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An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation's capital. |
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy—Winner Take All   In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014, Ukrainian revolutionaries raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon. Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way, and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S. election. She deftly shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West’s most important alliances, and the United States. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature.” Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world’s most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.” |
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This is the book that the leftist elites don't want you to read -- Donald Trump, Jr., exposes all the tricks that the left uses to smear conservatives and push them out of the public square, from online "shadow banning" to rampant "political correctness." In Triggered , Donald Trump, Jr. will expose all the tricks that the left uses to smear conservatives and push them out of the public square, from online "shadow banning" to fake accusations of "hate speech." No topic is spared from political correctness. This is the book that the leftist elites don't want you to read! Trump, Jr. will write about the importance of fighting back and standing up for what you believe in. From his childhood summers in Communist Czechoslovakia that began his political thought process, to working on construction sites with his father, to the major achievements of President Trump's administration, Donald Trump, Jr. spares no details and delivers a book that focuses on success and perseverance, and proves offense is the best defense. |
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Is a national consensus on hydrocarbon development possible? The ongoing debate in Canada over the extraction of hydrocarbon resources and their transportation to markets exemplifies the country’s political polarization. Breakdown explores these tensions through economic, environmental, and political perspectives. The Trudeau Liberals and Alberta’s one-term NDP government attempted to find a compromise that satisfies the concerns of British Columbia, Canada’s First Nations, and environmentalists. But they still could not break the impasse on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. With new players now at the table, can Canada find a reasonable path forward? |
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After the failure of the Weimar Republic, the Nazis believed their mission was to 'masculinize' life in Germany. Hermann Goering told women, "Take a pot, a dustpan and a broom, and marry a man", but many became active Nazis, helping to spread wide the net of evil. |
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In Comfortably Unaware, Dr. Richard Oppenlander tackles the crucial issue of global depletion as it relates to food choice. Do you know the true cost of the food you eat every day? What resources were used and what was destroyed in order to get that food to your plate? What does the word sustainable really mean when applied to your food choices and how sustainable is that particular food to your own health? What you choose to eat is killing our planet, says noted lecturer and author Dr. Richard Oppenlander. In Comfortably Unaware, he reveals the truth about food choice and its impact on our world. He doesn't stop at merely identifying the problem. He describes, with clarity, its cultural and political origins and offers a viable solution.     We should all be committed, he tells us, to understanding the reality and consequences of our diet, the footprint it makes on our environment, and seek food products that are in the best interest of all living things. His forthright information and stark mental images are often disturbing, and that's how it should be. As the guardians of Planet Earth, we need to be shaken out of our complacency, to stop being comfortably unaware, and to understand the measures we must take to ensure the health and well-being of our planet and of ourselves.  Dr. Oppenlander breaks down the information in easy-to-read chapters that touch on issues ranging from the rainforests (depleting the lungs of our planet), to water and oceans, to world hunger, to the air we breathe (yes, food choice affects oxygen and the quality of the air). His fresh insight on this suppressed, and often controversial, topic goes well beyond the now-familiar warnings about global warming and use of fossil fuels. His information is essential reading; he provides entirely new perspectives on our culture and how this global crisis reached such startling proportions, as well as, most important, how to solve the problem. |
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A CNN contributor, former Ted Cruz staffer, and "Never Trump" adherent reveals a shocking truth: Donald Trump’s lies and fabrications don’t horrify America—they enthrall us—and explains how we can avoid falling for them. "Can you believe what Donald Trump said?" In Gaslighting America, Carpenter breaks down Trump’s formula, showing why it’s practically foolproof, playing his victims, the media, the Democrats, and the Republican fence-sitters perfectly. She traces how this tactic started with Nixon, gained traction with Bill Clinton, and exploded under Trump. If you think Trump is driving you crazy, it’s because he is. Now, in this urgent book, she explains how to withstand the fire. Where some people see lies, Trump’s fierce followers see something different. A commitment to winning at all costs; there is nothing he could say that would erode their support at long as it’s in the name of taking down his political enemies. His opponents on the left and right continue to act as if his fake narratives and conspiracy theories will bring him down, when in fact, they are the ruses that raised him up. As a conservative former staffer to a competing presidential campaign, Amanda Carpenter witnessed her fellow Republicans fall in line behind Trump. As a political commentator, she was publicly smeared by one of his supporters on live television without a shred of evidence supporting the allegations. Slowly, she watched her entire party succumb to Trump and become defenders of his tactics, and Gaslighting America may be the only hope to bring them back to reality. |
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First published in 2011 The Precariat is the hugely influential first account of an emerging class of people facing insecurity, moving in and out of precarious work that gives little meaning to their lives. Standing warns that the growth of the precariat is producing instabilities in society. Its internal divisions have led to the villainization of migrants and other vulnerable groups and some are susceptible to the dangers of political extremism. Standing argues for a new politics which puts the fears and aspirations of the precariat at the heart of a progressive strategy of redistribution and income security. The precariat is an increasingly global phenomenon, highly visible in the ongoing migrant crisis and protest movements around the world. In a new preface for the Revelations edition Guy Standing discusses recent political developments and their effect on the precariat. |
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Canada’s long relationship with the People’s Republic of China — first based on missionary zeal, followed by diplomacy and trade — has been complicated in the last few decades as a result of covert efforts by Beijing to exert undue influence on Canadian government, educational institutions, and business. Canada has continued to misjudge the reality and potential of the relationship, while the Chinese Communist Party has benefited from Canadian naivety. As Beijing continues to exert its economic power throughout the world, and in Canada, the Canadian government needs to look closely at its ability to engage with this fully emerged superpower, on whose approach to human rights and the rule of law is incompatible with our own. Claws of the Panda details our history with China, chronicling the ways in which a foreign government has succeeded in infiltrating Canadian politics, academia, and media, in an attempt to use public policy and perception to their advantage, and this same foreign government’s continued monitoring and intimidation of Canadians of Chinese heritage to this day. |
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#1 New York Times Bestseller Best Books of 2018 --The Economist A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.”  The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions dead. Given the horrors of that experience, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. In Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to question that assumption. Fascism, as she shows, not only endured through the twentieth century but now presents a more virulent threat to peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II.  The momentum toward democracy that swept the world when the Berlin Wall fell has gone into reverse.  The United States, which historically championed the free world, is led by a president who exacerbates division and heaps scorn on democratic institutions.  In many countries, economic, technological, and cultural factors are weakening the political center and empowering the extremes of right and left.  Contemporary leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are employing many of the tactics used by Fascists in the 1920s and 30s. Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times.  Written  by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past. |
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A revealing, dramatic, deeply personal book about the most significant events of our time, written by the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is widely admired for her forthright manner (“With all due respect, I don’t get confused”), her sensitive approach to tragic events, and her confident representation of America’s interests as our Ambassador to the United Nations during times of crisis and consequence. In this book, Haley offers a first-hand perspective on major national and international matters, as well as a behind-the-scenes account of her tenure in the Trump administration. This book reveals a woman who can hold her own—and better—in domestic and international power politics, a diplomat who is unafraid to take a principled stand even when it is unpopular, and a leader who seeks to bring Americans together in divisive times. |
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"Il y a encore tant de choses que j'ignore au sujet de l'Amérique, de la vie, et de ce que l'avenir nous réserve. Mais je sais qui je suis. Mon père, Fraser, m'a appris à travailler dur, à rire souvent et à tenir parole. Ma mère, Marian, à penser par moi-même et à faire entendre ma voix. Tous les deux ensemble, dans notre petit appartement du quartier du South Side de Chicago, ils m'ont aidée à saisir ce qui faisait la valeur de notre histoire, de mon histoire, et plus largement de l'histoire de notre pays. Même quand elle est loin d'être belle et parfaite. Même quand la réalité se rappelle à vous plus que vous ne l'auriez souhaité. Votre histoire vous appartient, et elle vous appartiendra toujours. À vous de vous en emparer." Michelle Obama |
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After conducting exclusive interviews with more than one hundred current and former Secret Service agents, bestselling author and award-winning reporter Ronald Kessler reveals their secrets for the first time. Never before has a journalist penetrated the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, that elite corps of agents who pledge to take a bullet to protect the president and his family. Kessler portrays the dangers that agents face and how they carry out their missions--from how they are trained to how they spot and assess potential threats. With fly-on-the-wall perspective, he captures the drama and tension that characterize agents’ lives and reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about the presidents, from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. |
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From six-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, FOX News star, and radio host Mark R. Levin comes a groundbreaking and enlightening book that shows how the great tradition of the American free press has degenerated into a standardless profession that has squandered the faith and trust of the American public, not through actions of government officials, but through its own abandonment of reportorial integrity and objective journalism. Unfreedom of the Press is not just another book about the press. Levin shows how those entrusted with news reporting today are destroying freedom of the press from within: “not government oppression or suppression,” he writes, but self-censorship, group-think, bias by omission, and passing off opinion, propaganda, pseudo-events, and outright lies as news. With the depth of historical background for which his books are renowned, Levin takes the reader on a journey through the early American patriot press, which proudly promoted the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, followed by the early decades of the Republic during which newspapers around the young country were open and transparent about their fierce allegiance to one political party or the other. It was only at the start of the Progressive Era and the twentieth century that the supposed “objectivity of the press” first surfaced, leaving us where we are today: with a partisan party-press overwhelmingly aligned with a political ideology but hypocritically engaged in a massive untruth as to its real nature. |
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Xi Jinping wants to become the world's most powerful leader. To succeed, he must balance Mao's Little Red Book with the Analects of Confucius, and more. For Xi, the task ahead of China is to preserve the guiding ideology of Marxism, while challenging mistaken credos like neoliberalism, constitutional democracy, and 'universal values'. China must have total faith in its own brand of socialism, blended meaningfully with Chinese tradition. And this system must revolve around one man--around Xi and 'Xi-ism'. François Bougon's compelling biography exposes the historical, philosophical, political and personal narratives that Xi has skilfully woven together to create a superpower in his own image. Is Xi's China a land of 'new market totalitarianism'? Will this be the price of the Chinese dream? |
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Kevin Gilbert's powerful expose of past and present race relations in Australia is an alarming story of land theft, attempted racial extermination, oppression, denial of human rights, slavery, ridicule, denigration, inequality and paternalism. First published in 1973, Gilbert's controversial account of Aboriginal affairs paints a disturbing image of the impact of the colonisation of Australia and the ongoing problems faced by the Aboriginal people. the book poses a solution directly addressing what Indigenous people really want: land, compensation, discreet non-dictatorial help and, most of all, to be left alone by white Australia. Gilbert's vivid, personal and widely shared experiences of race relations in Australia formed the basis of his long and enduring struggle for Aboriginal rights up until his death in 1993. Written with the hopes to provoke a galvanisation of his People, Gilbert brings together the voices and memories of various Aborigines. Demonstrating his vision for justice and equality, Gilbert's arguments are still immensely significant and relevant to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians today. 'this book is one of the best political books on land rights ever written... Read [his words] and find an original and Aboriginal thinker who wrote from the heartlands of the Australian spirit' - Mudrooroo |
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From a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster. In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region. Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years. |
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A Financial Times and Economist Best Book of the Year exploring world trade from Mesopotamia in 3,000 BC to modern globalization.   How did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world?   In A Splendid Exchange , William J. Bernstein, bestselling author of The Birth of Plenty , traces the story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. Journey from ancient sailing ships carrying silk from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly on spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China.   Bernstein conveys trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an ever-evolving historical constant, like war or religion, that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species.   “[An] entertaining and greatly enlightening book.” — The New York Times   “A work of which Adam Smith and Max Weber would have approved.” — Foreign Affairs   “[Weaves] skillfully between rollicking adventures and scholarship.” —Pietra Rivoli, author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy |
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In this beautifully illustrated journal based on a TV documentary, writer, comedian and world traveller Michael Palin journeys to North Korea, offering a glimpse of life inside the world's most secretive country, uncovering surprises and making friends along the way. In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin ventured into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, camera crew in tow, to gain a glimpse of life in the most notoriously secretive and cut-off nation on earth. His resulting two-part documentary for Channel 5 fascinated millions and won universal plaudits. Now he shares the journal he meticulously kept during his trip, in which he describes his experiences in a country wholly unlike any other he has ever visited: a country where you will find the Tallest Unoccupied Building in the World; where the residents of Pyongyang awake every morning to the strains of 'Where Are You, Dear General?', broadcast from speakers across the city; and where there are fifteen approved styles of haircut. He chronicles a journey of stark contrasts that takes in a gleamingly modern capital complete with triumphal statues and arches one day, and a countryside that has barely changed in decades on another. He travels to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, to a centuries-old Confucian academy, and to the heart of North Korea's exquisitely beautiful mountains and lakes. He recounts conversations with official guides, teachers, propaganda artists, farmers and soldiers in which mutual incomprehension and shared humanity are constantly intermingled. And he muses on what makes people tick under a regime that to outsiders seems so utterly alien and so grimly authoritarian. Written with Palin's trademark warmth and wit, and illustrated with beautiful colour photographs throughout, Palin's journal offers a rare insight into the North Korea behind the headlines. |
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"The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated....Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."—Natalie Angier, New York Times In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs—even when these beliefs inspire the worst human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic. Winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. |
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A leading foreign correspondent looks at how social media has transformed the modern battlefield, and how wars are fought Modern warfare is a war of narratives, where bullets are fired both physically and virtually. Whether you are a president or a terrorist, if you don't understand how to deploy the power of social media effectively you may win the odd battle but you will lose a twenty-first century war. Here, journalist David Patrikarakos draws on unprecedented access to key players to provide a new narrative for modern warfare. He travels thousands of miles across continents to meet a de-radicalized female member of ISIS recruited via Skype, a liberal Russian in Siberia who takes a job manufacturing "Ukrainian" news, and many others to explore the way social media has transformed the way we fight, win, and consume wars-and what this means for the world going forward. |
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Stop Bill C-71, The Firearms Owners Harassment Act The Bill C-71 Book is the most comprehensive and easy-to-read overview of Canada's latest attack on law-abiding firearm owners. The government says Bill C-71 will stop drug dealers and gangs, but every measure contained within it applies only to licensed firearm owners, our most vetted, responsible and safe citizens. Written in plain English for anyone who cares about their rights and their guns, The Bill C-71 Book reveals key points buried in the proposed legislation, explains the government's misinformation campaign to promote it, and describes easy steps you can use to fight back in as little as 1 minute. If you want to understand how Bill C-71 hurts hunters, farmers, hobbyists and athletes, you need this book. If you want easy-to-use steps to oppose the bill, you need this book. Learn how to #StopC71 . Order your copy now! |
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Chocolate has long been a favorite indulgence. But behind every chocolate bar we unwrap, there is a world of power struggles and political maneuvering over its most important ingredient: cocoa.  In this incisive book, Kristy Leissle reveals how cocoa, which brings pleasure and wealth to relatively few, depends upon an extensive global trade system that exploits the labor of five million growers, as well as countless other workers and vulnerable groups. The reality of this dramatic inequity, she explains, is often masked by the social, cultural, emotional, and economic values humans have placed upon cocoa from its earliest cultivation in Mesoamerica to the present day. Tracing the cocoa value chain from farms in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, through to chocolate factories in Europe and North America, Leissle shows how cocoa has been used as a political tool to wield power over others. Cocoa's politicization is not, however, limitless: it happens within botanical parameters set by the crop itself, and the material reality of its transport, storage, and manufacture into chocolate. As calls for justice in the industry have grown louder, Leissle reveals the possibilities for and constraints upon realizing a truly sustainable and fulfilling livelihood for cocoa growers, and for keeping the world full of chocolate. |
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Early Americans were suspicious of centralized authority and executive power. Casting away the yoke of England and its king, the founding fathers shared in this distrust as they set out to pen the Constitution. Weighing a need for consolidated leadership with a demand for states' rights, they established a large federal republic with limited dominion over the states, leaving most of the governing responsibility with the former colonies. With this dual system of federalism, the national government held the powers of war, taxation, and commerce, and the ability to pass the laws necessary to uphold these functions. Although the federal role has grown substantially since then, states and local governments continue to perform most of the duties in civil and criminal law, business and professional licensing, the management of infrastructure and public services: roads, schools, libraries, sanitation, land use and development, and etc. Despite the critical roles of state and local governments, there is little awareness-or understanding-of the nature and operations of the federal system. This Very Short Introduction provides a concise overview of federalism, from its origins and evolution to the key events and constitutional decisions that have defined its framework. Although the primary focus is on the United States, other federal systems, including Brazil, Canada, India, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, and the EU, are addressed. |
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A thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane operation that transformed the CIA and brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. And even if pilot Francis Gary Powers had survived, he had been supplied with a poison pin with which to commit suicide.      But against all odds, Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. He confessed to espionage charges, revealing to the world that Eisenhower had just lied to the American people--and to the Soviet Premier. Infuriated, Nikita Khrushchev slammed the door on a rare opening in Cold War relations.      In A Brotherhood of Spies , award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA. This secret fraternity, made up of Edwin Land, best known as the inventor of instant photography and the head of Polaroid Corporation; Kelly Johnson, a hard-charging taskmaster from Lockheed; Richard Bissell, the secretive and ambitious spymaster; and ace Air Force flyer Powers, set out to replace yesterday's fallible human spies with tomorrow's undetectable eye in the sky. Their clandestine successes and all-too-public failures make this brilliantly reported account a true-life thriller with the highest stakes and tragic repercussions. |
