Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not—and cannot—be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.

    

    It can be read in a variety of ways: as a psychological investigation of Trump, as a philosophical meditation on the relationship between language and power, as a satirical compilation of the “collected wit and wisdom of Donald Trump,” and above all as a dagger into the rhetoric of American political discourse—a dissection of the politesse that gave rise to and sustains Trump. The book’s central thesis is that we have met the enemy and he is us. Who else but David Shields would make such an argument, let alone pull it off with such intelligence, brio, and wit, not to mention leaked off-air transcripts from Fox News? ------------- PRAISE ------------- “Shields has written the best book on the political and cultural implications of Trump’s presidency, and he nails it at least a hundred times, and in dozens of unique ways. Shields writes that Trump “seems not to have an inner life,” which explains a number of things no one else has gotten at. Bravo. I’m sending copies to everyone I can think of. My take—written on the inside cover of the book at 3 A.M. is this: “Donald Trump is the culture hero for all those people in the world wearing wigs and toupees and dignity diapers and prosthetic arms and legs, all those people who have false teeth and hearing aids, breast implants, and those rods that make your penis seem hard when it really isn’t. And there are more of those people in the world than we can imagine. Commercial fiction is far too slow and getting slower daily as it puckers its lips to the nether parts of the marketplace, and most discursive writing isn’t much faster. Shields’s deployment of self-reflexivity has moved the whole project beyond post-modernism. His self-reflexivity isn’t, as it has become with nearly everyone, a calcifying style or posture. It’s fully integrated, and thus it moves at the same speed as perception, even becoming an accelerant to meaning. Shields has earned the designation of being the writer most likely to be picked up and murdered should either the right or leftist fundamentalists take power. And this designation hasn’t been conferred on an American writer since Philip K. Dick. Shields is that good. He is one of a very small group of true 21st century writers, and I salute him as a master.” —Brian Fawcett “I wasn’t going to read it because I’m so tired of anti-Trump shit, but I love the book, agree with everything Shields nails about this moment. It’s the best summation of Trump I’ve come across. Such a relief to see someone get it. I was reading passages to my millennial Communist ‘Trump is going to kill us all’ bf, who didn’t say anything, just rolled away.” —Bret Easton Ellis“Shields’s most ‘accessible’ book and probably his best. Impossible to put down—a polyphonic bricolage that is both absolutely of this moment and deserving of a burial in a time capsule to be opened at another age. The clinical depression of our current historical circumstances is never absent from these pages, but while reading them, one does so with exultation at seeing Trump and his era so exactly skewered.” —Jonathan Raban “No other book approaches the man and the situation in quite this way: the problem isn’t out there; it’s in us. A book (deserving of a wide readership) for those who have a bit of trouble with the left and a ton of trouble with the right.

    Now former government official and political commentator KT McFarland returns with tenacity, resolve, and the truth about the Trump Administration and those seeking to destroy it. For decades, KT McFarland has been one of the country’s most prominent conservative foreign policy experts. She was part of the Trump Revolution from the beginning. As Trump’s first Deputy National Security Advisor, she had a seat at the table for everything: Trump’s unconventional campaign and upset victory; his throw-out-the-rule-book Trump Tower Transition; the chaotic first months in the West Wing; the unusual events surrounding General Flynn’s firing; and the sprawling Mueller investigation. In Revolution, she walks the reader through the Washington Establishment’s relentless efforts to destroy Trump, populism, and nationalism in order to keep their own hands on the levers of power. The Trump Revolution, like the Reagan Revolution and all the anti-Establishment political revolutions before it, will ultimately prevail. It is this ability to reinvent ourselves, not just as individuals but as a society, that lies at the heart of American Exceptionalism. When McFarland left the Trump Administration and Washington, she disappeared from public view and refused to discuss her experiences. Now, for the first time, McFarland tells a story that reads more like a political thriller than a tour through this unique moment in history. Written with unusual candor, with insights into Trump and his inner circle, Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un, McFarland’s book is destined to become a classic. If you only read one book about the Age of Trump, make it Revolution: Trump, Washington and “We the People.”

    Long before Lawrence O'Donnell was the anchor of his own political talk show, he was the Harvard Law-trained political aide to Senator Patrick Moynihan, one of postwar America's wisest political minds. The 1968 election was O'Donnell's own political coming of age, and Playing With Fire represents his master class in American electioneering, as well as an extraordinary human drama that captures a system, and a country, coming apart at the seams in real time. Nothing went to script. LBJ was confident he'd dispatch with Nixon, the GOP frontrunner; Johnson's greatest fear and real nemesis was RFK. But Kennedy and his team, despite their loathing of the president, weren't prepared to challenge their own party's incumbent. Then, out of nowhere, Eugene McCarthy shocked everyone with his disloyalty and threw his hat in the ring. A revolution seemed to be taking place, and LBJ, humiliated and bitter, began to look mortal. Then RFK leapt in, and all hell broke loose. Two assassinations and a week of bloody riots in Chicago around the Democratic Convention later, and the old Democratic Party was a smoldering ruin, and, in the last triumph of old machine politics, Hubert Humphrey stood alone in the wreckage. Suddenly Nixon was the frontrunner, having masterfully maintained a smooth facade behind which he feverishly held his party's right and left wings in the fold through a succession of ruthless maneuvers to see off George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and the great outside threat to his new Southern Strategy, the arch-segregationist George Wallace. But then, amazingly, Humphrey began to close, and so, in late October, Nixon pulled off one of the greatest dirty tricks in American political history, an act that may well meet the statutory definition of treason. The tone was set for Watergate and all else that was to follow, all the way through to today.

    It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures.Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic man’ and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources – and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century – one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress.Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation.

    Humphrey, into a U.S. senator himself. He was instrumental in pushing President Johnson’s Great Society legislation through Congress and battled for housing equality, against poverty and discrimination, and for more oversight of the FBI and CIA. Mondale’s years as a senator spanned the national turmoil of the Nixon administration; its ultimate self-destruction in the Watergate scandal would change the course of his own political fortunes.Chosen as running mate for Jimmy Carter’s successful 1976 campaign, Mondale served as vice president for four years. With an office in the White House, he invented the modern vice presidency; his inside look at the Carter administration will fascinate students of American history as he recalls how he and Carter confronted the energy crisis, the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and other crucial events, many of which reverberate to the present day.Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election set the stage for Mondale’s own campaign against Reagan in 1984, when he ran with Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major party ticket; this progressive decision would forever change the dynamic of presidential elections.With the 1992 election of President Clinton, Mondale was named ambassador to Japan. His intriguing memoir ends with his frank assessment of the Bush-Cheney administration and the first two years of the presidency of Barack Obama. Just as indispensably, he charts the evolution of Democratic liberalism from John F. Kennedy to Clinton to Obama while spelling out the principles required to restore the United States as a model of progressive government.The Good Fight is replete with Mondale’s accounts of the many American political heavyweights he encountered as either an ally or as an opponent, including JFK, Johnson, Humphrey, Nixon, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Senator Gary Hart, Reagan, Clinton, and many others.Eloquent and engaging, The Good Fight illuminates Mondale’s philosophies on opportunity, governmental accountability, decency in politics, and constitutional democracy, while chronicling the evolution of a man and the country in which he is lucky enough to live.

    

    These nearly unknown, larger-than-life, and sometimes eccentric personalities--such as GE's zealous, silver-tongued Lemuel Ricketts Boulware and the self-described "revolutionary" Jasper Crane of DuPont--make for a fascinating, behind-the-scenes view of American history.The winner of a prestigious academic award for her original research on this book, Kim Phillips-Fein is already being heralded as an important new young American historian. Her meticulous research and narrative gifts reveal the dramatic story of a pragmatic, step-by-step, check-by-check campaign to promote an ideological revolution--one that ultimately helped propel conservative ideas to electoral triumph.

    It was also the best political and economic story of its time. Here, in the anecdotal style of The Making of the President, two Wall Street Journal reporters provide the first complete picture of how this tax revolution went from an improbable dream to a widely hailed reality.

    Chanakya who was born around 3rd BC in Bharat (now Hindustan), astute, shrewd and ruthless political master. Equally selfless and patriotic teacher who politically united the small states post invasion of Greeks and reclaimed the boundaries of Bharat stretching from Puruvarsha (Persia, now Iran), Gansthan (now Afghanistan) to far east of Magadh (Bihar state). We know Chanakya for his Niti-shashtras, for his voluminous work on economy, maxims of wisdom and intelligence. But we do not know much about minute details with which he governed the country at that time. We do not know, during his time of around 3rd BCE, at how much advance stage the economy, public life, administration, industries, defence mechanisms, taxations, public-private partnerships, foreign policy, judicial systems, banking and accounting systems ….. were there in India. It seems, they all were in more than perfect stage compared to present scenario factoring advancement in science and technology etc. We will look at each of them one by one. In this book, “Chanakya Niti on Corruption”, we will take a look at corruption. What Chanakya thinks about sources of corruption, ways of finding about corruption, judgements and punishments of corruptions etc. Chanakya knows very well that just like it is impossible to know when and how much water a fish drinks, it is utmost difficult to know how much money government officials steal away while in charge of it. Knowing human nature which succumbs to greed, fear, lust, anger or any such tamas gunas, and indulges in acts of corruption to accumulate wealth in the country or outside. Chanakya keeps eye on conduct and life style of not only ministers, but all levels of the government officials too. Chanakya takes multi pronged approach to tackle and eradicate corruption. He knows that by establishing one department to tackle corruption problems are not going to be solved, instead will increase many fold later when that department itself becomes corrupt eventually. He relies on spying, continuous intelligence gathering, harsh punishments leading to deaths, rewards who bring to notice acts of corruptions by officials etc, promotions and rewards to who do their job righteously. Not only that, 3rd century BC, do you imagine there were clear cut rules and guidelines how to write account books, !. At that time, he knew that what impact it creates on overall economy and nation building, if sanctioned amount for projects are not utilised actually? Chanakya knows corruption is contiguous, and he tackles such problems too with well laid out and practical laws to follow at that time. Looking at the crux of the guidelines what Chanakya outlines, it seems that essence of those laws are applicable still today with more verbatim or expansion of words to suite and cover present scenarios. But, the essence remains same. He knew that in corruption free country, trade and business, entrepreneurship and industries flourishes and so overall wealth, health and security of the nation. I hope reading this book "Chanakya Niti on Corruption", will open up a window to explore further on how an Indian political guru administered this nation 3rd century BCE.

    It came to its bloody conclusion in Kosovo in 1999.Tim Marshall, then diplomatic editor at Sky News, was on the ground covering the Kosovo War. This is his illuminating account of how events unfolded, a thrilling journalistic memoir drawing on personal experience, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with intelligence officials from five countries. Twenty years on from the war’s end, with the rise of Russian power, a weakened NATO and stalled EU expansion, this story is more relevant than ever, as questions remain about the possibility of conflict on European soil. Utterly gripping, this is Tim Marshall at his very best: behind the lines, under fire and full of the insight that has made him one of Britain’s foremost writers on geopolitics.

    Unfairly tarred by liberal critics as a state comprised of racist rednecks, Arizona is on the front lines in the battle against illegal immigration—and the courageous stand of its leader, a national hero who’s been called so tough that she “eats scorpions for breakfast,” will educate and inspire Americans from coast to coast.

    Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington those politicians have given us. Casting his eyes from the Bush administration's final months of plunder to the earliest days of the Republican revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters―the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff.It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.Stamped with Thomas Frank's audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet―and his most important.

    This book brings together some of his nastiest and most irreverent pieces. Witty, sharp and brutally honest, this collection is certain to delight and provoke readers of all ages.