Evan Thomas re-creates the personal dramas and sometimes tragic lives of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, who risked everything to contain the Soviet threat.Within the inner circles of Washington, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war—by stealth and “political action” and to do by cunning and sleight of hand what great armies could not, must not be allowed to do. In the end, they were too idealistic and too honorable, and were unsuited for the dark, duplicitous life of spying. Their hubris and naïveté led them astray, producing both sensational coups and spectacular blunders like the Bay of Pigs and the failed assassination attempts on foreign leaders in the early 1960s. Thomas draws on the CIA's own secret histories, to which he has had exclusive access, as well as extensive interviews, to bring to life a crucial piece of American history.

    The country is often associated with harsh climates and autocratic government. The shadow of communism and the Cold War continues to influence global attitudes towards Russia. This new captivating history book serves as an overview of Russian history over the span of more than a millennium, from the foundation of the Russian state by the Viking prince Rurik in 862 AD until the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. In Russian History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Russia, Including Events Such as the Mongol Invasion, the Napoleonic Invasion, Reforms of Peter the Great, the Fall of the Soviet Union, and More, you will discover topics such as The Foundation of Rus The Christianization of Rus The Fragmentation and Subjugation of Rus The Rise of Muscovy Overthrowing the Tatar yoke Gathering the Russian Lands The Birth of a Dynasty The Road to Reform Imperial Majesty Enlightened Despotism Reform and Reaction War and Revolution Terror and Upheaval The Great Patriotic War Cold War Reform and Collapse And much, much more! So if you want to discover more about the startling history of Russia, click "buy now"!

    By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic. Narrated by the leader of the Harginey Drugs Squad, 'Crack House' describes a series of breathtaking raids as well as arrests, beatings, stabbings and shootings.

    In chapters dedicated to food, religion, consumerism, education, and the environment, Dreher shows how to live in a way that preserves what Kirk called “the permanent things,” among them faith, family, community, and a legacy of ancient truths. This, says Dreher, is the kind of roots conservatism that more and more Americans want to practice. And in Crunchy Cons, he lets them know how far they are from being alone.

    A lot of us leavers, despite being elderly and thick, knew. The establishment wouldn't let it happen.Quite how the establishment stopped us from leaving the European Union, though, we could never have guessed. A mandate which became a process and resulted in the UK being the laughing stock of the world. We might have guessed at the relentless howls of outrage from that extreme block of transgressed remainers, the hostility of the House of Commons, the civil service and the BBC. That was a given, and it all played its part. But beyond our imagination was the readiness of politicians to ignore or subvert the vote, the sheer ineptitude of those charged with negotiating our withdrawal, the spite of the EU and the intercession of that usual thing, events. The Great Betrayal tells the story of a failed Brexit and a betrayal of the British people, drawn from interviews with those at the very centre of what became, in the end, a surreal charade.

    Naturalist. Warrior. President. There are so many sides to Theodore Roosevelt that it is easy to overlook one of his most enduring contributions to American public life: the use of fame to fuel his political career.In this concisely written, enlightening book, presidential historian Lewis L. Gould goes beyond the bully pulpit stereotypes to reveal how Roosevelt used his celebrity to change American politics. Based on research gleaned from the personal papers of Roosevelt and his contemporaries, TheodoreRoosevelt recaptures its subject's bold activism and irrepressible, larger-than-life personality. Beginning with his privileged childhood in New York City, the narrative traces his election to the New York Assembly, where he quickly rose through the ranks of the Republican Party. It is here that hefirst applied his shrewd ability to keep himself in the spotlight--a skill that served him well as commander of a volunteer regiment (dubbed Roosevelt's Rough Riders) in the Spanish-American War. Gould shows how Roosevelt rode a wave of popular acclaim at the war's end, assuming the governorshipof New York and serving as president from 1901 to 1909. While covering his major accomplishments as chief executive, including his successes as a trust-buster, labor mediator, and conservationist, Gould explains how fame both sustained and limited Roosevelt when he ran for president in 1912 andopposed Woodrow Wilson's policies during World War I.Theodore Roosevelt delivers the most insightful look yet at a pioneer of political theater--a man whose vigorous idealism as a champion of democracy serves as a counterpoint to the cynicism of today's political landscape. The book will coincide with the 100th anniversary of Roosevelt's third partyrun for the Progressive or Bull Moose Party.

    So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp.Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don't accidentally act on the naive idealism you are required to project to the general public.The reality of political power is very simple: bad farmers own crops and livestock -- good farmers own human beings...

    In fact music hasn't just accompanied his life, it's been an integral part of it.In the bestselling and award-winning tradition of This Boy, In My Life vividly transports us to a world that is no longer with us - a world of Dansettes and jukeboxes, of heartfelt love songs and heart-broken ballads, of smoky coffee shops and dingy dance halls. From Bob Dylan to David Bowie, from Lonnie Donnegan to Bruce Springsteen, all of Alan's favourites are here. As are, of course, his beloved Beatles, whom he has worshipped with undying admiration since 1963.But this isn't just a book about music. In My Life adds a fourth dimension to the story of Alan Johnson the man.

    Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government’s sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea’s information underground—the network of citizens who take extraordinary risks by circulating illicit content such as foreign films, television shows, soap operas, books, and encyclopedias. By fostering an awareness of life outside North Korea and enhancing cultural knowledge, the materials these citizens disseminate are affecting the social and political consciousness of a people, as well as their everyday lives.

    Travel back to ancient Greece with Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Donald R. Moor and author Robert M. Pirsig ("Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") to meet this legendary thinker. In addition to expanding upon his famous allegory of the cave, Plato talks about learning through dialogue, the primacy of good and the price of wrong doing, democracy, freedom and censorship, women's equality, love, and mathematics, and the search for truth.

    But movies, TV shows, and other reporting about marriage never feature that fact. • Do we have less free time than we used to? Countless news stories and anecdotes from friends and family make the overwhelming case that we're running ourselves ragged. But when people actually keep track of their activities in a time diary, studies show that we have significantly more free time per day than in 1965. So why is everyone out of time?• Surburban sprawl is ruining America. Huge subdivisions and massive highway construction is eating up our free space and affecting our quality of life. Isn't that what you always hear? So why do you never hear that 95% of America is undeveloped, or that so-called 'smart development' prices lower-income families out of property ownership?• Also: Does shaving make your hair grow back thicker? Do girls feel more pressure to have sex than boys? Are gas prices really through the roof? Is outsourcing bad for American workers?John Stossel takes on these and many more misconceptions, misunderstandings, and plain old stupidity in this collection that will offer much to love for old GIVE ME A BREAK fans, and show everyone why conventional wisdom--economic, political, or social--is wrong.

    

    Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick . . . their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums to banks. But who were the people behind the legends, and how did they rise to their positions of vast wealth and influence in the latter half of the nineteenth century? The Robber Barons is a classic work on the financiers and industrialists of the Gilded Age, who shaped their own era as well as the future of the United States—“not a mere series of biographies but a genuine history” (The New York Times Book Review).

    It offers a succession of incisive pen-portraits of outstanding leaders and decisive events and spans the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. It draws on material from many national collections and several major languages and is the most up-to-date account produced since the 1960s. Ranging across not only the high politics and ideology of the most prominent communist regimes but also daily life under communism, culture and propaganda, Service analyses communism's appeal abroad as well as local attempts to set up communist administrations. He ends by showing that there was more to communism than mere brutality and demonstrates that while communism in its primordial form is now dead in most countries, the causes of its ability to gather support among intellectuals and ordinary people have not vanished: economic poverty and political oppression. And the lasting message of the book is that something must be done to eradicate poverty and oppression if the world is to avoid a repetition of totalitarianism in some new form. It is a highly readable, compellingly argued and an exciting work of history, if not always a comforting one.

    Focusing on the alliance between government and railroads forged by bribes and campaign contributions, Jack Beatty details the corruption of American political culture that, in the words of Rutherford B. Hayes, transformed “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” into “a government by the corporations, of the corporations, and for the corporations.” A passionate, gripping, scandalous and sorrowing history of the triumph of wealth over commonwealth.From the Trade Paperback edition.