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This world-famous work on the origins and development of nationalism examines what drives people to live, die, and kill in the name of nations. “One of the greatest.” — London Review of Books “Anderson transformed the study of nationalism.” — The New York Times “Boldly original.” — Guardian The full magnitude of Benedict Anderson’s intellectual achievement is still being appreciated and debated. Imagined Communities remains the most influential book on the origins of nationalism, filling the vacuum that previously existed in the traditions of Western thought. Cited more often than any other single English-language work in the human sciences, it is read around the world in more than thirty translations. Written with exemplary clarity, this illuminating study traces the emergence of community as an idea to South America, rather than to nineteenth-century Europe. Later, this sense of belonging was formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, through print, literature, maps and museums. Following the rise and conflict of nations and the decline of empires, Anderson draws on examples from South East Asia, Latin America and Europe’s recent past to show how nationalism shaped the modern world. |
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In influx & efflux  Jane Bennett pursues a question that was bracketed in her book  Vibrant Matter : how to think about human agency in a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences? “Influx & efflux”—a phrase borrowed  from Whitman’s “Song of Myself”—refers to everyday movements whereby outside influences enter bodies, infuse and confuse their organization, and then exit, themselves having been transformed into something new. How to describe the human efforts involved in that process? What kinds of “I” and “we” can live well and act effectively in a world of so many other lively materialities? Drawing upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers, Bennett links a nonanthropocentric model of self to a radically egalitarian pluralism and also to a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live. The book tries to enact the uncanny process by which we “write up” influences that pervade, enable, and disrupt us. |
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES  10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Who are the immensely wealthy right-wing ideologues shaping the fate of America today? From the bestselling author of  The Dark Side , an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group. In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system. Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting, Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats—headed by the Kochs, the Scaifes, the Olins, and the Bradleys—who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. Mayer traces a byzantine trail of billions of dollars spent by the network, revealing a staggering conglomeration of think tanks, academic institutions, media groups, courthouses, and government allies that have fallen under their sphere of influence. Drawing from hundreds of exclusive interviews, as well as extensive scrutiny of public records, private papers, and court proceedings, Mayer provides vivid portraits of the secretive figures behind the new American oligarchy and a searing look at the carefully concealed agendas steering the nation.  Dark Money  is an essential book for anyone who cares about the future of American democracy. National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist LA Times  Book Prize Finalist PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Finalist Shortlisted for the Lukas Prize |
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Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on facts “In what could be the timeliest book of the year, Rauch aims to arm his readers to engage with reason in an age of illiberalism.” — Newsweek A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: “cancel culture.” At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony. In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”—our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do—and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone. |
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” ( Vox ) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” ( The New York Times ) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. |
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In this New York Times bestseller, an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers—“fans of geography, history, and politics (and maps) will be enthralled” ( Fort Worth Star-Telegram ). Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question. All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” ( The Evening Standard ), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders. Offering “a fresh way of looking at maps” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical. “In an ever more complex, chaotic, and interlinked world, Prisoners of Geography is a concise and useful primer on geopolitics” ( Newsweek ) and a critical guide to one of the major determining factors in world affairs. |
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The New York Times Bestseller, with a new afterword "[Michael Lewis’s] most ambitious and important book." —Joe Klein, New York Times Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works. |
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From the creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why, a fun and fascinating deep dive into what the hell is going on in our strange, unprecedented modern times. Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world’s most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articles about everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff? This massive topic sent Tim tumbling down his deepest rabbit hole yet, through mountains of history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience, and modern-day political movements, as he tried to figure out the answer to a simple question: What’s our problem? Six years later, he emerged from the hole holding this book. What’s Our Problem? is a deep and expansive analysis of our modern times, in the classic style of Wait But Why, packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and 300 drawings. The book provides an entirely new framework and language for thinking and talking about today’s complex world. Instead of focusing on the usual left-center-right horizontal political axis, which is all about what we think, the book introduces a vertical axis that explores how we think, as individuals and as groups. Readers will find themselves on a delightful and fascinating journey that will ultimately change the way they see the world around them. Anyway he wanted to say a lot more about all of this but there was a word limit on this book description so just go read the book. |
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Un parti politique au pouvoir pendant 15 ans. Des soupçons de corruption et de trafic d'influence. Une enquête colossale qui s'éternise. Un corps policier qui implose sur fond de guerre intestine. Est-ce que le parti politique de Jean Charest a vendu le pouvoir du gouvernement au plus offrant en échange de financement politique ? PLQ inc. révèle les déboires de l'enquête Mâchurer, menée par l'Unité permanente anticorruption. Depuis 2014, les enquêteurs de l'UPAC tentent en vain de faire la lumière sur les allégations de financement illégal au Parti libéral du Québec. L'équipe du Bureau d'enquête a eu accès à des sources hautement privilégiées et a analysé des milliers de documents d'enquête. Ils remontent ici le fil de l'une des plus ambitieuses investigations policières entreprises au Québec, levant le voile sur l'une des périodes les plus sombres de la politique québécoise. |
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« Ce qui me frappe à ce moment particulier du développement de nos rapports avec ce grand pays et ce peuple exceptionnel, c'est notre ignorance de ce qu'ils sont. » Jean-François Lépine fréquente la Chine et les Chinois depuis quarante ans. D'abord en tant que journaliste à Pékin au début des années 1980, jusqu'à un mandat de près de six ans, qui s'est terminé en juin 2021, en tant que diplomate à la tête du réseau des Représentations du Québec en Chine. Il est un des rares Canadiens à avoir une expérience aussi longue et aussi riche de ce pays, dont il parle la langue. Dans ce livre, il nous présente, grâce aux témoignages recueillis auprès des Chinois au cours de ces quarante années – dont ceux de sa professeure de mandarin –, un portrait de ce peuple qui rêve de reprendre sa place au centre du monde, ce qu'il pense de nous et ce que nous pouvons apprendre de lui. |
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The second volume of the bestselling landmark work on the history of the modern state Writing in The Wall Street Journal , David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition." In The New York Times Book Review , Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in The Washington Post , Gerard DeGrott exclaimed "this is a book that will be remembered. Bring on volume two." Volume two is finally here, completing the most important work of political thought in at least a generation. Taking up the essential question of how societies develop strong, impersonal, and accountable political institutions, Fukuyama follows the story from the French Revolution to the so-called Arab Spring and the deep dysfunctions of contemporary American politics. He examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West. A sweeping, masterful account of the struggle to create a well-functioning modern state, Political Order and Political Decay is destined to be a classic. |
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From our esteemed former Governor General--and author of the bestsellers The Idea of Canada and Ingenious --a very timely guide for restoring personal, community, and national trust. Trust is a much-needed manual for the repair and restoration of the social quality on which all democracies rely. One of Canada's most revered governors general, David Johnston mines his long life and varied career to give Canadians twenty ways to make themselves, their institutions, and their country more worthy of trust. Many of these habits, attitudes, and approaches stem from his experiences serving as the representative of the head of state in Canada for seven years. Some ways are individual--listen first, never manipulate, be consistent in public and private. Some are geared toward leaders at all levels and of all stripes--be barn-raisers, tell everyone your plans, depend on those around you. And some are societal--apologize, cherish teachers, invite others to dance. As such, not only every Canadian, but also every person who cares about their democratic way of life is wise to heed David Johnston's polite yet pressing call. You can become more worthy of trust. You can spot and encourage this vital quality in others. You can be an instrumental force in restoring trust in your community and country--making them better for yourself and your fellow citizens, and the world better for all. |
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Introduction by Amal Clooney From the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, an impassioned and inspiring memoir of a career spent holding power to account. Maria Ressa is one of the most renowned international journalists of our time. For decades, she challenged corruption and malfeasance in her native country, the Philippines, on its rocky path from an authoritarian state to a democracy. As a reporter from CNN, she transformed news coverage in her region, which led her in 2012 to create a new and innovative online news organization, Rappler. Harnessing the emerging power of social media, Rappler crowdsourced breaking news, found pivotal sources and tips, harnessed collective action for climate change, and helped increase voter knowledge and participation in elections. But by their fifth year of existence, Rappler had gone from being lauded for its ideas to being targeted by the new Philippine government, and made Ressa an enemy of her country’s most powerful man: President Duterte. Still, she did not let up, tracking government seeded disinformation networks which spread lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate. Hounded by the state and its allies using the legal system to silence her, accused of numerous crimes, and charged with cyberlibel for which she was found guilty, Ressa faces years in prison and thousands in fines. There is another adversary Ressa is battling. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is also the story of how the creep towards authoritarianism, in the Philippines and around the world, has been aided and abetted by the social media companies. Ressa exposes how they have allowed their platforms to spread a virus of lies that infect each of us, pitting us against one another, igniting, even creating, our fears, anger, and hate, and how this has accelerated the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world. She maps a network of disinformation—a heinous web of cause and effect—that has netted the globe: from Duterte’s drug wars to America's Capitol Hill; Britain’s Brexit to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare; Facebook and Silicon Valley to our own clicks and votes. Democracy is fragile. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is an urgent cry for Western readers to recognize and understand the dangers to our freedoms before it is too late. It is a book for anyone who might take democracy for granted, written by someone who never would. And in telling her dramatic and turbulent and courageous story, Ressa forces readers to ask themselves the same question she and her colleagues ask every day: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth? |
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The Sunday Times Bestseller A new assessment of the West’s colonial record In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the ‘End of History’ – that the global dominance of liberal democracy had been secured forever. Now however, with Russia rattling its sabre on the borders of Europe and China rising to challenge the post-1945 world order, the liberal West faces major threats.   These threats are not only external. Especially in the Anglosphere, the ‘decolonisation’ movement corrodes the West’s self-confidence by retelling the history of European and American colonial dominance as a litany of racism, exploitation, and massively murderous violence.   Nigel Biggar tests this indictment, addressing the crucial questions in eight chapters: Was the British Empire driven primarily by greed and the lust to dominate? Should we speak of ‘colonialism and slavery’ in the same breath, as if they were identical? Was the Empire essentially racist? How far was it based on the theft of land? Did it involve genocide? Was it driven fundamentally by the motive of economic exploitation? Was undemocratic colonial government necessarily illegitimate? and, Was the Empire essentially violent, and its violence pervasively racist and terroristic?   Biggar makes clear that, like any other long-standing state, the British Empire involved elements of injustice, sometimes appalling. On occasions it was culpably incompetent and presided over moments of dreadful tragedy.   Nevertheless, from the early 1800s the Empire was committed to abolishing the slave trade in the name of a Christian conviction of the basic equality of all human beings. It ended endemic inter-tribal warfare, opened local economies to the opportunities of global trade, moderated the impact of inescapable modernisation, established the rule of law and liberal institutions such as a free press, and spent itself in defeating the murderously racist Nazi and Japanese empires in the Second World War.   As encyclopaedic in historical breadth as it is penetrating in analytical depth, Colonialism offers a moral inquest into the colonial past, forensically contesting damaging falsehoods and thereby helping to rejuvenate faith in the West’s future. About the author NIGEL BIGGAR is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, where he directs the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago. Before assuming his professorship at Oxford, he occupied chairs in at the University of Leeds and at Trinity College, Dublin. He was appointed C.B.E. in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. His most recent publications include What’s Wrong with Rights? (Oxford, 2020), Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (James Clarke/Wipf & Stock, 2014), and In Defence of War (Oxford, 2013). |
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Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism—an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history. The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination. |
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Defence expert Kim Richard Nossal presents a damning indictment of defence procurement in Canada, and shows how to fix it. Defence procurement in Canada is a mess. New equipment is desperately needed for the Canadian Armed Forces, but most projects are behind schedule, over budget, or both. Not only has mismanagement cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, it has also deprived Canada and the CAF of much-needed military capacity. Successive governments — both Liberal and Conservative — have managed the complexities of defence procurement so poorly that it will take years before the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Canadian Army regain the capabilities they need. While new prime ministers invariably come to power promising to fix problems inherited from their predecessors, getting it right has remained frustratingly elusive. Charlie Foxtrot offers a fresh take on this important policy issue. It shows why governments have found it so difficult to equip the CAF efficiently, and offers a set of political prescriptions for fixing defence procurement in Canada. |
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“A brilliant roadmap highlighting every corrupt actor, to ultimately return our agencies and departments to work for the American People…we will use this blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government!” —Donald J. Trump The highest levels of government have been infiltrated by an anti-democratic Deep State that can be defeated by refocusing our national security mission and relentlessly defending the truth. A sinister cabal of corrupt law enforcement personnel, intelligence agents, and military officials at the highest levels of government plotted to overthrow a president. Even after they failed, they continue to secretly pull the levers of power without any accountability to the American people. This isn’t the synopsis of a fictional spy thriller. This is what is actually happening in the United States government. In Government Gangsters , Kash Patel—a former top official in the White House, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and the Department of Justice—pulls back the curtain on the Deep State, revealing the major players and tactics within the permanent government bureaucracy, which has spent decades stripping power away from the American people and their elected leaders. Based on his firsthand knowledge, Patel reveals how we can defeat the Deep State, reassert self-government, and restore our democracy. |
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Walmart. Coca-Cola. BP. Toyota. The world economy runs on the profits of transnational corporations. Politicians need their backing. Non-profit organizations rely on their philanthropy. People look to their brands for meaning. And their power continues to rise. Can these companies, as so many are now hoping, provide the solutions to end the mounting global environmental crisis? Absolutely, the CEOs of big business are telling us: the commitment to corporate social responsibility will ensure it happens voluntarily. Peter Dauvergne challenges this claim, arguing instead that corporations are still doing far more to destroy than protect our planet. Trusting big business to lead sustainability is, he cautions, unwise — perhaps even catastrophic. Planetary sustainability will require reining in the power of big business, starting now. |
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Using history to challenge Communist Party rule. Sparks: China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future describes how some of China's best-known writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to forge a nationwide movement that challenges the Communist Party on its most hallowed ground: its control of history. The past is a battleground in many countries, but in China it is crucial to political power. In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism's triumph. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and glorify its rule. Indeed, one of Xi Jinping's signature policies is the control of history, which he equates with the party's survival. But in recent years, a network of independent writers, artists, and filmmakers have begun challenging this state-led disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass China's legendary surveillance state, their samizdat journals, guerilla media posts, and underground films document a regular pattern of disasters: from famines and purges of years past to ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present--powerful and inspiring accounts that have underpinned recent protests in China against Xi Jinping's strongman rule. Based on years of first-hand research in Xi Jinping's China, Sparks challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought, revealing instead a country engaged in one of humanity's great struggles of memory against forgetting?a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid-21st century. |
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Introduite en 2010 par Renaud Camus, la théorie du «grand remplacement» aurait dû être confinée aux marges complotistes et d’extrême droite. L’idée que la France serait en train de subir un « changement de peuple » au profit de populations africaines repose sur des scénarios démographiques si peu crédibles et manifeste une xénophobie si affirmée qu’elle place de facto ses adeptes en rupture de ban avec les valeurs pluralistes de nos sociétés. Pourtant, des figures de l’intelligentsia comme Alain Finkielkraut, Éric Zemmour, Michel Houellebecq, Michel Onfray et le Québécois Mathieu Bock-Côté lui ont donné une étonnante diffusion, contribuant ainsi à la banalisation du thème de la déchéance nationale par la faute de l’immigration musulmane. Comment ces auteurs ont-ils pu adhérer à une telle théorie sans craindre de mettre en jeu leur réputation? Comment expliquer un tel dérapage? Alain Roy met au jour les rouages argumentatifs de ceux que l’on nomme les déclinistes, révélant ainsi leur caractère foncièrement défaitiste et leur déconcertante faiblesse intellectuelle. |
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America is the first country in history to fund the rise of its rivals. We need to stop now, before it’s too late. One of the most consequential U.S. Trade Representatives in our history, Robert Lighthizer led a great reset of American trade policy that has endured across Administrations. For more than 40 years, he litigated, negotiated, and editorialized against the failed policies of one-sided free trade as part of both the Reagan and Trump administrations and as a private lawyer. As Trade Representative, he fought against globalists, importers, lobbyists, foreign governments and big businesses whose interests diverged from those of the American workers. For decades, unbalanced “free” trade was the preferred option for the most powerful in Washington, and millions of ordinary Americans paid the price. Instead of prioritizing healthy American communities, good jobs, higher wages, and a promising future for our workers, Washington too often cared more about corporate profits, cheap imports and the concerns of foreign governments, including the Chinese. In return, we got cheaper coffee makers and tee shirts, while thousands of factories closed, wages stagnated, communities deteriorated, economic inequality rose in our country, and we racked up trillions of dollars in trade deficits. Part memoir, part history, and part policy analysis, No Trade is Free tells the story of how America found itself at this point and how the Trump administration took on the orthodoxy of the trade establishment, with astonishing results. With in-depth character sketches of some of the most important leaders of our time—from Donald Trump, to Xi Jinping, to Nancy Pelosi, to Andrés Manuel López Obrador—Lighthizer explains how trade negotiations actually work and why leverage is the key to success—no trade is free. This book is a wake-up call to our politicians, thought leaders, but most importantly, everyday Americans. It presents the case against the policies that have weakened America and left our families and communities behind. It argues for a worker-focused trade policy. It tells the story of our fight for every American job and how for the first time, a US administration took on China. But most importantly, it is a guide to the new world economy—one which will require a worker-focused trade policy. |
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Hannah Arendt’s definitive work on totalitarianism—an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history—now with a new introduction by Anne Applebaum. In recent years, The Origins of Totalitarianism has become essential reading as we grapple with the rise of autocrats and tyrannical thought across the globe. The book begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Hannah Arendt then explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination. This edition includes an introduction by Anne Applebaum—a leading voice on authoritarianism and Russian history—who fears that “once again, we are living in a world that Arendt would recognize.” |
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In the early hours of 24 February 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine. The brutality of the Russian assault has horrified the world. But Russians themselves appear to be watching an entirely different war – one in which they are the courageous underdogs and kind-hearted heroes successfully battling a malign Ukrainian foe. Russia analyst Jade McGlynn takes us on a journey into this parallel military and political universe to reveal the sometimes monstrous, sometimes misconstrued attitudes behind Russian majority backing for the invasion. Drawing on media analysis and interviews with ordinary citizens, officials and foreign-policy elites in Russia and Ukraine, McGlynn explores the grievances, lies and half-truths that pervade the Russian worldview. She also exposes the complicity of many Russians, who have invested too deeply in the Kremlin’s alternative narratives to regard the war as Putin’s foolhardy mission. In their eyes, this is Russia’s war – against Ukraine, against the West, against evil – and there can be no turning back. |
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Ainsi les loups se sont déguisés en agneaux – et même en bergers. Ceux qui devaient prendre soin du troupeau en ont fait leur pâture. Et nous voilà sidérés, au point que toute considération semble impossible. Le plus souvent, en effet, nous sommes pris entre le journalistique et l’hagiographique : d’un côté, le fait brut nous laisse en position de spectateur désabusé ; de l’autre, le saint tombé (l’impossible !) nous pousse à nous abuser nous-mêmes, courant tantôt au lynchage tantôt au déni… Ce petit livre tente d’échapper à pareille alternative. Revenant notamment sur l’« affaire » des frères Philippe et de Jean Vanier, il en propose une lecture biblique : ne rien minimiser de ce qu’elle a de grave, ne pas négliger ce qu’elle recèle de grâce. Ne confirme-t-elle pas une Bonne Nouvelle qui nous avait depuis longtemps avertis du pire ? Gardez-vous des faux prophètes, ils viennent en vêtements de brebis… Aussi nous donne-t-elle de penser le risque inouï de l’Incarnation, et de remettre en cause certains aspects de la spiritualité récente : l’esprit d’enfance, la compassion qui excuse tout, gages donnés à l’irresponsabilité, boulevard pour ces « monstres mous » dont Bernanos annonçait l’empire. S’il est un bon usage des abus, c’est de faire en sorte qu’ils nous interrogent personnellement. Les apôtres furent envoyés comme des agneaux au milieu de loups. Il faut en conclure que l’Église n’est constituée que de loups convertis (et tant mieux ! sans quoi nous ne serions que des moutons bêlant). Gare à nous, donc, et à cette petite gueule carnassière qui s’ouvre à même nos coeurs. Fabrice Hadjadj a reçu le prix Montherlant de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts et le prix cardinal Lustiger de l’Académie française pour l’ensemble de son oeuvre. Directeur de l’Institut Philanthropos (Fribourg, Suisse), il a été membre du Conseil pontifical pour les laïcs. |
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Why aren't ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin's invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin's own historical propaganda narratives, Russia's invasion of Ukraine makes complete sense. From its World War II cult to anti-Western conspiracy theories, the Kremlin has long used myth and memory to legitimize repression at home and imperialism abroad, its patriotic history resonating with and persuading large swathes of the Russian population. In Memory Makers, Russia analyst Jade McGlynn takes us into the depths of Russian historical propaganda, revealing the chilling web of nationwide narratives and practices perforating everyday life, from after-school patriotic history clubs to tower block World War II murals. The use of history to manifest a particular Russian identity has had grotesque, even gruesome, consequences, but it belongs to a global political pattern – where one's view of history is the ultimate marker of political loyalty, patriotism and national belonging. Memory Makers demonstrates how the extreme Russian experience is a stark warning to other nations tempted to stare too long at the reflection of their own imagined and heroic past. |
