Saturday, April 19, 2025

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Politics & Current Events 2025-04-19

Douglas Murray - On Democracies and Death Cults artwork On Democracies and Death Cults
Israel and the Future of Civilization
Douglas Murray
Genre: Political Science
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: April 08, 2025
Publisher: Broadside e-books
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

In his travels through Israel and Gaza, #1 International Bestselling author Douglas Murray has seen the best and the worst humanity has to offer, and he has no trouble choosing a side. Murray is not Jewish and before October 7, he had never lived in Israel. However, he objects to being lied to, and Israel has been on the receiving end of the biggest, deepest, longest lies in history.  Israel's commitment to fundamental Western values—capitalism, individual rights, democracy, and reason—has made it a beacon of progress in a region dominated by authoritarianism and extremism. Israel’s principles vividly contrast with the ideology of Hamas, which openly proclaims its love of death over life. With incisive moral clarity, On Democracies and Death Cults exposes how the campus left and international establishment confuse this conflict by: Calling on Israel for restraint and proportionality, while Hamas commits genocide.Slandering Israelis as white colonialists, while only a third of Israelis are Jews of European ancestry.Framing the conflict as oppressor vs. oppressed, when it is really between a thriving multi-ethnic democracy and a death cult bent on its annihilation.  Drawing from intensive on-the-ground reporting in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, Douglas Murray places the latest violence in its proper historical context. He takes readers on a harrowing journey through the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, piecing together the exclusive accounts from victims, survivors, and even the terrorists responsible for the atrocities. If left unchecked, misplaced sympathy could embolden forces that seek to undermine not only Israel, but all of Western civilization.



Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt - How Democracies Die artwork How Democracies Die
Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt
Genre: Political Science
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: January 16, 2018
Publisher: Crown
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.” — The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die. Now the question is, can our democracy be saved? Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.” — The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.” — Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . . This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.” —Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.” —Fareed Zakaria, CNN



Timothy Snyder - On Freedom artwork On Freedom
Timothy Snyder
Genre: Political Science
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: September 17, 2024
Publisher: Crown
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “visionary” ( The Guardian ) exploration of freedom—what it is, how it’s been misunderstood, and why it’s our only chance for survival—by the acclaimed Yale historian and author of On Tyranny “[Snyder’s] deep political and philosophical examination of how to . . . create and sustain freedom provides a hopeful view for the future.” —Los Angeles Times FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD Timothy Snyder has been called “the leading interpreter of our dark times.” As a historian, he has given us startling reinterpretations of political collapse and mass killing. As a public intellectual, he has turned that knowledge toward counsel and prediction, working against authoritarianism here and abroad. His book On Tyranny has inspired millions around the world to fight for freedom. Now, in this tour de force of political philosophy, he helps us see exactly what we’re fighting for. Freedom is the great American commitment, but as Snyder argues, we have lost sight of what it means—and this is leading us into crisis. Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: We think we're free if we can do and say as we please, and protect ourselves from government overreach. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from as freedom to —the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible. On Freedom takes us on a thrilling intellectual journey. Drawing on the work of philosophers and political dissidents, conversations with contemporary thinkers, and his own experiences coming of age in a time of American exceptionalism, Snyder identifies the practices and attitudes—the habits of mind—that will allow us to design a government in which we and future generations can flourish. We come to appreciate the importance of traditions (championed by the right) but also the role of institutions (the purview of the left). Intimate yet ambitious, this book helps forge a new consensus rooted in a politics of abundance, generosity, and grace.



Ilan Pappe - Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic artwork Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic
Ilan Pappe
Genre: Political Science
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: June 11, 2024
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

In 1896, a Jewish state was a pipe dream. Today the overwhelming majority of Jews identify as Zionists. How did this happen? Ilan Pappe unveils how over a century of aggressive lobbying changed the map of the Middle East. Pro-Israel lobbies convinced British and American policymakers to condone Israel’s flagrant breaches of international law, grant Israel unprecedented military aid and deny Palestinians rights. Anyone who questioned unconditional support for Israel, even in the mildest terms, became the target of relentless smear campaigns. Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic shows us how an unassailable consensus was built – and how it might be dismantled.



Thomas Byrne Edsall - The Point of No Return artwork The Point of No Return
American Democracy at the Crossroads
Thomas Byrne Edsall
Genre: Political Science
Price: $32.99
Publish Date: April 11, 2023
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Seller: Princeton University Press

How Donald Trump laid waste to American politics, culture, and social order After Donald Trump’s rise to power, after the 2020 presidential election, after January 6, is American politics past the point of no return? New York Times columnist and political reporter Thomas Byrne Edsall fears that the country may be headed over a cliff, arguing that the election of Donald Trump was the most serious threat to the American political system since the Civil War. In this compelling and illuminating book, Edsall documents how the Trump years ravaged the nation’s politics, culture, and social order. He explains the demographic shifts that helped make Trump’s election possible, and describes the racial and ethnic conflict, culture wars, rural/urban divide, diverging economies of red and blue states, and the transformation of both the Republican and Democratic parties that have left our politics in a state of permanent hostility. The Point of No Return brings together a series of Edsall’s columns, bookended by a new introduction and conclusion, which show how we got to this dangerous point. These dispatches from our new political landscape chronicle the emergence of what Edsall calls “the not-so-silent white majority” and show how Trump deployed fears about race and immigration to appeal to voters. Edsall examines Trump’s construction of an alternate reality, discusses why we don’t always vote according to our own self-interest, and explores the Democrats’ calibrated response. Considering the 2020 election and its violent aftermath, Edsall looks at the Capitol insurrection and warns that American democracy is under siege. The forces behind Trump’s election, and the “stop the steal” true believers, have pushed the nation to the brink.



Timothy Snyder - On Tyranny artwork On Tyranny
Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Timothy Snyder
Genre: Political Science
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: February 28, 2017
Publisher: Crown
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

#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.



Alain Roy - Le cas Trump artwork Le cas Trump
Portrait d'un imposteur
Alain Roy
Genre: Political Science
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: April 08, 2025
Publisher: Écosociété
Seller: Diffusion Dimedia Inc.

Qui est Donald Trump? Qu’est-ce qui motive la quête du pouvoir de cet homme que sa propre nièce, psychologue clinicienne, a décrit comme le plus dangereux du monde, et son proche conseiller comme un Hitler américain ? S’appuyant sur une abondante documentation et sa participation à un rallye trumpiste, Alain Roy offre un portrait saisissant et inquiétant du playboy ayant dilapidé l’immense fortune dont il a hérité de son père. Contrairement à l’image d’homme d’affaires à succès qu’il a voulu projeter tout au long de sa vie et que la téléréalité est venue cristalliser, Trump a fait faillite à maintes reprises. Objet de risée de la part des élites, il s’est fabriqué une identité de « gagnant » pour cacher ses failles et sa honte, jusqu’à se hisser à la tête de la Maison-Blanche. Mais que se passe-t-il lorsque le réel se confronte aux mensonges de l’imposteur? Jusqu’où peuvent aller sa rage et ses désirs de vengeance? Dans un contexte où s’agite autour de lui une extrême droite triomphante et décomplexée, ses penchants agressifs et transgressifs forment un cocktail explosif. À travers les prismes du mensonge, de la faille narcissique et de la dangerosité, Alain Roy plonge au cœur de la psyché de Donald Trump afin de cerner la nature de cette figure politique à la fois grotesque et malfaisante, qui force le monde entier à jouer dans un très mauvais film.



Ezra Klein - Abundance artwork Abundance
What Progress Takes
Ezra Klein
Genre: Public Administration
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: March 18, 2025
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A terrific book...Powerful and persuasive.” —Fareed Zakaria “Spectacular…Offers a comprehensive indictment of the current problems and a clear path forward…Klein and Thompson usher in a mood shift. They inspire hope and enlarge the imagination.” —David Brooks, The New York Times From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough. Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished. Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds , Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.



Chris Hayes - The Sirens' Call artwork The Sirens' Call
How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
Chris Hayes
Genre: Political Science
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: January 28, 2025
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller From the New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host, a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and the very fabric of our society “An ambitious analysis of how the trivial amusements offered by online life have degraded not only our selves but also our politics.” — New York Times “Brilliant book… Reading it has made me change the way I work and think.”—Rachel Maddow We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.” Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth century: attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens’ Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance. Because there is a breaking point. Sirens are designed to compel us, and now they are going off in our bedrooms and kitchens at all hours of the day and night, doing the bidding of vast empires, the most valuable companies in history, built on harvesting human attention. As Hayes writes, “Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human.” The Sirens’ Call is the book that snaps everything into a single holistic framework so that we can wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future.



Chris Whipple - Uncharted artwork Uncharted
How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History
Chris Whipple
Genre: Political Science
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: April 08, 2025
Publisher: Harper Influence
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

The New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers and The Spymasters now turns his sharp eye towards the historic 2024 presidential race, providing the definitive, insider account of the most dramatic and significant political showdown in modern American history. A disastrous debate, a would-be assassin’s bullet, an electrifying eleventh hour candidate swap, dramatic and surprising VP selections, betrayals behind closed doors, charges of a stolen election, game-changing blunders—the history-making 2024 presidential election is a political saga of Shakespearean proportions. In minute-by-minute detail, esteemed White House historian and political analyst Chris Whipple chronicles the unprecedented drama as it unfolds, documenting the true story of the Harris and Trump campaigns and the difficult, urgent decisions made in the back rooms of power, with the future of American democracy at stake. Alternating between the Biden/Harris/Walz and the Trump/Vance camps, Whipple tells the fly-on-the-wall story of campaign 2024, drawing on his unique access to exclusive sources on both sides, including conversations with members of the candidates’ inner circles. Whipple goes behind the scenes of every headline-making moment to reveal how a post-debate intra-party rebellion forced Biden to step aside, how the nomination of Vice President Harris at a thrilling convention reshaped the race, how Harris rallied excited voters across generations and demographics, but ultimately could not overcome the underlying weaknesses of her campaign. Whipple also burrows inside Donald Trump’s campaign to reveal startling new insights into how he overcame primary opponents and multiple prosecutions, rebranded his base to appeal to Gen Z voters, and forged powerful alliances with Silicon Valley CEOs like Elon Musk. An intimate portrait of American politics on the edge, filled with previously untold stories, anecdotes, and insights, Uncharted is the authoritative account of this pivotal chapter in American politics. As he brings to life the most dramatic and important presidential campaign of the modern age and puts it into historical perspective, Whipple exposes how ambition, conviction, and resilience collide at the highest echelons of power, offering a deeper understanding of the forces that define a divided nation.



Michael Wolff - Fire and Fury artwork Fire and Fury
Inside the Trump White House
Michael Wolff
Genre: Political Science
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: January 05, 2018
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Seller: Macmillan

#1 New York Times Bestseller With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House . Since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the country—and the world—has witnessed a stormy, outrageous, and absolutely mesmerizing presidential term that reflects the volatility and fierceness of the man elected Commander-in-Chief. This riveting and explosive account of Trump’s administration provides a wealth of new details about the chaos in the Oval Office, including: -- What President Trump’s staff really thinks of him -- What inspired Trump to claim he was wire-tapped by President Obama -- Why FBI director James Comey was really fired -- Why chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner couldn’t be in the same room -- Who is really directing the Trump administration’s strategy in the wake of Bannon’s firing -- What the secret to communicating with Trump is -- What the Trump administration has in common with the movie The Producers Never before in history has a presidency so divided the American people. Brilliantly reported and astoundingly fresh, Fire and Fury shows us how and why Donald Trump has become the king of discord and disunion. “Essential reading.” —Michael D’Antonio, author of Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success , CNN.com “Not since Harry Potter has a new book caught fire in this way…[ Fire and Fury ] is indeed a significant achievement, which deserves much of the attention it has received.” — The Economist



Jane Mayer - Dark Money artwork Dark Money
The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Jane Mayer
Genre: Political Science
Price: $8.99
Publish Date: January 19, 2016
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

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 comes an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group. “Revelatory. . . . Persuasive, timely and necessary.” — The New York Times 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



Caroline Darian - Pour que l'on se souvienne artwork Pour que l'on se souvienne
Après le procès de Mazan, le combat pour toutes les victimes de soumission chimique
Caroline Darian
Genre: Politics & Current Events
Price: $25.99
Publish Date: March 05, 2025
Publisher: JC Lattès
Seller: Hachette Livre

« C’est l’histoire d’un violeur en série qui a toujours utilisé la soumission chimique pour commettre ses crimes. C’est l’histoire d’un système défaillant qui lui a permis d’échapper à la justice pendant de nombreuses années. C’est l’histoire d’une famille construite sur un mensonge, une famille qui a été pulvérisée et oubliée. C’est mon combat face à l’un des plus grands prédateurs pour obtenir la vérité. » C.D. Le 19 décembre 2024 s’est clos le procès de Mazan, inédit par son ampleur, son impact et par le courage de Gisèle Pelicot. Caroline Darian, la fille de la victime et du bourreau, nous offre son regard unique sur cette tragédie, révèle l’inachevé de l’enquête, et poursuit sans relâche son combat contre la soumission chimique et pour la manifestation de la vérité. Pour que l’on se souvienne de ce qui s’est joué à Mazan, avant et après. Pour que l’on n’oublie pas les victimes qui n’ont ni preuves ni souvenirs.



Romeo Dallaire - Shake Hands With the Devil artwork Shake Hands With the Devil
The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Romeo Dallaire
Genre: Political Science
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: October 21, 2003
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

On the tenth anniversary of the date that UN peacekeepers landed in Rwanda, Random House Canada is proud to publish the unforgettable first-hand account of the genocide by the man who led the UN mission. Digging deep into shattering memories, General Dallaire has written a powerful story of betrayal, naïveté, racism and international politics. His message is simple and undeniable: “Never again.” When Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire received the call to serve as force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in 1993, he thought he was heading off on a modest and straightforward peacekeeping mission. Thirteen months later he flew home from Africa, broken, disillusioned and suicidal, having witnessed the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in only a hundred days. In Shake Hands with the Devil, he takes the reader with him on a return voyage into the hell of Rwanda, vividly recreating the events the international community turned its back on. This book is an unsparing eyewitness account of the failure by humanity to stop the genocide, despite timely warnings. Woven through the story of this disastrous mission is Dallaire’s own journey from confident Cold Warrior, to devastated UN commander, to retired general engaged in a painful struggle to find a measure of peace, reconciliation and hope. This book is General Dallaire’s personal account of his conversion from a man certain of his worth and secure in his assumptions to a man conscious of his own weaknesses and failures and critical of the institutions he’d relied on. It might not sit easily with standard ideas of military leadership, but understanding what happened to General Dallaire and his mission to Rwanda is crucial to understanding the moral minefields our peacekeepers are forced to negotiate when we ask them to step into the world’s dirty wars. Excerpt from Shake Hands with the Devil My story is not a strictly military account nor a clinical, academic study of the breakdown of Rwanda. It is not a simplistic indictment of the many failures of the UN as a force for peace in the world. It is not a story of heroes and villains, although such a work could easily be written. This book is a cri de coeur for the slaughtered thousands, a tribute to the souls hacked apart by machetes because of their supposed difference from those who sought to hang on to power. . . . This book is the account of a few humans who were entrusted with the role of helping others taste the fruits of peace. Instead, we watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect.



Thomas L. Friedman - Thank You for Being Late artwork Thank You for Being Late
An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations
Thomas L. Friedman
Genre: Political Science
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: November 22, 2016
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Seller: Macmillan

#1 New York Times Bestseller • Los Angeles Times Bestseller One of The Wall Street Journal 's 10 Books to Read Now • One of Kirkus Reviews 's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • One of Publishers Weekly 's Most Anticipated Books of the Year Shortlisted for the OWL Business Book Award and Longlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Version 2.0, Updated and Expanded, with a New Afterword We all sense it—something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your kids. You can’t miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are being transformed in so many realms all at once—and it is dizzying. In Thank You for Being Late , version 2.0, with a new afterword, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts. His thesis: to understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet’s three largest forces—Moore’s law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss)—are accelerating all at once. These accelerations are transforming five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community. The year 2007 was the major inflection point: the release of the iPhone, together with advances in silicon chips, software, storage, sensors, and networking, created a new technology platform that is reshaping everything from how we hail a taxi to the fate of nations to our most intimate relationships. It is providing vast new opportunities for individuals and small groups to save the world—or to destroy it. With his trademark vitality, wit, and optimism, Friedman shows that we can overcome the multiple stresses of an age of accelerations—if we slow down, if we dare to be late and use the time to reimagine work, politics, and community. Thank You for Being Late is an essential guide to the present and the future.



James Baldwin - The Fire Next Time artwork The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin
Genre: Political Science
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: December 01, 1992
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movementin the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. • "The finest essay I’ve ever read.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism.  Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle … all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.



Solomon Northup & Abraham Lincoln - Twelve Years a Slave artwork Twelve Years a Slave
And the Emancipation Proclamation
Solomon Northup & Abraham Lincoln
Genre: Politics & Current Events
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: October 27, 2013
Publisher: Seedbox Press, LLC
Seller: Seedbox Press LLC

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.



Ezra Klein - Why We're Polarized artwork Why We're Polarized
Ezra Klein
Genre: Political Science
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: January 28, 2020
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” ( The Washington Post ) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” ( New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” ( O, The Oprah Magazine ) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.



Abigail Shrier - Bad Therapy artwork Bad Therapy
Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
Abigail Shrier
Genre: Political Science
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: February 27, 2024
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. From the author of Irreversible Damage , an investigation into a mental health industry that is harming, not healing, American children In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What’s gone wrong with America’s youth? In Bad Therapy , bestselling investigative journalist Abigail Shrier argues that the problem isn’t the kids—it’s the mental health experts. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with child psychologists, parents, teachers, and young people, Shrier explores the ways the mental health industry has transformed the way we teach, treat, discipline, and even talk to our kids. She reveals that most of the therapeutic approaches have serious side effects and few proven benefits. Among her unsettling findings: Talk therapy can induce rumination, trapping children in cycles of anxiety and depressionSocial Emotional Learning handicaps our most vulnerable children, in both public schools and private“Gentle parenting” can encourage emotional turbulence – even violence – in children as they lash out, desperate for an adult in charge Mental health care can be lifesaving when properly applied to children with severe needs, but for the typical child, the cure can be worse than the disease. Bad Therapy is a must-read for anyone questioning why our efforts to bolster America’s kids have backfired—and what it will take for parents to lead a turnaround.



Frédéric Arnould - C’est aussi ça, l’Amérique artwork C’est aussi ça, l’Amérique
Portraits d’un pays polarisé
Frédéric Arnould
Genre: Political Science
Price: $19.99
Publish Date: December 19, 2024
Publisher: Québec Amérique
Seller: Les Editions Quebec Amerique Inc.

Les États-Unis sont-ils brisés? Armes à feu, avortement, religion, (dés)information, justice… Pourquoi ces enjeux divisent-ils plus que jamais les Américains ? Le journaliste Frédéric Arnould a sillonné les États-Unis et rencontré une foule de citoyens de tous horizons, soulevant – sans jamais la poser – cette éternelle question : « Qu’est-ce qui se passe avec vous, les Américains? » Un portrait instructif et humain de ce pays plein de promesses, qui garantit à ses citoyens une grande liberté et les outils pour la défendre… pour le meilleur et pour le pire.



Jason Stanley - How Propaganda Works artwork How Propaganda Works
Jason Stanley
Genre: Political Science
Price: $3.99
Publish Date: May 26, 2015
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Seller: Princeton University Press

How propaganda undermines democracy and why we need to pay attention Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us—not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works , Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy—particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality—and how it has damaged democracies of the past. Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda's selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the twentieth century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality. Drawing from a range of sources, including feminist theory, critical race theory, epistemology, formal semantics, educational theory, and social and cognitive psychology, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States. How Propaganda Works shows that an understanding of propaganda and its mechanisms is essential for the preservation and protection of liberal democracies everywhere.



Drew Westen - The Political Brain artwork The Political Brain
The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation
Drew Westen
Genre: Political Science
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: May 06, 2008
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

The Political Brain is a groundbreaking investigation into the role of emotion in determining the political life of the nation. For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists -- and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt -- and only one Republican has failed in that quest. In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions. Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said -- or could have said -- in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years -- such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how



Peter Beinart - Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza artwork Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
A Reckoning
Peter Beinart
Genre: Political Science
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: January 28, 2025
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our time “At this painful moment, Peter Beinart’s voice is more vital than ever. His reach is broad—from the tragedy of today’s Middle East to the South Africa he knows well to events centuries ago—his scholarship is deep, and his heart is big. This book is not just about being Jewish in the shadow of today’s war, but about being a person who cares for justice.” —Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight and King Leopold’s Ghost In Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.



Hal Brands & Charles Edel - The Lessons of Tragedy artwork The Lessons of Tragedy
Statecraft and World Order
Hal Brands & Charles Edel
Genre: Political Science
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: February 26, 2019
Publisher: Yale University Press
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

A “brilliant” examination of American complacency and how it puts the nation’s—and the world’s—security at risk ( The Wall Street Journal ). The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage—to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than seventy years of great-power peace and a quarter-century of unrivaled global leadership, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history. This amnesia has become most pronounced just as Americans and the global order they created are coming under graver threat than at any time in decades. In a forceful argument that brims with historical sensibility and policy insights, two distinguished historians argue that a tragic sensibility is necessary if America and its allies are to address the dangers that menace the international order today. Tragedy may be commonplace, Brands and Edel argue, but it is not inevitable—so long as we regain an appreciation of the world’s tragic nature before it is too late. “Literate and lucid—sure to interest to readers of Fukuyama, Huntington, and similar authors as well as students of modern realpolitik.” — Kirkus Reviews



Kate Raworth - La théorie du Donut artwork La théorie du Donut
Kate Raworth
Genre: Politics & Current Events
Price: $25.99
Publish Date: November 15, 2018
Publisher: Plon
Seller: Interforum, S.A.

La façon dont nous pensons et enseignons l'économie depuis le XIXe siècle est périmée! Revisitant les principaux concepts de l'économie en y introduisant les dimensions sociale et environnementale, Kate Raworth nous propose une nouvelle vision de l'économie, plus juste et plus durable, qui doit permettre de relever les défis du XXIe siècle. Crises financières à répétition, inégalités extrêmes de revenus et d'accès aux ressources, exploitation destructrice de l'environnement... tout le monde peut se rendre compte par lui-même que notre système économique dysfonctionne. Kate Raworth propose de revisiter les principaux concepts et principes sur lesquels est fondée la science économique, en introduisant, outre les concepts classiques de croissance, de marché, d'agents économiques, le facteur humain et la préoccupation environnementale au coeur de la réflexion. Consciente de la force des schémas et des images, elle s'attaque à sept schémas-clés de l'économie pour montrer à quel points ils sont galvaudés et méritent d'être remplacés. Pour en venir au donut du titre : l'auteur propose de remplacer l'objectif économique général de croissance du PIB, par un objectif de stabilisation de l'activité économique entre deux "frontières" : la frontière des besoins humains de base comme "plancher", et la frontière de la préservation de l'environnement comme "plafond". C'est la représentation de ce plancher et de ce plafond, sous forme de cercles, qui donne l'image du donut dans lequel l'activité économique doit s'inscrire. Outre la croissance du PIB, le livre démonte ainsi plusieurs mythes économiques comme la "main invisible du marché", le sujet économique rationnel, l'équilibre de loffre et de la demande... Une lecture rafraichissante, qui propose une vision renouvelée, accessible et optimiste de la pensée économique.