Saturday, September 28, 2024

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Politics & Current Events 2024-09-28

Aaron Zebley - Interference artwork Interference
The Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation
Aaron Zebley
Genre: Political Science
Price: $20.99
Publish Date: September 24, 2024
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

The behind-the-scenes story of the investigation that shook America to its core—the Mueller investigation that presented the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election—as told by Robert Mueller’s closest colleagues, including never-before-revealed details into how the team investigated Putin’s campaign to favor candidate Donald Trump and Trump’s efforts to interfere in the investigation. Interference is the true history of the most important and consequential decisions, obstacles, and quandaries Mueller and his team faced when investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. For the first time, Mueller’s only deputy, his most senior counselor who served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and the lead prosecutor looking into obstruction of justice and Russian interference, have come together to tell a highly relevant and readable account of what it was like to carry out their investigation of election interference, as well as any connections that existed between the Russians and members of the Trump campaign. Interference also highlights the many actions Russia took as it favored candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton offering a powerful reminder of how committed Russia was to determine the outcome of the election. Ultimately, the special counsel brought indictments against thirty-four individuals and entities, including Trump’s campaign chairman; his deputy campaign chairman; a campaign advisor; his first national security advisor; and one of Trump’s longtime associates; as well as against Russian participants. Nearly every case that was able to proceed resulted in a guilty verdict or plea. Interference explains the motivations and actions of Russia (which has not stopped exploiting America’s weaknesses), the importance and the limitations of a special counsel, and the need for people to make principled decisions even when being pushed from all directions not to. Much can be learned from the experiences faced by the Mueller special counsel office as it broke ground on some of the most complicated challenges facing our country—then and now. The narrative carries special relevance today, as the Supreme Court has sharply limited the conduct by a president that can be prosecuted—or even investigated.



Robert Bourgi - “Ils savent que je sais tout” artwork “Ils savent que je sais tout”
Ma vie en Françafrique
Robert Bourgi
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $23.99
Publish Date: September 25, 2024
Publisher: Max Milo Editions
Seller: Max Milo Editions

Symbole de la « Françafrique », Robert Bourgi aborde, pour la toute première fois dans un livre, sa vie, ses rapports avec son mentor Jacques Foccart et l’ensemble des « missions » effectuées pendant près de quarante ans pour le compte des présidents africains et français parmi lesquels les principaux ténors de la droite (Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Charles Pasqua, Jacques Toubon, Dominique de Villepin, Claude Guéant, François Fillon etc.). Il révèle les circuits des financements des partis politiques français, en se basant sur ses notes personnelles conservées pendant 40 ans. Et décripte des dossiers sensibles auxquels il a participé : libération des journalistes français du Liban dans les années 1980, réhabilitation de Mobutu Sese Seko, libération de l’otage française Clothilde Reiss en Iran, sauvetage de Laurent Gbagbo, démission de Jean-Marie Bockel, nomination d’ambassadeurs de France en Afrique, lobbying auprès de l’Élysée pour le compte des chefs d’État africains… De Félix Houphouët-Boigny et Laurent Gbagbo (Côte d’Ivoire) à Mobutu Sese Seko (RD Congo) en passant par Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso), Mathieu Kérékou (Bénin), Abdoulaye Wade et Macky Sall (Sénégal), Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritanie), Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo), Pascal Lissouba, Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo) et surtout Omar et Ali Bongo (Gabon), il lève le voile sur la psychologie de nombreux présidents, au sud du Sahara, et leur régime apportant au lecteur un regard nouveau sur la politique africaine de la France durant plusieurs décennies. Robert Bourgi , né le 4 avril 1945 à Dakar, est un avocat et conseiller politique franco-libanais. Spécialiste des questions africaines, il est considéré comme un représentant de la « Françafrique ». Il a incarné pendant trente ans les relations entre l’Hexagone et ses anciennes colonies subsahariennes, en héritier du mythique et gaulliste Jacques Foccart.   Politologue de formation, Frédéric Lejeal est journaliste africaniste depuis vingt-cinq ans. Ancien collaborateur de la revue économique Marchés Tropicaux et Méditerranéens et de Jeune Afrique , il a dirigé pendant dix ans La Lettre du Continent , publication confidentielle sur la politique et les réseaux d’affaires en Afrique de l’Ouest et dans le Golfe de Guinée.



Vivek Ramaswamy - Truths artwork Truths
The Future of America First
Vivek Ramaswamy
Genre: Political Science
Price: $20.99
Publish Date: September 24, 2024
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

New York Times bestselling author, accomplished entrepreneur, and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has a plan to save America, and it begins with telling the truth. Today’s conservatives know what they’re against. They’re anti-woke, anti-globalist, anti-big government. But what exactly do they stand for? The fact that this is a hard question to answer is a damning indictment of the modern Republican Party which has abjectly failed to articulate an affirmative alternative to the left’s vision. Ramaswamy calls on the conservative movement to articulate exactly what it stands for, or else warns of another illusory “red wave” in 2024. Vivek Ramaswamy is not a politician. He is a first generation American, the founder of several successful companies, and a bestselling author. Ramaswamy decided he needed to step in the arena to stop the lies and tell the American people the truth. That’s why he ran for president and became a leading voice in the America First movement. In Truths: The Future of America First , Ramaswamy shows exactly how honesty about the most important issues will get our country back on track. The America First movement emphasizes the issues that bring us together, not what divides us. It asks that we put our country over politics, merit over grievance, and truth over lies. Ramaswamy tells us the truth about our political system, and the people who control it, and exhorts us to exercise our right to self-governance again. America First is bigger than any man or woman. It’s a movement. In Truths , Vivek Ramaswamy explains exactly why that movement needs to succeed now more than ever. Our country’s future depends on it.



Hillary Clinton - Something Lost, Something Gained artwork Something Lost, Something Gained
Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty
Hillary Clinton
Genre: Political Science
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: September 17, 2024
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

What would it be like to sit down for an impassioned, entertaining conversation with Hillary Clinton? In Something Lost, Something Gained , Hillary offers her candid views on life and love, politics, liberty, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach. She describes the strength she draws from her deepest friendships, her Methodist faith, and the nearly fifty years she’s been married to President Bill Clinton—all with the wisdom that comes from looking back on a full life with fresh eyes. She takes us along as she returns to the classroom as a college professor, enjoys the bonds inside the exclusive club of former First Ladies, moves past her dream of being president, and dives into new activism for women and democracy. From canoeing with an ex-Nazi trying to deprogram white supremacists to sweltering with salt farmers in the desert trying to adapt to the climate crisis in India, Hillary brings us to the front lines of our biggest challenges. For the first time, Hillary shares the story of her operation to evacuate Afghan women to safety in the harrowing final days of America’s longest war. But we also meet the brave women dissidents defying dictators around the world, gain new personal insights about her old adversary Vladimir Putin, and learn the best ways that worried parents can protect kids from toxic technology. We also hear her fervent and persuasive warning to all American voters. In the end, Something Lost, Something Gained is a testament to the idea that the personal is political, and the political is personal, providing a blueprint for what each of us can do to make our lives better. Hillary has “looked at life from both sides now.” In these pages, she shares the latest chapter of her inspiring life and shows us how to age with grace and keep moving forward, with grit, joy, purpose, and a sense of humor.



Tim Marshall - Prisoners of Geography artwork Prisoners of Geography
Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World
Tim Marshall
Genre: Political Science
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: October 27, 2015
Publisher: Scribner
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

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.



Brian Tyler Cohen - Shameless artwork Shameless
Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy
Brian Tyler Cohen
Genre: Political Science
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: August 13, 2024
Publisher: Harper
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the first content creator to interview President Biden, leading progressive voice Brian Tyler Cohen takes a step back from the day-to-day news cycle to explain how American politics has turned into such a dumpster fire—and what Democrats need to do to get us out of it. In Shameless, Brian Tyler Cohen lays bare the long con of the modern Republican Party. While the radical right continues hiding behind gaslighting maneuvers, artificial slogans, and hollow catchphrases, Cohen’s unflinching narrative illuminates the realities and dangers of the ever-widening gulf between the vaunted Republican brand and their actual behavior. With a foreword by Congressman Jamie Raskin, drawing on interviews and insights from Pete Buttigieg, Mehdi Hasan, Jen Psaki, and other luminaries of the Left, Cohen reveals: How Republicans have leaned on their histor­ical branding to give themselves a permission structure to behave antithetically to everything they say;Why the mainstream media has proved itself a willing participant in this ongoing farce— particularly since the rise of toxic, sensational­ist MAGA mania; andWhat lessons Democrats can glean from a clear-eyed view of the landscape we’re operating in—and the steps we must take to rebalance our political landscape. During this all-hands-on-deck moment in our his­tory, Shameless is essential reading for those seeking to understand our dire situation, and a rallying cry for those fighting to preserve democracy.



Katherine Zoepf - Excellent Daughters artwork Excellent Daughters
The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World
Katherine Zoepf
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: January 12, 2016
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or traveled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Only a generation ago, female adolescence as we know it in the West did not exist in the Middle East. There were only children and married women. Today, young Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in order to live independently, to delay marriage, and to pursue professional goals. Hundreds of thousands of devout girls and women are attending Qur’anic schools—and using the training to argue for greater rights and freedoms from an Islamic perspective. And, in 2011, young women helped to lead antigovernment protests in the Arab Spring. But their voices have not been heard. Their stories have not been told. In Syria, before its civil war, she documents a complex society in the midst of soul searching about its place in the world and about the role of women. In Lebanon, she documents a country that on the surface is freer than other Arab nations but whose women must balance extreme standards of self-presentation with Islamic codes of virtue. In Abu Dhabi, Zoepf reports on a generation of Arab women who’ve found freedom in work outside the home. In Saudi Arabia she chronicles driving protests and women entering the retail industry for the first time. In the aftermath of Tahrir Square, she examines the crucial role of women in Egypt's popular uprising.   Deeply informed, heartfelt, and urgent, Excellent Daughters  brings us a new understanding of the changing Arab societies—from 9/11 to Tahrir Square to the rise of ISIS—and gives voice to the remarkable women at the forefront of this change.



Gideon Levy - The Killing of Gaza artwork The Killing of Gaza
Reports on a Catastrophe
Gideon Levy
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $13.99
Expected Publish Date: October 01, 2024
Publisher: Verso Books
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

Reportage from the frontline of the crisis in the Middle East from a leading Israeli journalist Gideon Levy is one of the most respected critics of Israel's apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. He is the outspoken award-winning journalist who has been writing on the conflict for decades. In The Killing of Gaza he brings together his on-the-ground perspectives of the events leading up to the October 7th attack and the ensuing devastation of Gaza. His clear-eyed analysis is a vital aperture into current events but he also brings essential historical and political context to the moment. He is unafraid to speak truth to power, and his work is an urgent rebuttal to the propaganda that is distributed through the mainstream press throughout the world. Levy's words should be read by anyone who wants to get the heart of this most brutal conflict and see for themselves that silence is no longer possible in the face of such atrocity.



Amir Tibon - The Gates of Gaza artwork The Gates of Gaza
A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands
Amir Tibon
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $20.99
Publish Date: September 24, 2024
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

A gripping first-person account of how one Israeli grandfather helped rescue two generations of his family on October 7, 2023—a saga that reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures behind Hamas's attacks that day.   On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”   Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.   In  The Gates of Gaza , Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades.    Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey,  The Gates of Gaza  is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.



Miranda Devine - The Big Guy artwork The Big Guy
How a President and His Son Sold Out America
Miranda Devine
Genre: Political Science
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: September 24, 2024
Publisher: Broadside e-books
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

The New York Post columnist, Fox News contributor, and national bestselling author of Laptop from Hell returns with the explosive, definitive account of the Biden family scandals. It’s rare that a campaign season has anything like an IRS whistleblower and a California US attorney saying they were blocked from pursuing charges, foreign wire transfers of millions of dollars going to several members of politician’s family, suspicious slap-on-the-wrist plea deals, mounds of incrimination texts, a previously unacknowledged child with a stripper, and multiple congressional investigations. It’s unprecedented to have them all tied to one politician like Joe Biden. The federal government and the mainstream media have been selling the narrative for years that Hunter Biden is a good son with addiction problems who has suffered enough. But what if the Biden family has been involved in sketchy financial dealings and coverups that get bigger every passing year? Miranda Devine goes deep into the dark underbelly of American politics, where it’s okay to break the law as long as you follow the rest of the elite’s rules. With a surgeon’s precision she dissects the shady dealings of the Biden family in China and Eastern Europe, exposing the cover-up within the government and media. With meticulous research and insider sources, Devine uncovers the shocking truth about Joe Biden's involvement in his son Hunter's business dealings and the extent of their corruption. Many have argued that intelligence agents and social media companies tilted the 2020 election in Biden’s favor by hiding the contents of Hunter’s laptop. Devine goes beyond their coverage to “silence the truth” and in The Big Guy finally reveals the corruption within the Biden family and the government.



Tim Alberta - The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory artwork The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
Tim Alberta
Genre: Political Science
Price: $21.99
Publish Date: December 05, 2023
Publisher: Harper
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

Instant New York Times Bestseller One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year An Economist and Air Mail Best Book of the Year "Brave and absorbing." -- New York Times “Alberta is not just a thorough and responsible reporter but a vibrant writer, capable of rendering a farcical scene in vivid hues.” -- Washington Post “An astonishingly clear-eyed look at a murky movement.” -- Los Angeles Times Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal. For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD. Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing. Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?



Adi Schwartz & Einat Wilf - The War of Return artwork The War of Return
How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace
Adi Schwartz & Einat Wilf
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: April 28, 2020
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: Macmillan

Two prominent Israeli liberals argue that for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to end with peace, Palestinians must come to terms with the fact that there will be no "right of return." In 1948, seven hundred thousand Palestinians were forced out of their homes by the first Arab-Israeli War. More than seventy years later, most of their houses are long gone, but millions of their descendants are still registered as refugees, with many living in refugee camps. This group—unlike countless others that were displaced in the aftermath of World War II and other conflicts—has remained unsettled, demanding to settle in the state of Israel. Their belief in a "right of return" is one of the largest obstacles to successful diplomacy and lasting peace in the region. In The War of Return , Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf—both liberal Israelis supportive of a two-state solution—reveal the origins of the idea of a right of return, and explain how UNRWA - the very agency charged with finding a solution for the refugees - gave in to Palestinian, Arab and international political pressure to create a permanent “refugee” problem. They argue that this Palestinian demand for a “right of return” has no legal or moral basis and make an impassioned plea for the US, the UN, and the EU to recognize this fact, for the good of Israelis and Palestinians alike. A runaway bestseller in Israel, the first English translation of The War of Return is certain to spark lively debate throughout America and abroad.



Anne Applebaum - Autocracy Inc. artwork Autocracy Inc.
The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
Anne Applebaum
Genre: Political Science
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: July 23, 2024
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A New York Times and Globe and Mail bestseller From the Pulitzer-prize winning, New York Times bestselling author, an alarming account of how autocracies work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organize to defeat them. We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan's essay calling for "containment" of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.



Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf artwork Mein Kampf
Adolf Hitler
Genre: Politics & Current Events
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: July 07, 2013
Publisher: Liber Electronicus
Seller: Kamil Jodelko

Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler is known as one of the most dangerous books in history. It is a fundamental exposition of Nazi ideology, which caused deaths of milions of people. The publisher would like to inform, that propaganda of any totalitarianism, such as Nazism, Fascism and Communism is not his target and this book should be only perceived as a historical source. Every man wanting to understand the complexity of the World War II should be acquainted with this position. 



Carol Off - At a Loss for Words artwork At a Loss for Words
Conversation in the Age of Rage
Carol Off
Genre: Political Science
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: September 03, 2024
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

AN INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER Award-winning author and broadcast journalist Carol Off digs deep into six words whose meanings have been distorted and weaponized in recent years—including democracy , freedom and truth— and asks whether we can reclaim their value. As co-host of CBC Radio's As It Happens , Carol Off spent a decade and a half talking to people in the news five nights a week. On top of her stellar writing and reporting career, those 25,000 interviews have given her a unique vantage point on the crucial subject at the heart of her new book—how, in these polarizing years, words that used to define civil society and social justice are being put to work for a completely different political agenda. Or they are being bleached of their meaning as the values they represent are mocked and distorted. As Off writes, “If our language doesn’t have a means to express an idea, then the idea itself is gone—even the range of thought is diminished.” And, as she argues, that’s a dangerous loss. In six, wide-ranging chapters, Off explores the mutating meanings and the changing political impact of her six chosen words—freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice and taxes—unpacking the forces, from right and left, that have altered them beyond recognition. She also shows what happens when we lose our shared political vocabulary: we stop being able to hear each other, let alone speak with each other in meaningful ways. This means we stop being able to reckon with the complexity of the crises we face, leaving us prey to conspiracy theories, autocrats and the machinations of greed. At a Loss for Words is both an elegy and a call to arms.



Alan Ryan - On Politics artwork On Politics
Alan Ryan
Genre: Political Science
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: November 09, 2012
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Seller: Penguin Books Limited

This is a book about the answers that historians, philosophers, theologians, practising politicians and would-be revolutionaries have given to one question:how should human beings best govern themselves? That question raises innumerable others: can we manage our own affairs at all? Should we even try? Many people in the past have thought that only some individuals were either able or entitled to practise self-government: Greeks, but not Persians; men, but not women; the better-off minority, but not the poor majority. Others have thought that few of us have any desire to govern ourselves, and that government is inevitably a matter of a competent elite managing an acquiescent mass. Then, what do we mean by 'freedom' today, and is it the same freedom that people enjoyed, or strove for, in the past? Almost every modern government claims to be democratic; but is democracy really the best way of organising our political life? For almost two thousand years, educated opinion said not. Today, educated opinion says yes. In the modern west, do we actually live in democracies? They certainly do not resemble what the Athenians fought and died to preserve. It seems that there may be less agreement than we might think about how human beings can best govern themselves. In this extraordinary book, more that thirty years in the making, Alan Ryan engages with the great thinkers of the past to explain their ideas with a lucidity which makes the book compelling reading. While acknowledging how much separates us from our intellectual forebears, he reminds us how often the ideas of long-dead or distant thinkers are more alive, and speak to us more vividly and immediately, than those of our contemporaries. At a time when we sometimes feel that the problems of the globe will simply overwhelm our ability to control them, he provides a peerless guide to the ways in which the problems of politics have been thought about by the greatest minds of our civilization.



Richard Haass - The World artwork The World
A Brief Introduction
Richard Haass
Genre: Foreign Policy & International Relations
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: May 12, 2020
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

The New York Times b estseller “A clear and concise account of the history, diplomacy, economics, and societal forces that have molded the modern global system.” — Foreign Affairs An invaluable primer from Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, that will help anyone, expert and non-expert alike, navigate a time in which many of our biggest challenges come from the world beyond our borders. Like it or not, we live in a global era, in which what happens thousands of miles away has the ability to affect our lives. This time, it is a Coronavirus known as Covid-19, which originated in a Chinese city many had never heard of but has spread to the corners of the earth. Next time it could well be another infectious disease from somewhere else. Twenty years ago it was a group of terrorists trained in Afghanistan and armed with box-cutters who commandeered four airplanes and flew them into buildings (and in one case a field) and claimed nearly three thousand lives. Next time it could be terrorists who use a truck bomb or gain access to a weapon of mass destruction. In 2016 hackers in a nondescript office building in Russia traveled virtually in cyberspace to manipulate America's elections. Now they have burrowed into our political life. In recent years, severe hurricanes and large fires linked to climate change have ravaged parts of the earth; in the future we can anticipate even more serious natural disasters. In 2008, it was a global financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed securities in America, but one day it could well be a financial contagion originating in Europe, Asia, or Africa. This is the new normal of the 21st century. The World is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks they need to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Readers will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments. While it is impossible to predict what the next crisis will be or where it will originate, those who read The World will have what they need to understand its basics and the principal choices for how to respond. In short, this book will make readers more globally literate and put them in a position to make sense of this era. Global literacy--knowing how the world works — is a must, as what goes on outside a country matters enormously to what happens inside. Although the United States is bordered by two oceans, those oceans are not moats. And the so-called Vegas rule — what happens there stays there — does not apply in today's world to anyone anywhere. U.S. foreign policy is uniquely American, but the world Americans seek to shape is not. Globalization can be both good and bad, but it is not something that individuals or countries can opt out of. Even if we want to ignore the world, it will not ignore us. The choice we face is how to respond. We are connected to this world in all sorts of ways. We need to better understand it, both its promise and its threats, in order to make informed choices, be it as students, citizens, voters, parents, employees, or investors. To help readers do just that, The World focuses on essential history, what makes each region of the world tick, the many challenges globalization presents, and the most influential countries, events, and ideas. Explaining complex ideas with wisdom and clarity, Richard Haass's The World is an evergreen book that will remain relevant and useful as history continues to unfold.



Douglas Murray - The Strange Death of Europe artwork The Strange Death of Europe
Immigration, Identity, Islam
Douglas Murray
Genre: Political Science
Price: $22.99
Publish Date: June 14, 2018
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
Seller: Bookwire Gesellschaft zum Vertrieb digitaler Medien mbH

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A WATERSTONES POLITICS PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR, 2018 The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society. This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places which cannot accept them. Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter he also takes a step back to look at the bigger issues which lie behind a continent's death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilisation, would do this to themselves? He ends with two visions of Europe – one hopeful, one pessimistic – which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next.



Alain Deneault - « Gouvernance » artwork « Gouvernance »
Le management totalitaire
Alain Deneault
Genre: Political Science
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: June 25, 2013
Publisher: Lux Éditeur
Seller: De Marque, Inc.

Dans les années 1980, les technocrates de Margaret Thatcher ont habillé du joli nom de « gouvernance » le projet d’adapter l’État aux intérêts et à la culture de l’entreprise privée. Ce coup d’État conceptuel va travestir avec succès la sauvagerie néolibérale en modèle de « saine gestion ». Nous en ferons collectivement les frais : dérèglementation de l’économie, privatisation des services publics, clientélisation du citoyen, mise au pas des syndicats... ce sera désormais cela gouverner.



Sabyl GHOUSSOUB - Beyrouth-sur-Seine artwork Beyrouth-sur-Seine
Sabyl GHOUSSOUB
Genre: Politics & Current Events
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: August 24, 2022
Publisher: Stock
Seller: Hachette Livre

Lorsque le narrateur décide de questionner ses parents sur leur pays d’origine, le Liban, il ne sait pas très bien ce qu’il cherche. La vie de ses parents  ? De son père, poète-journaliste tombé amoureux des yeux de sa femme des années auparavant  ? Ou bien de la vie de son pays, ravagé par des années de guerre civile  ? Alors qu’en 1975 ses parents décident de vivre à Paris pendant deux ans, le Liban sombre dans un conflit sans fin. Comment vivre au milieu de tout cet inconnu parisien quand tous nos proches connaissent la guerre, les attentats et les voitures piégées  ? Déambuler dans la capitale, préparer son doctorat, voler des livres chez Gibert Jeune semble dérisoire et pourtant ils resteront ici, écrivant frénétiquement des lettres aux frères restées là-bas, accrochés au téléphone pour avoir quelques nouvelles. Très vite pourtant la guerre pénètre le tissu parisien  : des bombes sont posées, des attentats sont commis, des mots comme «  Palestine  », «  organisation armée  », «  phalangistes  » sont prononcés dans les JT français. Les années passent, le conflit politique continue éternellement de s’engrener, le Liban et sa capitale deviennent pour le narrateur un ailleurs dans le quotidien, un point de ralliement rêvé familial. Alors il faut garder le lien coûte que coûte notamment à travers ces immenses groupes de discussion sur WhatsApp. Le Liban, c’est la famille désormais. Incisif, poétique et porté par un humour plein d’émotions,  Beyrouth-sur-Seine  est une réflexion sur la famille, l’immigration et ce qui nous reste de nos origines.



Olivier Roy, Cynthia Schoch & Trista Selous - The Crisis of Culture artwork The Crisis of Culture
Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms
Olivier Roy, Cynthia Schoch & Trista Selous
Genre: Political Science
Price: $22.99
Publish Date: March 01, 2024
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Seller: The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford trading as Oxford University Press

Are we confronting a new culture--global, online, individualistic? Or is our existing concept of culture in crisis, as explicit, normative systems replace implicit, social values? Olivier Roy's new book explains today's fractures via the extension of individual political and sexual freedoms from the 1960s. For Roy, twentieth-century youth culture disconnected traditional political protest from class, region or ethnicity, fashioning an identity premised on repudiation rather than inheritance of shared history or values. Having spread across generations under neoliberalism and the internet, youth culture is now individualized, ersatz. Without a shared culture, everything becomes an explicit code of how to speak and act, often online. Identities are now defined by socially fragmenting personal traits, creating affinity-based sub-cultures seeking safe spaces: universities for the left, gated communities and hard borders for the right. Increased left- and right-wing references to "identity" fail to confront this deeper crisis of culture and community. Our only option, Roy argues, is to restore social bonds at the grassroots or citizenship level.



Kevin Rudd - On Xi Jinping artwork On Xi Jinping
How Xi's Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World
Kevin Rudd
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $23.99
Publish Date: September 17, 2024
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Seller: The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford trading as Oxford University Press

An authoritative account of Xi Jinping's worldview and how it drives Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage. In his new book, On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage--that of President Xi Jinping, who now hold near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect, president-for-life. Rudd argues that Xi's worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour. Focusing on China's domestic politics, political economy, and foreign policy, Rudd characterises Xi Jinping's ideological framing of the world as "Marxist-Leninist nationalism." According to Rudd, Xi's notion of Leninism has taken the party and Chinese politics further to the left in comparison to his predecessors. Also, his Marxism has also taken Chinese economic thinking to the left-in a more decisively more statist direction and away from the historical dynamism of the private sector. However, Chinese nationalism under Xi has moved further to the right- towards a much, harder-edged, foreign policy vision of China and a new determination to change the international status quo. Xi's worldview is an integrated one, where his national ideological vision for China's future is ultimately inseparable from his view on China's position in the region and the world. These changes in worldview are also reflected in Xi's broader rehabilitation of the concept of "struggle" as a legitimate concept for the conduct of both Chinese domestic and foreign policy--a struggle that need not necessarily always be peaceful. Finally, Xi's ideological worldview also exhibits a new level of nationalist self-confidence about China's future--derived from China's historical and civilizational strengths but reinforced by his Marxist-Leninist concept of historical determinism and the belief that the tides of history are now on firmly China's side. A powerful analysis of the worldview of arguably the most consequential world leader of our era, this will be essential reading for anyone interested in how Xi is transforming both China and the international order, and, most importantly, why?



David Pakman - The Echo Machine artwork The Echo Machine
How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America
David Pakman
Genre: Political Science
Price: $19.99
Expected Publish Date: March 25, 2025
Publisher: Beacon Press
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

From the host of The David Pakman Show comes a vital look at how right-wing extremism has led to the fall of critical thinking and rise of reactionary politics—and what we can do about it to save our democracy Known for providing incisive progressive political analysis without being dogmatic, popular radio and podcast host David Pakman delves into the vicious cycle of reactionary political ideology. It's no secret how the right-wing has benefited and capitalized on disinformation and the polarization of US politics. Critical thinking and media literacy are on a rapid decline, and our republic is unable to agree upon a shared set of facts. Infused with Pakman’s signature pragmatic insight, The Echo Machine is not just a critique nor an instruction manual, but an invitation to think, question, and understand. Deeply researched and accessibly written, readers will learn: The underlying issues with political discourse in America today.How these issues have led to the intellectual race to the bottom.Practical ways to improve discourse through improving critical thinking, media literacy, and public education.Examples from real-world debates and discussions to better understand the impact of these issues on our democracy and why leftism is the best path forward. Pakman calmly cuts through the alarmist noise to inspire readers across the political spectrum to break out of our toxic political echo chamber and ultimately save our democracy.



John Locke - A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings artwork A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings
John Locke
Genre: Politics & Current Events
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: September 20, 2010
Publisher: Liberty Fund Inc.
Seller: Liberty Fund, Inc.

A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings brings together the principal writings on religious toleration and freedom of expression by one of the greatest philosophers in the Anglophone tradition: John Locke. The son of Puritans, Locke (1632–1704) became an Oxford academic, a physician, and, through the patronage of the Earl of Shaftesbury, secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations and to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina. A colleague of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton and a member of the English Royal Society, Locke lived and wrote at the dawn of the Enlightenment, a period during which traditional mores, values, and customs were being questioned. This volume opens with Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and also contains his earlier Essay Concerning Toleration (1667), extracts from the Third Letter for Toleration (1692), and a large body of his briefer essays and memoranda on this theme. As editor Mark Goldie writes in the introduction, A Letter Concerning Toleration "was one of the seventeenth century's most eloquent pleas to Christians to renounce religious persecution." Locke's contention, fleshed out in the Essay and in the Third Letter, that men should enjoy a perfect and "uncontrollable liberty" in matters of religion was shocking to many in seventeenth-century England. Still more shocking, perhaps, was its corollary, that the magistrate had no standing in matters of religion. Taken together, these works forcefully present Locke's belief in the necessary interrelation between limited government and religious freedom. At a time when the world is again having to come to terms with profound tensions among diverse religions and cultures, they are a canonical statement of the case for religious and intellectual freedom. This Liberty Fund edition provides the first fully annotated modern edition of A Letter Concerning Toleration, offering the reader explanatory guidance to Locke's rich reservoir of references and allusions. The introduction, a chronology of Locke's life, and a reading guide further equip the reader with historical, theological, and philosophical contexts for understanding one of the world's major thinkers on toleration, who lived and wrote at the close of Europe's Reformation and the dawn of the Enlightenment. This book is the first volume in Liberty Fund's Thomas Hollis Library series. As general editor David Womersley explains, Thomas Hollis (1720–1774) was a businessman and philanthropist who gathered books he thought were essential to the understanding of liberty and donated them to libraries in Europe and America in the years preceding the American Revolution. John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher and physician. Mark Goldie is Reader in British Intellectual History, University of Cambridge and is co-editor of The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700 and editor of John Locke: Two Treatises of Government and John Locke: Political Essays. David Womersley is Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. His most recent book is Divinity and State.



Peter H. Russell - Two Cheers for Minority Government artwork Two Cheers for Minority Government
The Evolution of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy, Second Edition
Peter H. Russell
Genre: World Affairs
Price: $26.99
Publish Date: March 14, 2024
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Seller: University of Toronto Press

Two Cheers for Minority Government presents a concise, accessible analysis of the prevalence of minority governments in Canada. Using the Canadian case to reflect on the processes and procedures of the parliamentary system, Peter H. Russell explores the tendency for people in parliamentary government to prefer elections which result in one party getting a margin of seats. Russell aims to explain why a minority government is not only a likely outcome of parliamentary elections in Canada but is also, for most, the best possible outcome. He argues that the best result of parliamentary actions is for no party to end up with a majority of seats in the lower house. This makes for government that is more accountable to the people. This new edition reveals how the increasing frequency of parliamentary elections that do not result in majority governments is a positive development for democracy. Ultimately, Two Cheers for Minority Government aims to help both citizens and politicians understand and make the most of the opportunities presented by minority governments.