Breaking Through Power: It's Easier Than We Think


Ralph Nader - 2016
    Written just before Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory, Nader’s latest book reads with even greater urgency now."--Yes MagazineIn Breaking Through Power, Ralph Nader draws from a lifetime waging--and often winning--David vs. Goliath battles against big corporations and the United States government. In this succinct, Tom Paine-style wake-up call, the iconic consumer advocate highlights the success stories of fellow Americans who organize change and work together to derail the many ways in which wealth manipulates politics, labor, media, the environment, and the quality of national life today. Nader makes an inspired case about how the nation can--and must--be democratically managed by communities guided by the United States Constitution, not by the dictates of big businesses and the wealthy few. This is classic Ralph Nader, a crystallization of the core political beliefs and commitments that have driven his lifetime of advocacy for greater democracy."Ralph Nader is the grand progressive of our time. We overlook his words at our own peril! This book is required reading."--Cornel West"Ralph Nader's Breaking Through Power is a brilliant analysis of corporate power and the popular mechanisms that can be used to wrest back our democracy. No one has been fighting corporate domination longer, or understands it better, than Nader, who will go down in history not only as a prophet but an example of what it means to live the moral life. We disregard his wisdom and his courage at our peril."--Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-Prize winner and author of Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt"Nader goes beyond delineating the problem and provides a critical prescription to battle the toxicity of unjust power--one that every individual can, and must, embrace."--Nomi Prins, author, All the Presidents' Bankers"People are recognizing that our founding, fundamental values of fairness, justice, and opportunity for all--the very values that define our America--are being shoved aside to create an un-America of plutocracy and autocracy. Ralph Nader's new book Breaking Through Power provides progressive boat-rockers with inspiration and a plan for reclaiming America from the greedy Plutocrats and Fat Cats who think democracy is for sale to the highest bidder."--Jim Hightower"I read Ralph Nader for the same reasons that I read Tom Paine. He knows what he thinks, says what he means, and his courage is a lesson for us all."--Lewis Lapham"Nader insists on speaking up for the little people and backs his arguments and decent sentiments with hard facts."--Publishers WeeklyAbout Ralph Nader: Named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century, Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments for more than four decades. Nader's recent books include Animal Envy, Unstoppable, The Good Fight, and the bestseller, Seventeen Traditions. Nader writes a syndicated column, has his own radio show, and gives lectures and interviews year round.

The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment


Amelia Gentleman - 2019
    Her tenacious reporting revealed how the government's 'hostile environment' immigration policy had led to thousands of law-abiding people being wrongly classified as illegal immigrants, with many being removed from the country, and many more losing their homes and their jobs.In The Windrush Betrayal Gentleman tells the full story of her investigation for the first time. Her writing shines a light on the people directly affected by the scandal and illustrates the devastating effect of politicians becoming so disconnected from the world outside Westminster that they become oblivious to the impact of their policy decisions. This is a vitally important account that exposes deeply disturbing truths about modern Britain.

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television


Jerry Mander - 1977
    Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to democratic processes -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever.Weaving personal experiences through meticulous research, the author ranges widely over aspects of television that have rarely been examined and never before joined together, allowing an entirely new, frightening image to emerge. The idea that all technologies are "neutral," benign instruments that can be used well or badly, is thrown open to profound doubt. Speaking of TV reform is, in the words of the author, "as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns."

Fear: Trump in the White House


Bob Woodward - 2018
    Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. The focus is on the explosive debates and the decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.Fear is the most intimate portrait of a sitting president ever published during the president’s first years in office.

The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time


Hunter S. Thompson - 1979
    Thompson’s bestselling Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in his signature style.Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling “Gonzo Papers” is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed “gonzo”—“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful ‘60s and ‘70s.

She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement


Jodi Kantor - 2019
    For months Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning of disturbing long-buried allegations, some of which had been covered up by onerous legal settlements. The journalists meticulously picked their way through a web of decades-old secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements, pressed some of the most famous women in the world--and some unknown ones--to risk going on the record, and faced down Weinstein, his team of high-priced defenders, and even his private investigators. But nothing could have prepared them for what followed the publication of their Weinstein story. Within days, a veritable Pandora's Box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened, and women who had suffered in silence for generations began coming forward, trusting that the world would understand their stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry would be outed for mistreating their colleagues. But did too much change--or not enough? Those questions plunged the two journalists into a new phase of reporting and some of their most startling findings yet. With superlative detail, insight, and journalistic expertise, Kantor and Twohey take us for the first time into the very heart of this social shift, reliving in real-time what it took to get the story and giving an up-close portrait of the forces that hindered and spurred change. They describe the surprising journeys of those who spoke up--for the sake of other women, for future generations, and for themselves--and so changed us all.

Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations


bell hooks - 1994
    Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture presents a collection of essays that pulls no punches. As hooks herself notes, interrogations of popular culture can be a 'powerful site for intervention, challenge and change'. And intervene, challenge and change is what hooks does best.

How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics


Lauren Duca - 2019
    In these pages she explores the post-Trump political awakening and lays the groundwork for a re-democratizing moment as it might be built out of the untapped potential of young people. Duca investigates and explains the issues at the root of our ailing political system and reimagines what an equitable democracy would look like. It begins with young people getting involved. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress; David and Lauren Hogg, two survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting who went on to become advocates for gun control; Amanda Litman, who founded the nonprofit organization Run For Something, to assist progressive young people in down ballot elections; and many more. Called “the millennial feminist warrior queen of social media” by Ariel Levy and “a national newsmaker” by The New York Times, Dan Rather agrees “we need fresh, intelligent, and creative voices—like Lauren’s—now as much—perhaps more—than ever before.” Here, Duca combines extensive research and first-person reporting to track her generation’s shift from political alienation to political participation. Throughout, she also draws on her own story as a young woman catapulted to the front lines of the political conversation (all while figuring out how to deal with her Trump-supporting parents).

A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non-Violent Conflict


Peter Ackerman - 2000
    Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall depict how nonviolent sanctions--such as protests, strikes and boycotts--separate brutal regimes from their means of control. They tell inside stories--how Danes outmaneuvered the Nazis, Solidarity defeated Polish communism, and mass action removed a Chilean dictator--and also how nonviolent power is changing the world today, from Burma to Serbia.

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court


Jeffrey Toobin - 2007
    An institution at a moment of transition, the Court now stands at a crucial point, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, and church-state relations. Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and with a keen sense of the Court’s history and the trajectory of its future, Jeffrey Toobin creates in The Nine a riveting story of one of the most important forces in American life today.

American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump


Tim Alberta - 2019
    Trump.The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in American Carnage, to understand Trump’s victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence.American Carnage is the story of a president’s rise based on a country’s evolution and a party’s collapse. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: They had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party’s base. Yet Obama’s forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nation’s rapidly changing societal and demographic identity, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the party’s identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emerged—one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell—engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOP’s internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment.Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the GOP—and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period—can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America’s current turmoil. How did a party once obsessed with national insolvency come to champion trillion-dollar deficits? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and family separation? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-married philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive?Loaded with explosive original reporting and based off hundreds of exclusive interviews—including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, among many others—American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as we’ve never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era.

Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country


John Kampfner - 2020
    Today, as much of the world succumbs to authoritarianism and democracy is undermined from its heart, Germany stands as a bulwark for decency and stability.Mixing personal journey and anecdote with compelling empirical evidence, this is a searching and entertaining exploration of the country many in the West still love to hate. Raising important questions for our post-Brexit landscape, Kampfner asks why Germany has become a model for others to emulate, while Britain still languishes in wartime nostalgia and fails to tackle contemporary challenges. Part memoir, part history, part travelogue, Why the Germans Do It Better is a rich and witty portrait of an eternally fascinating country.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order


Samuel P. Huntington - 1996
    The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one of the most important books to have emerged since the end of the Cold War." --HENRY A. KISSINGERBased on the author's seminal article in Foreign Affairs, Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a provocative and prescient analysis of the state of world politics after the fall of communism. In this incisive work, the renowned political scientist explains how "civilizations" have replaced nations and ideologies as the driving force in global politics today and offers a brilliant analysis of the current climate and future possibilities of our world's volatile political culture."An intellectual tour de force: bold, imaginative, and provocative. A seminal work that will revolutionize our understanding of international affairs." --ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI"The book is studded with insights, flashes of rare brilliance, great learning, and in particular, an ability to see the familiar in a new and provocative way." --MICHAEL ELLIOTT, THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD"A benchmark for informed speculation on those always fascinating questions: Just where are we in history? What hidden hand is controlling our destiny?...A searching reflection on our global state." --RICHARD BERNSTEIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES"This is what is so stunning about The Clash of Civilizations: It is not just about the future, but may actually help to shape it." --WANG GUNGWU, THE NATIONAL INTEREST

The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism


Steve Kornacki - 2018
    For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him Speaker. The Clinton/Gingrich battles were bare-knuckled brawls that brought about massive policy shifts and high-stakes showdowns—their collisions had far-reaching political consequences. But the ’90s were not just about them.  Kornacki writes about Mario Cuomo’s stubborn presence around Clinton’s 1992 campaign; Hillary Clinton’s star turn during the 1998 midterms, seeding the idea for her own candidacy; Ross Perot’s wild run in 1992 that inspired him to launch the Reform Party, giving Donald Trump his first taste of electoral politics in 1999; and many others. With novelistic prose and a clear sense of history, Steve Kornacki masterfully weaves together the various elements of this rambunctious and hugely impactful era in American history, whose effects set the stage for our current political landscape.

Growing Up Absurd


Paul Goodman - 1960
    & the disaffection of the growing generation". Goodman asserts that the young really need a more worthwhile world in order to grow up at all, confronting this real need with the world that they've been getting.