The Death of Trotsky (Kindle Single)


Cecelia Holland - 2015
    In The Death of Trotsky, Cecelia Holland brings this fated and fatal day to life, from its quotidian beginnings to its dramatic close. Between Trotsky’s waking and his final rest, she probes the outer-workings and inner thoughts of those who were with him till the end, illuminating a man who exited life as he lived it: defiantly. Cecelia Holland, author of more than 30 books and articles, lives in northern California with her family.Cover Design by Adil Dara.

Downstairs at the White House: The story of a teenager, an Oval Office, and a ringside seat to Watergate.


Donald M. Stinson - 2017
    ​     He was also a kid who did the same kind of harebrained things most teenagers do.​  Only steps away from the Oval Office, he fought with a foreign head of state for space in a restroom. ​​ He devised a shortcut that tripped countless alarms and summoned an agitated band of Secret Service agents. He spilled ice ​water on Frank Sinatra's sock.    And that was just the small stuff. ​A funny, fast-paced memoir, Downstairs at the White House is richly decorated with presidents, first ladies, celebrities . . . and events that shook America.   ​

Central America: On a Shoestring


Robert Reid - 2004
    Whatever your passion, Central America is jam-packed with possibilities. Written by experts who travel on your budget, this guide lets you go further, stay longer, and pay less for the adventure of a lifetime. The countries covered in this guide are: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and also part of Mexico—Quintana Roo, the Yucatan, and Chiapas states.Explore It All—in-depth coverage of all seven Central American nations, plus Mexico's Yucatan and Chiapas.Find Your Way—120 user-friendly maps plus detailed bus schedules and crucial border-crossing information.Rest Easy—lodging and restaurants that offer bang for your buck...plus the occasional splurge.Talk The Talk—comprehensive Language, Culture and Conduct sections keep you street-smart and clued-in. Who We Are At Lonely Planet, we see our job as inspiring and enabling travelers to connect with the world for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world at large. What We Do We offer travelers the world's richest travel advice, informed by the collective wisdom of over 350 Lonely Planet authors living in 37 countries and fluent in 70 languages. We are relentless in finding the special, the unique and the different for travellers wherever they are.When we update our guidebooks, we check every listing, in person, every time. We always offer the trusted filter for those who are curious, open minded and independent. We challenge our growing community of travelers; leading debate anddiscussion about travel and the world. We tell it like it is without fear or favor in service of the travelers; not clouded by any other motive. What We Believe We believe that travel leads to a deeper cultural understanding and compassion and therefore a better world.

The Maya (Ancient Peoples & Places)


Michael D. Coe - 1966
    Spectacular tomb discoveries at the city of Copan reveal some of the early artistic and architectural splendours at this major site. New finds here and elsewhere entail a complete reinterpretation of the relationship between the warrior-kings of the classic Maya lowlands and Teotihuacan, the greatest city of pre-Conquest America. Continuing epigraphic breakthroughs - decipherments of Maya inscriptions - demonstrate vividly the shifting power blocs among the competing Maya city-states.

Che Guevara


Andrew Sinclair - 1970
    I fought in Cuba, and I began to be a revolutionary in Guatemala.' Che Guevara was the most admired and beloved revolutionary of his time, the first man since Simon Bolivar seriously to plan to unite the countries of Latin America. This concise biography unravels Che's life, from his birth in 1928, the child of free-thinking radical Argentinian aristocrats, his youthful membership of Accion Argentina and his training as a doctor in Buenos Aires, through his witnessing of the fall of the new revolutionary government in Guatemala alongside its leader, Arbenz, his action as a commander in the guerrilla war in Cuba with Fidel Castro and his part in the reforming Marxist Cuban government, to his fight for liberation of the Congo and, finally, of Bolivia, where he was executed.

The Origins of American Politics


Bernard Bailyn - 1967
    Colver Lectures, Brown University 1965."An astonishing range of reading in contemporary tracts and modern authorities is manifest, and many aspects of British and colonial affairs are illuminated. As a political analysis this very important contribution will be hard to refute...."—Frederick B. Tolles, Political Science Quarterly"He produces historical analysis which is as revealing to the political scientist or sociologist as to the historian, of the significance of social and cultural forces on political changes in eighteenth-century America."—John D. Lees, Cambridge University Press"...these well-argued essays represent the first sustained and systematic attempt to provide a comprehensive and integrated analysis of all elements of American political life during the late colonial period...the author has once again put all students concerned with colonial America heavily in his intellectual debt."—Jack P. Greene, The New York Historical Society Quarterly"...Mr. Bailyn brings to his effort a splendid gift for pertinent curiosity. What he has found, and what patterns he has made of his findings, light our way through his longitudes and latitudes of scholarly precision."—Charles Poore, The New York Times

Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack


Marc A. Thiessen - 2009
    Bush’s 2006 speech explaining the CIA’s interrogation program and why Congress should authorize it. Few know more about these CIA operations than Thiessen, and in his new book, Courting Disaster, he documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence. Thiessen also shows how reckless President Obama has been in shutting down the CIA’s program and releasing secret documents that have aided our enemies. Courting Disaster proves:How the CIA program thwarted specific deadly attacks against the U.S.Why “enhanced interrogation” was not torture by any reasonable legal or moral standardHow the information gained by “enhanced interrogation” could not have been acquired any other wayHow President Obama’s actions since taking office have left America much more vulnerable to attackIn chilling detail, Thiessen reveals how close the terrorists came to striking again, how intelligence gained from “enhanced interrogation” repeatedly stymied their plots, and how President Obama’s dismantling of this CIA program is inviting disaster for America.

The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins: The Life and Legacy That Shaped an American City


Antero Pietila - 2018
    One of America's richest men and the largest single shareholder of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Hopkins was also one of the city's defining developers. In The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins, Antero Pietila weaves together a biography of the man with a portrait of how the institutions he founded have shaped the racial legacy of an industrial city from its heyday to its decline and revitalization. From the destruction of neighborhoods to make way for the mercantile buildings that dominated Baltimore's downtown through much of the 19th century to the role that the president of Johns Hopkins University played in government sponsored "Negro Removal" that unleashed the migration patterns that created Baltimore's existing racial patchwork, Pietila tells the story of how one man's wealth shaped and reshaped the life of a city long after his lifetime.--Klaus Philipsen, architect and author of Baltimore: Reinventing an Industrial Legacy City

5 Days in May: The Coalition and Beyond


Andrew Adonis - 2013
    The talks ultimately resulted in failure for Labour amid recriminations on both sides and the accusation that the Lib Dems had conducted a dutch auction, inviting Labour to outbid the Tories on a shopping list of demands. Despite calls for him to give his own account of this historic sequence of events, Adonis has kept his own counsel until now. Published to coincide with the third anniversary of the general election that would eventually produce an historic first coalition government since the Second World War, 5 Days In May is a remarkable and important insider account of the dramatic negotiations that led to its formation. It also offers the author's views on what the future holds as the run-up to the next election begins. 5 Days in May presents a unique eyewitness account of a pivotal moment in political history.

Who Gets What: Fair Compensation after Tragedy and Financial Upheaval


Kenneth R. Feinberg - 2012
    What they had in common was their aftermath -- each required compensation for lives lost, bodies maimed, livelihoods wrecked, economies and ecosystems upended. In each instance, an objective third party had to step up and dole out allocated funds: in each instance, Presidents, Attorneys General, and other public officials have asked Kenneth R. Feinberg to get the job done. In Who Gets What?, Feinberg reveals the deep thought that must go into each decision, not to mention the most important question that arises after a tragedy: why compensate at all? The result is a remarkably accessible discussion of the practical and philosophical problems of using money as a way to address wrongs and reflect individual worth.

Your Country Is Just Not That Into You: How the Media, Wall Street, and Both Political Parties Keep on Screwing You-Even After You’ve Moved On


Jimmy Dore - 2014
    Crackling with caustic wit and insight, no aspect of American life is safe from Jimmy's hilarious scrutiny. He gets to the heart of the issues: why Republicans should support gay marriage or why the President shouldn't have Secret Security until the country has gun control, bringing clarity and hilarity to the incoherent noise of our punditocracy. This outrageously entertaining manifesto is an excellent resource for those who have survived long arguments during family dinners. And in a media environment dominated by corporate interests, Jimmy's take-no-prisoners approach is fearless: going after both political parties, and all corners of mainstream news. A David against an army of Goliaths. Equal measures of silliness and spleen-venting, Your Country IsJust Not That Into You is the most oddly uplifting political book ofthe year.

Tolerance


Hendrik Willem van Loon - 1925
    The history of Tolerance (or the lack thereof) in the history of man as described by one of the best popular historians of all time

Holy Smoke: How Christianity Smothered the American Dream


Rick Snedeker - 2020
    This is completely contrary to the Founding Fathers’ original vision of America; it was designed by them to be a secular democratic republic built on evidence-based Enlightenment values, emphatically not religious faith.Indeed, the Founders purposefully intended that a high, strong “wall of separation” keep church and state apart in the new nation, while allowing individual religious freedom untrammeled by government—and vice versa. But Christians with theocratic dreams keep trying to breach the wall. Through their efforts, God is now in evidence everywhere in the country—on our money, in our schools, even in high-level-government officials’ speeches. Freedom of — and from — religion is the American promise to all its people whatever their belief—or disbelief. This is how the Founding Fathers wanted it to be, not the undemocratic theocracy zealous evangelicals are trying to force on American society.

Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala


Daniel Wilkinson - 2002
    Written by Daniel Wilkinson, a young human rights worker, the story begins in 1993, when the author decides to investigate the arson of a coffee plantation’s manor house by a band of guerrillas. The questions surrounding this incident soon broaden into a complex mystery whose solution requires Wilkinson to dig up the largely unwritten history of the country’s recent civil war, following its roots back to a land reform movement that was derailed by a U.S.-sponsored military coup in 1954 and to the origins of a plantation system that put Guatemala’s Mayan Indians to work picking coffee beans for the American and European markets. Decades of terror-inspired fear have led the Guatemalans to adopt a survival strategy of silence so complete that it verges on collective amnesia. The author’s great triumph is that he finds a way for people to tell their stories, and it is through these stories—dramatic, intimate, heartbreaking—that we are shown the anatomy of a thwarted revolution that has relevance not only to Guatemala but also to countless places around the world where terror has been used as a political tool.

1999: Victory Without War


Richard M. Nixon - 1988
    In his seventh book, former President Nixon draws on a lifetime of experience in international affairs to examine the crucial challenge facing the United States and the West: What must be done in the closing years of the twentieth century to ensure that the twenty-first will be a century of peace, prosperity, and expanding freedom?