruled Boulder City, the straightlaced company town created for the dam workers by the federal government; and many more men and women whose courage and sacrifice, greed and frailty, made the dam’s construction a great human, as well as technological, adventure.Hoover Dam is a compelling, irresistible account of an extraordinary American epic.

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.

Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East


Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr. - 2005
    Powerful trends are converging to rapidly shift wealth and power to Asia-and, as acclaimed international trade expert Clyde Prestowitz shows, geopolitical clout will follow economic strength. Now we have to cope with the fallout. How will we deal with a world in which the dollar is no longer the dominant currency, the United States is no longer the dominant power, and people in Slovenia, Singapore, and Seattle are all competing for the same work on the same terms? Three Billion New Capitalists is a clear-eyed and profoundly unsettling look at America's and the world's economic future.

You'd Better Put Some Ice On That: How I Survived Being Raped by Bill Clinton


Juanita Broaddrick - 2017
    It was a TV appearance she dreaded and never wanted, but felt compelled to squash the rumors: it was rape. Now, with award-winning former investigative journalist Nick Lulli, she tells her story of survival; from the assault at the hands of the future president, to the veiled threats by a seemingly complicit presidential wannabe Hillary Rodham Clinton; Broaddrick believes now is the time to set the record straight and ensure victims everywhere are believed.

Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America


Kurt Andersen - 2009
    “But it isn’t the end of the world.” In this smart and refreshingly hopeful book, Andersen–a brilliant analyst and synthesizer of historical and cultural trends, as well as a bestselling novelist and host of public radio’s Studio 360–shows us why the current economic crisis is actually a moment of great opportunity to get ourselves and our nation back on track.Historically, America has always shifted between wild, exuberant speculation and steady, sober hard work, as well as back and forth between economic booms and busts, and between right and left politically. This is one of the rare moments when all these cycles shift dramatically and simultaneously–a moment when complacency ends, ossified structures loosen up, and enormous positive change is possible. The shock to the system can enable each of us to rethink certain habits and focus more on the things that make us authentically happy. The present flux can enable us as a society to consolidate the enormous gains of the last several decades in areas such as technology, crime prevention, women’s and civil rights, and the democratization of the planet. We can reap the fruits of a revival of realism and pragmatism at home and abroad. As we enter a new era of post-party-line common sense, we can start to reinvent hopelessly broken systems–in health care, education, climate change, and more–and rediscover some of the old-fashioned American values of which we’ve lost sight.In Reset, Andersen explains how we’ve done it before and why we are about to do it again–and better than ever.

A Detroit Anthology


Anna Clark - 2014
    In this, we are rich. We begin with abundance. But while much is written about our city these hard days, it is typically meant to explain Detroit to those who live elsewhere. Much of this writing is brilliant, but our anthology, this anthology, is different: it is a collection of Detroit stories for Detroiters. Through essays, photographs, poetry, and art, this anthology collects the stories we tell each other over late nights at the pub and long afternoons on the porch. We share them in coffee shops, at church social hours, in living rooms, and while waiting for the bus. These are stories addressed to the rhetorical “you”—with the ratcheted up language that comes with it—and these are stories that took real legwork to investigate. We may be lifelong residents, newcomers, or former Detroiters; we may be activists, workers, teachers, artists, healers, or students. But a common undercurrent alights our work that is collected here: we are a city moving through the fire of transformation. We are afire.Featuring essays, photographs, poetry, and art by Terry Blackhawk, Grace Lee Boggs, John Carlisle, Desiree Cooper, dream hampton, francine j. harris, Steve Hughes, Jamaal May, Tracie McMillan, Ken Mikolowski, Marsha Music, Shaka Senghor, Thomas J. Sugrue, and many others.

Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It


Phillip Blond - 2010
    Amid recession, depression, poverty, increasing violence and rising inequality, our current politics is exhausted and inadequate. In Red Tory, Phillip Blond argues that only a radical new political settlement can tackle the problems we face.Red Toryism combines economic egalitarianism with social conservatism, calling for an end to the monopolisation of society and the private sphere by the state and the market. Decrying the legacy of both the Labour and Conservative parties, Blond proposes a genuinely progressive Conservatism that will restore social equality and revive British culture. He calls for the strengthening of local communities and economies, ending dispossession, redistribution of the tax burden and restoration the nuclear family.Red Tory offers a different vision for our future and asks us to question our long-held political assumptions. No political thinker has aroused more passionate debate in recent times. Phillip Blond's ideas have already been praised or attacked in every major British newspaper and journal. Challenging, stimulating and exhilarating, this is a book for our times.

Boom, Bust & Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift


David K. Foot - 1996
    From financial planning to urban planning, Professor David Foot shows us how to track the trends that will have a profound impact upon our lives. The boomers, the busters, and the echo generation: discover the nation's future - and yours - in demographics, the simple but highly potent tool for understanding the past and foretelling the future, by Canada's foremost expert. What are the best investments? Where are the new business opportunities? What will become of our cities? What are the prospects for real estate? The job market? Education? Health care? Foot and Stoffman provide answers in a book full of arresting insights and practical ideas.

Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies


Gregg Jackson - 2006
    Let s say you re listening to a loony liberal, debating some dopey Democrat, or arguing with a gaggle of goofy lefties. Wouldn t it be great to have the facts to combat all those liberals lies? Well, here it is: finally, the book that sets the record straight! Radio host and author Gregg Jackson has written THE authoritative answer book for conservatives concerning our nations key concerns: Abortions, terrorism, the Patriot Act, separation of church and state, immigration, the environment, homosexual marriage, taxes, deficits, school vouchers, gun control, health care, social security, education, media bias, and President Bush s real record of achievements. What makes Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies so important is that it gives conservatives, right-leaning independents, and even disaffected Democrats the truth they need to counter common liberal claims. Issue by issue, the book offers clear and concise conservative responses and comebacks. Here is a brilliant, A-to-Z reference book that gives readers clear-cut answers on today s most pressing political and social issues. Conservative Comeback to Liberal Lies should be in the hands of every red-blooded conservative in America!

We Can All Do Better


Bill Bradley - 2012
    The eighteen-year New Jersey Senator, financial and investment adviser, Olympic and NBA athlete, national radio host, and bestselling author has lived in the United States as both political insider and outsider, national sports celebrity and behind-the-scenes confidante, leader and teammate. His varied experiences help to inform his unique and much-sought-after point of view on Washington and the country at large.   In We Can All Do Better, for the first time since the financial meltdown and since the worst of the intensifying political gridlock, Bradley offers his own concise, powerful, and highly personal review of the state of the nation. Bradley argues that government is not the problem. He criticizes the role of money and politics, explains how continuing on our existing foreign policy, electoral, and economic paths will mean a diminished future, and lays out exactly what needs to be done to reverse course.   Breaking from the intransigent long-held viewpoints of both political parties, and with careful attention to our nation’s history, Bradley passionately lays out his narrative. He offers a no-holds-barred prescription on subjects including job creation, deficit reduction, education, and immigration. While equally critical of the approaches of the Tea Party and Occupy Movements, he champions the power of individual Americans to organize, speak out, bridge divisions, and he calls on the media to assume a more responsible role in our national life. As this moving call to arms reminds us, we can all—elected officials, private citizens, presidents—do a better job of moving our country forward. Bradley is perhaps the best guide imaginable, with his firsthand knowledge of governments’ inner-workings, the country’s diversity, and the untapped potential of the American people.

Game of Mates: How Favours Bleed the Nation


Cameron Murray - 2017
    His victim is Bruce, our typical Aussie, who bleeds from the hip pocket because of James' actions. Game of Mates tells a tale of economic theft across major sectors of Australia's economy, showing how James and his group of well-connected Mates siphon off billions from the economy to line their own pockets. In property, mining, transport, banking, superannuation, and many more sectors, James and his Mates cooperate to steal huge chunks of the economic pie for themselves. If you want to know how much this costs the nation, how it is done, and what we can do about it, Game of Mates is the book for you.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance


Mark Howard - 2012
    Its Internet community web site, Fox Nation, serves as the online gathering place for Fox viewers to absorb and spread the aggregated disinformation and conspiracy theories hatched by Fox News.Two years ago the first volume of Fox Nation vs. Reality was published revealing an Internet operation that was dedicated to fiercely partisan, right-wing distortions of the truth. Its mission was, and remains, to construct a safe haven for the broader Fox News community to reinforce their preferred fantasies and unfounded preconceptions. Since then Fox Nation has evolved into an even more sheltered environment that has taken on many characteristics of culthood. It is a pattern they adopted from their parent, Fox News, where the slogan “fair and balanced” was an implicit condemnation of all other news sources as being neither. Recognizing that the prime directive of a cult is to convince your followers that your version of reality is the only true version and that all others are agents of deception, Fox segregated their disciples to prevent them from being contaminated by impure thoughts, otherwise known as facts.In Fox Nation vs. Reality you will find a compilation of articles originally published on the media analysis web site News Corpse. They provide an eye-opening look into the lengths that committed propagandists will go in order to fabricate an alternative political reality. And remember that Fox Nation is not some remote outpost on the Internet Superhighway. It is an integral part of Fox News whose executives are wholly responsible for the stain it produces on journalism.

The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino: A Story of Corruption, Scandal, and the Big Business of College Basketball


Michael Sokolove - 2018
    The invitees were city's gentry - horse breeders, bourbon distillers, partners at big law firms, the state's governor, Matt Bevin, and its most powerful politician, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. One month later, the FBI revealed that it had reached the endgame of a sprawling investigation of large-scale corruption involving Adidas, Louisville and a host of other colleges, in which large payments were laundered from Adidas through a network of coaches and fixers to athletes and their families to induce them to go to Adidas-branded college programs. In short order, Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino (salary: $8 million) and athletic director Tom Jurich were fired, and fear and trembling swept through the world of bigtime college athletics. Because there is another shoe, as it were, and it will fall.In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove lifts the rug on the Louisville scandal and places it in the context of the much wider problem, the farce of amateurism in bigtime college sports. In a world in which even assistant coaches can make high-six and seven-figure salaries, as long as they keep the "elite" athletes coming in, shoe deals can reach into the nine figures, and everyone is getting rich but the players, can it be surprising that unscrupulous parties would pay athletes, creating in effect a black market in young men, a veritable underground railroad of talent?But a few bad apples are one thing. In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove shows an elaborate, systematic machine, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit payments and connecting at least one of the largest apparel companies in the world with schools across the country. The Louisville-Adidas scandal has revealed a web of conspiracy whose scope has shaken big-time college sports to its core, delivering a devastating blow to the fantasy of amateurism, of "scholar athletes." A Shakespearean drama of greed and desperation involving some of the biggest characters in the arena of sports, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO will be the definitive chronicle of this scandal and its broader echoes.

alchemy of Money: THINK RICH INITIATIVES


Anand S - 2016
    It is important for every person to save for one’s retirement as one can expect to live for twenty years after one retires as life expectancy of an Indian is going up steadily due to lower infant mortality and better medical care. There is a complete absence of social security safety net for most Indians today, even for those working in Government sector, there is no inflation adjusted pension available anymore. I have tried to simplify the advantages and disadvantages involved in investing your savings in various asset classes. I have deliberately left out two of the most popular forms of investment among middle class Indians 1) Life insurance 2) Real estate Let us consider life insurance first most of us confuse insurance as an instrument of savings, it is not. We have this wrong view because of the tax breaks given to income tax assesses by the Central Government. Insurance is a product that mitigates risk and is sold by the rich to the middle class and is always skewed in the favour of the insurer rather than the insured. A substantial portion of the total money invested by you goes towards paying agent’s commission and premium for insuring you for the risk of mortality. The balance left out is invested in government securities and other securities. Hence the amount of money invested out of the total premium paid is less than half paid by the insurer. The return on money invested by the policy holder is less than half of the money he would have earned either in bonds or fixed deposits. A person who needs insurance is a person whose family will need support in the event of his untimely death. Alternately insurance is required for a person who has debt in form of mortgage and does not want to burden his family in the event of his passing. The product which covers these risks is called term insurance. One should not buy insurance to avoid taxes as there is better tax saving tools available. Real estate is also considered as a good investment by several retail investors but nothing can be further from the truth. Nobody makes money by buying plots in the middle of nowhere. The easy availability of mortgages from the nineties and the tax breaks given by the Central Government on housing loans has created an unparalleled boom in the residential market. There is now a painful correction process under way in that sector. The price of land is reflexively connected to availability of money. The lower the cost of money, greater the returns in real estate. Buying plots in the middle of nowhere is similar to buying lottery tickets as investment. Land cannot be liquidated immediately into cash at a short notice to meet urgent requirements. Cost of maintenance and protection of real estate from illegal occupation is prohibitive and time consuming. Verification of title deeds to the property is a complex process and needs sound legal advice. You should have a house to live and another to collect rent as rent is equivalent of inflation adjusted pension. The return on investment generated in the three different asset classes over 25 years would be in the following order 1) Equities 2) Gold and finally 3) Debt instruments. I enjoyed writing this book as a companion volume to my first book. It is my fond hope that you enjoy reading this book.

Congress-Mukt Bharat


Amit Bagaria - 2021
    For the first 92 years, the 135-year-old party was headed by a Nehru-Gandhi family member for only 11 years, even though Nehru and Indira were collectively the PM of India for 28 years. Then things changed. Indira was the party president for seven consecutive years, and succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi for six years. After Rajiv’s assassination in 1991, PV Narasimha Rao was party president for five years. Sitaram Kesri was the next Congress president for 18 months. Enter Sonia Gandhi. Barring a 20-month period when her son Rahul held the post, she has been Congress president for 23 years. During her ‘reign’, the party has seen an average 31.6% decline in vote share and a 50.2% reduction in seats in the Lok Sabha. Due to her not allowing a proper election for the post of party president — as was the norm for the first 92 years — the Congress is collapsing. Ever since the Modi-led NDA routed the party in 2014, several Congressmen have been complaining about “lack of effective leadership.” Narendra Modi. Whether you admire him or belittle him, adore him or chastise him, praise him or ridicule him, love him or hate him, no Indian can pretend to ignore the man. Since September 2013, he has been the biggest newsmaker in India . On 15th August 2020, Modi became the longest-serving non-Congress PM of India. The first three chapters of this easy-to-read book are about Congress party’s corruption. The next three analyse the 2019 elections in great detail. Then, there is a chapter about the Left Front and one on the Congress’ performance in each state since Sonia became the chief. The next eight chapters are about Modi, his successes, his failures, and the work he has done in 80 months. The longest chapter, divided into 14 sections, details the successes and failures of India’s 14 prime ministers. “Is Congress Becoming Anti-India” and “Congress-Mukt Bharat” are the final two chapters. The Appendix lays out ‘Agenda 2024’ for India.