Showing titles in History & Theory

Like no other work before it, Making a Career in Dictatorship dives deep into the authoritarian security apparatus to identify which officers participate in repression or coups—and above all, why. The book's compelling theory uncovers career pressure as the secret driver behind the two most...

What is the work ethic? Does it justify policies that promote the wealth and power of the One Percent at workers' expense? Or does it advance policies that promote workers' dignity and standing? Hijacked explores how the history of political economy has been a contest between these two ideas about whom the work ethic is supposed to serve.

***The top 5 Sunday Times bestseller*** 'Excellent... persuasive... convincing' – The Times 'Funny, whipsmart and devastating. Sanity on steroids' – Emily Maitlis 'Fantastic. An exquisite analysis' – The Secret Barrister Why does nothing work in Britain? It’s harder than ever to get a GP...

The last generation of Americans with a living memory of Jim Crow will soon disappear. They leave behind a collective memory of segregation shaped increasingly by its horrors and heroic defeat, but not a nuanced understanding of everyday life in Jim Crow America. In The South, Adolph L. Reed Jr.—New Orleanian, political scientist, and according to Cornel West, "the greatest democratic theorist of his generation"—takes up the urgent task of recounting the granular realities of life in the last decades of the Jim Crow South.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER With unparalleled reporting, a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter chronicles the clash between a president and the officials of his own government who tried to stop him. “A meticulously reported volume that clearly benefits from the author’s...

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course.

‘Conflict diamonds’ are precious gems that have been sold on the black market to finance violent rebel groups, terrorists or oppressive governments. They almost always originate from poor, underdeveloped countries located on the African continent. It is estimated that conflict diamonds account for up to 15 percent of the world’s traded diamonds.

The Naked God is Howard Fast's public repudiation of the Communist Party, of which he was a devoted member for thirteen years until reading about the full scope of atrocities committed by the Soviet Union under Stalin. The best-selling author of Spartacus and Citizen Tom Paine, Howard Fast lent his writing talents and celebrity to the communist cause as a steadfast advocate and public figure. However, he felt increasingly ill at ease with the superior manner Party leaders took with rank-and-file members and with rumors of Soviet anti-Semitism.

From 1934 until 1944, Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that deeply affected both countries. While Germany is generally regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally. Goeschel, a scholar of 20th-century Germany and Italy, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler's key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public.

In April 2014, Viktor Orbn, the youngest elected Prime Minister in Hungarian history, became Prime Minister of Hungary for the third time, for the second time with a supermajority, making him the most significant Hungarian politician since the 19th century. Beat that. He changed Eastern Europe, and may well do the same for Western Europe. The Hungarian Tiger is everything you wanted to know about Hungarian politics, but were afraid to ask.

The heart-pounding true story of the plot to kill the most powerful man in America. In 1892, America was on the verge of another civil war, this one over industrial slavery. It was the era of robber barons, and none was more reviled for his harsh treatment of workers than industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The deadly Homestead Steel Strike that summer had left Frick with blood on his hands, and two young, impassioned radicals thought he should pay for his crimes.

On May 13, 1940, Winston Churchill stood before the House of Commons to deliver his first speech as Prime Minister. Europe was in crisis: three days earlier, Germany had invaded France and the Low Countries. Facing only feeble resistance, Hitler's armies were rapidly sweeping westward. Churchill had little support within the British government when he rose to address it that day.

A group biography of the relationship between FDR and four of his Supreme Court justices, written by legal scholar Noah Feldman. A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free...

Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime.

From the best-selling author of A Vast Conspiracy and The Run of His Life comes Too Close to Call - the definitive story of the Bush-Gore presidential recount. A political and legal analyst of unparalleled journalistic skill, Jeffrey Toobin is the ideal writer to distill the events of the 36 anxiety-filled days that culminated in one of the most stunning Supreme Court decisions in history.

After living in the White House for four years, in November 1980, Jimmy Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide. Carter's unpopularity helped Republicans win seats in the House and gain control over the Senate for the first time in over 20 years. The Reagan Era had begun, ushering in a generation of conservative power. Democrats blamed Carter for this catastrophe and spent the next decade pretending he had never existed.

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel's recent history and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. Killing a King relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace - and the other plotted murder.

What do anarchists want? It seems easier to classify them by what they don't want, namely, the organizations of the State, and to identify them with rioting and protest rather than with any coherent ideology. But with demonstrations like those against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund being blamed on anarchists, it is clear that an explanation of what they do stand for is long overdue. Colin Ward provides answers to these questions by considering anarchism from a variety of perspectives....

Der amerikanische Traum ist zum Albtraum verkommen: Seit dem Amtsantritt von Donald Trump werden Demokratische Regeln und Normen ausgesetzt oder abgeschafft. In der Regierung sitzen Faschisten, die Opfermythen und Überlegenheitsphantasien verbreiten, Universitäten und Medien angreifen. Von dem Gedanken, dass Machtwechsel dazugehören, haben sie sich verabschiedet, den Gegner zum Feind und sich selbst für überlegen erklärt.

Considered by many to be the authoritative biography on Andrew Jackson, Robert Remini's examination reviews in depth the political career and personal life of one of the country's most memorable leaders. It is the definitive summary of a man who in turn defined an era, captured in a form that would appeal to both novice students and learned history buffs.