Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much worse.In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the “need” for more aid. Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty—without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance.Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions.

    Are you sick of self-important celebrities preaching against “global warming,” yet flying private planes to their countless homes? Fed up with lectures about charity and philanthropy from miserly rockers who will do anything for a tax break? Disgusted by leftist stars decrying the evils of the Second Amendment as their personal bodyguards pack more heat than a Chuck Norris kick to the face? The same Hollywood loons who got Barack Hussein Obama elected in 2008 will do so again in 2012. That is, unless we muzzle them. Four years ago, Republicans sat back like wimps and let Obama’s celebrity-fueled cool machine steamroll them into electoral smithereens. This time, we must do the steamrolling. New York Times bestselling author of Obama Zombies and gonzo journalist Jason Mattera takes the first stand with Hollywood Hypocrites, as he slays the Left’s sacred celebrity cows and teaches Obama’s Tinseltown foot soldiers their most important lesson yet: No longer can they attempt to deny Americans the very liberties they use to catapult themselves to prosperity and stardom. In his trademark eye-opening, no-holds-barred, and hilarious style, Mattera puts scores of A-list celebrities, including Sting, Madonna, Bono, Al Gore, Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Cameron Diaz, Bruce Springsteen, and many, many more under the microscope to analyze whether they live by the same environmental, health, anti-violence, civil rights, and other policy prescriptions they seek to inflict on Americans. What he uncovers will shock you. Hollywood’s megaphone is powerful, and the mainstream media’s love affair with the president will roar back with a vengeance when their guy is against the wall. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama’s abysmal first term will be enough to demoralize the Liberal Left Coast from flexing its mediated political muscle is a fool. It’s time to recognize the marketing and fund-raising power the Hollywood Progressives wield. It’s time to dig into the data and set the record straight. It’s time to turn the media spotlight back on the image makers and prevent the Hollywood elite from hoodwinking American voters once again.

    None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:    - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?    - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?    - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

    Increasingly dependent on the efforts of others over our own, Americans are free to freeload. From the corporate bailouts on Wall Street to the alarming increases in personal default and dependency, from questionable tax exemptions to enormous pension, healthcare, and other entitlement costs, the new moocher culture cuts across lines of class, race, and private and public sectors. And the millions that plan and behave sensibly, only to bail out the profligate? They're angry.Charles Sykes' argument is not against compassion or legitimate charity, but targets the new moocher culture, in which self-reliance and personal responsibility have given way to mass grasping after handouts. A Nation of Moochers is a persuasively argued and entertaining rallying cry for Americans who are tired of playing by the rules and paying for those who don't.

    If the most challenging crisis in living memory has shown us anything, it's that America has lost the will and the means to lead. We can't compete with the huge population clusters of the global marketplace by keeping our population static or letting it diminish, or with our crumbling transit and unaffordable housing. The winner in the future world is going to have more--more ideas, more ambition, more utilization of resources, more people.Exactly how many Americans do we need to win? According to Matthew Yglesias, one billion.From one of our foremost policy writers, One Billion Americans is the provocative yet logical argument that if we aren't moving forward, we're losing. Vox founder Yglesias invites us to think bigger, while taking the problems of decline seriously. What really contributes to national prosperity should not be controversial: supporting parents and children, welcoming immigrants and their contributions, and exploring creative policies that support growth--like more housing, better transportation, improved education, revitalized welfare, and climate change mitigation. Drawing on examples and solutions from around the world, Yglesias shows not only that we can do this, but why we must.Making the case for massive population growth with analytic rigor and imagination, One Billion Americans issues a radical but undeniable challenge: Why not do it all, and stay on top forever?

    While market forces play a role in this stark picture, politics has shaped those market forces. In this best-selling book, Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz exposes the efforts of well-heeled interests to compound their wealth in ways that have stifled true, dynamic capitalism. Along the way he examines the effect of inequality on our economy, our democracy, and our system of justice. Stiglitz explains how inequality affects and is affected by every aspect of national policy, and with characteristic insight he offers a vision for a more just and prosperous future, supported by a concrete program to achieve that vision.

    A realistically positive and provocative view of the country between its coasts.For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign.The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems--from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge--but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey--and an account of a country busy remaking itself.

    In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British empire to the present. Astonishingly wide-ranging and richly detailed, Empire of Things explores how we have come to live with so much more, how this changed the course of history, and the global challenges we face as a result.

    We want to live a life of purpose and meaning. We want to leave a legacy for our children and grandchildren. We want to leave the world a better place. And yet we spend so much time wringing our hands over what’s wrong and not nearly enough time fixing those things within our control.John Kasich has walked the corridors of power both in the politics, as a former leader of Congress, governor of Ohio, presidential candidate, and in the private sector, as an in-demand public speaker, best-selling author and a strategic advisor to businesses and large non-profits. Yet he’s seen that the most powerful movements have started from the bottom up. Rather than waiting on Washington, the solutions happen once we become leaders in our own lives and communities. The strength and resilience of our nation lies in each of us. That’s what this book is about.In It’s Up to Us, Kasich shares the ten little ways we each can bring about big change. Taken together, they chart a path for each to follow as we look to live a life bigger than ourselves. Taken one-by-one, they can help to lift us from a place of outrage or complacency or helplessness and move us closer to our shared American dream.

    The religious right is on the defensive, acceptance of gay rights is at an all-time high, social conservatives are struggling for relevance, and more Americans than ever identify as nonreligious. What does this mean for the country and the future? With these demographic shifts, can truly progressive, reason-based public policy finally gain traction? Or will America continue to carry a reputation as anti-intellectual and plutocratic, eager to cater to large corporate interests but reluctant to provide universal health care to all its citizens? Fighting Back the Right reveals a new alliance in the making, a progressive coalition committed to fighting for rational public policy in America and reversing the damage inflicted by decades of conservative dominance. David Niose, Legal Director of the American Humanist Association (AHA), examines this exciting new dynamic, covering not only the rapidly evolving culture wars but also the twists and turns of American history and politics that led to this point, and why this new alliance could potentially move the country in a direction of sanity, fairness, and human-centered public policy.

    Now, with this collection of original essays, he reminds us of the principles upon which the United States was founded. Looking at the freedoms that define us, from the vote to the press; the values that have transformed us, from empathy to inclusion to service; the institutions that sustain us, such as public education; and the traits that helped form our young country, such as the audacity to take on daunting challenges in science and medicine, Rather brings to bear his decades of experience on the frontlines of the world’s biggest stories. As a living witness to historical change, he offers up an intimate view of history, tracing where we have been in order to help us chart a way forward and heal our bitter divisions. With a fundamental sense of hope, What Unites Us is the book to inspire conversation and listening, and to remind us all how we are, finally, one.

    He had mentored many tech leaders in his illustrious career as an investor, but few things had made him prouder, or been better for his fund's bottom line, than his early service to Mark Zuckerberg. Still a large shareholder in Facebook, he had every good reason to stay on the bright side. Until he simply couldn't. ZUCKED is McNamee's intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world's most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing. It's a story that begins with a series of rude awakenings. First there is the author's dawning realization that the platform is being manipulated by some very bad actors. Then there is the even more unsettling realization that Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are unable or unwilling to share his concerns, polite as they may be to his face."

    Shannon, Wally, and John built their lives around their place of work. Shannon, a white single mother, became the first woman to run the dangerous furnaces at the Rexnord manufacturing plant in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was proud of producing one of the world’s top brands of steel bearings. Wally, a black man known for his initiative and kindness, was promoted to chairman of efficiency, one of the most coveted posts on the factory floor, and dreamed of starting his own barbecue business one day. John, a white machine operator, came from a multigenerational union family and clashed with a work environment that was increasingly hostile to organized labor. The Rexnord factory had served as one of the economic engines for the surrounding community. When it closed, hundreds of people lost their jobs. What had life been like for Shannon, Wally, and John, before the plant shut down? And what became of them after the jobs moved to Mexico and Texas? American Made is the story of a community struggling to reinvent itself. It is also a story about race, class, and American values, and how jobs serve as a bedrock of people’s lives and drive powerful social justice movements. This revealing book shines a light on this political moment, when joblessness and uncertainty about the future of work have made themselves heard at a national level. Most of all, it is a story about people: who we consider to be one of us and how the dignity of work lies at the heart of who we are.

    He reveals the hidden ecological and social costs of a hamburger (as much as $200), and asks how we came to have markets in the first place. Both the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our democratically bankrupt political system.If part one asks how we can rebalance society and limit markets, part two answers by showing how social organizations, in America and around the globe, are finding new ways to describe the world's worth. If we don't want the market to price every aspect of our lives, we need to learn how such organizations have discovered democratic ways in which people, and not simply governments, can play a crucial role in deciding how we might share our world and its resources in common.This short, timely and inspiring book reveals that our current crisis is not simply the result of too much of the wrong kind of economics. While we need to rethink our economic model, Patel argues that the larger failure beneath the food, climate and economic crises is a political one. If economics is about choices, Patel writes, it isn't often said who gets to make them. The Value of Nothing offers a fresh and accessible way to think about economics and the choices we will all need to make in order to create a sustainable economy and society.

    Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officials scrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates. With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility, The Years That Matter Most will change the way you think—not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.