Showing titles in History & Theory

There is a comforting illusion shared by historians and political commentators from Fukuyama back to Macaulay, Mill and Marx, that history progresses in a nice straight line towards liberal democracy or socialism, despite the odd hiccup. In reality, every democracy, however sophisticated or stable it may look, has been attacked or actually destroyed by a would-be Caesar, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Marx was wrong. This Caesarism is not an absurd throwback; it is an ever-present danger.

Libertarianism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century with an unwavering commitment to progressive causes, from women’s rights and the fight against slavery to anti-colonialism and Irish emancipation. Today, this movement founded on the principle of individual liberty finds itself divided by both progressive and reactionary elements vying to claim it as their own. The Individualists is the untold story of a political doctrine continually reshaped by fierce internal tensions, bold and eccentric personalities, and shifting political circumstances.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Yeltsin and Putin implemented a political system of "imitation democracy," marked by "a huge disparity between formal constitutional principles and the reality of authoritarian rule." How did this system take shape, how else might it have developed, and what are the prospects for re-envisioning it more democratically in the future? These questions animate Dmitrii Furman's Imitation Democracy, a welcome antidote to books that blandly decry Putin as an omnipotent dictator without considering his platforms, constituencies, and sources of power.

The historical Merlin was no rough magician: he was a learned figure from the cutting edge of medieval science and adept in astrology, cosmology, prophecy, and natural magic, as well as being a seer and a proto-alchemist. His powers were convincingly real—and useful, for they helped to add credibility to the "long-lost" history of Britain which first revealed them to a European public. Merlin's prophecies reassuringly foretold Britain's path, establishing an ancient ancestral line and linking biblical prophecy with more recent times. Merlin helped to put British history into world history.

Julian Gewirtz recovers the debates of the 1980s, tracing the Communist Party's diverse attitudes toward markets, state control, and sweeping technological change, as well as freewheeling public argument over political liberalization. After Tiananmen, however, Beijing systematically erased these discussions of alternative directions. Using newly available Chinese sources, Gewirtz details how the leadership purged the key reformist politician Zhao Ziyang and indoctrinated China and the international community in the new official narrative.

Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850-November 9, 1924) was an American Republican politician, historian, and statesman from Massachusetts. He served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign policy. The following recording documents his successful crusade against Woodrow Wilson's Treaty of Versailles and ensured that the United States never joined the League of Nations and his reservations against that treaty influenced the structure of the modern United Nations.

Field has spent his adult life fighting against poverty in Britain, through parliament and through his strong personal influence. Poverty for him has injustice at its root and as he explains in this book, he has found allies on all sides of the political spectrum. He was appointed by Tony Blair to be the Secretary of State for Pensions, but the reforms he advocated were so radical and essentially just, that Tony Blair could not contemplate them and Field stood down. Previously he had been Chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee under John Major.

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history. Capital rapidly acquired readership throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the working class'. This volume also contains the vital discussion of commodity - the cornerstone to Marx's theories. This audiobook is expertly read by Audie award-winning narrator, Malk Williams, and translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. It is edited by Friedrich Engels.

Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial Secretaries of State in U.S. history—serving under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, never-before-seen transcripts of Kissinger's conversations, including top-secret talks with Beijing and Moscow, provide an unvarnished record of his brand of high-stakes diplomacy during the Nixon years. These transcripts provide an unparalleled view of historical events that shaped the world and rocked the way diplomacy is conducted in the United States.

For decades, a few numbers came to define Chinese politics—until those numbers did not count what mattered and what they counted did not measure up. Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts argues that the Chinese government adopted a system of limited, quantified vision in order to survive the disasters unleashed by Mao Zedong's ideological leadership. Jeremy Wallace explains how that system worked and analyzes how the problems that accumulated in its blind spots led Xi Jinping to take drastic action.

Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 - November 7, 1962) was born in New York City and was a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. She would have a long and distinguished career as an American political figure, diplomat, and activist, making her one of the most admired women of the twentieth century. She served as the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (November 30, 1874-January 24, 1965) was born in Oxfordshire, England, of mixed English and American parentage. He would become a statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945—during the Second World War—and again from 1951 to 1955.

In the past few years, liberals concerned about the prospect of long-term conservative dominance of the federal courts have revived an idea that crashed and burned in the 1930s: court packing. Today's court packing advocates have run into a wall of opposition, with most citing the 1930s episode as one FDR's greatest failures. In early 1937, Roosevelt—fresh off a landslide victory—stunned the country when he proposed a plan to expand the size of the court by up to six justices. 

Both historically and in the present, the Supreme Court has largely been a failure In this devastating book, Erwin Chemerinsky—“one of the shining lights of legal academia” (The New York Times)—shows how, case by case, for over two centuries, the hallowed Court has been far more likely...

Si en sus anteriores libros Pedro Baños ofrecía un lúcido análisis de las relaciones de poder, esta nueva obra no solo describe con detalle las excepcionales circunstancias que se están dando en el presente y las que padeceremos en el futuro inmediato en nuestro mundo hiperconectado, sino...

"Перманентная революция"—книга Льва Троцкого, в которой он стремился подтвердить правильность концепции перманентной революции опытом 1917 года в России.

In The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy, Michael Mandelbaum offers a new framework for understanding the evolution of the foreign policy of the United States. He divides that evolution into four distinct periods, with each defined by the consistent increase in American power relative to other countries. His history of the four periods features engaging accounts of the major events and important personalities in the foreign policy of each era.

Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment profoundly changed the Constitution, giving the federal judiciary and Congress new powers to protect the fundamental rights of individuals from being violated by the states. Yet, according to Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick, the Supreme Court has long misunderstood or ignored the original meaning of the amendment's key clauses, covering the privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process of law, and the equal protection of the laws.

What exactly is capitalism? How has the meaning of capitalism changed over time? And what's at stake in our understanding or misunderstanding of it? In Capitalism, Michael Sonenscher examines the history behind the concept and pieces together the range of subjects bound up with the word. Sonenscher shows that many of our received ideas fail to pick up the work that the idea of capitalism is doing for us, without us even realizing it.

Writing as an observer of political history, but also as someone with an opinion, acclaimed political broadcaster Iain Dale charts the main events of the last few hundred years, with one event per day.