Collection: Politics

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

A Public Books Best Book of the Year

"An opportunity for readers to see Piketty bring his larger argument about the origins of inequality and his program for fighting it into high relief."
--Nicholas Lemann, New York Times

The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding. A perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.

It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality.

Piketty guides us with elegance and concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It's a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship. Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people. We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.

In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organized a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic--it was located on the dangerous militarized frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumor, thousands of East German "vacationers" packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West.

Drawing on dozens of original interviews--including Hungarian activists and border guards, East German refugees, Stasi secret police, and the last Communist prime minister of Hungary--Matthew Longo tells a gripping and revelatory tale of the unraveling of the Iron Curtain and the birth of a new world order. Just a few months after the Picnic, the Berlin Wall fell, and the freedom for which the activists and refugees had abandoned their homes, risked imprisonment, sacrificed jobs, family, and friends, was suddenly available to everyone. But were they really free? And why, three decades since the Iron Curtain was torn down, have so many sought once again to build walls?

Cinematically told, The Picnic recovers a time when it seemed possible for the world to change. With insight and panache, Longo explores the opportunities taken--and the opportunities we failed to take--in that pivotal moment.

This NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER is a sweeping survey of Black history shows how Black humanity has been erased and how its recovery can save the humanity of us all.

"An innovative reading of Black history, gracefully joining it to the larger history of all humankind." -- Kirkus Starred Review

Named by Essence Magazine as one of "31 Books You Must Read" in 2023.

Using history as a foundation, The Humanity Archive uses storytelling techniques to make history come alive and uncover the truth behind America's whitewashed history.

The Humanity Archive focuses on the overlooked narratives in the pages of the past.

Challenging dominant perspectives, author Jermaine Fowler goes outside the textbooks to find recognizably human stories. Connecting current issues with the heroic struggles of those who have come before us, Fowler brings hidden history to light.

Praise for The Humanity Archive:

From the African Slave Trade to Seneca Village to Biddy Mason and more, The Humanity Archive is a very enriching read on the history of Blackness around the world. I was hooked by Fowler's storytelling and would recommend others who want to pore over a book that outlines critical moments in history--without putting you to sleep. -- Philip Lewis, Senior Editor, HuffPost

Fowler sees historical storytelling and the sharing of knowledge as a vocation and a means of fostering empathy and understanding between cultures. A deft storyteller with a sonorous voice, Fowler's passion for his material is palpable as he unfurls the hidden histories. -- Vanity Fair

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Jermaine Fowler is a storyteller and self-proclaimed intellectual adventurer who spent his youth seeking knowledge on the shelves of his local free public library. Between research and lecturing, he is the host of the top-rated history podcast, The Humanity Archive, praised as a must-listen by Vanity Fair. Challenging dominant perspectives, Fowler goes outside the textbooks to find recognizably human stories. Connecting current issues with the heroic struggles of those who've come before us, he brings hidden history to light and makes it powerfully relevant.

A radical, urgent plan for how the Democratic Party and its supporters can win elections at one of the most pivotal moments in the history of our nation's democracy

"Bitecofer hits hard against the GOP tactics of fear and anger and the Democrats' status quo narratives around political engagement and winning elections."--Michael Steele, former RNC chair

Why do Democrats fail to win voters to their side, and what can they do to develop new winning political strategies--especially as the very fate of democracy hangs in the balance in 2024? Too often the carefully constructed, rational arguments of the Left meet a grisly fate at the polls, where voters are instead swayed by Republican candidates hawking anger, fear, and resentment. Only when Democrats are handed an overwhelming motivational issue--like the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade--have they found a way to counter this effect.

Political scientist and strategist Rachel Bitecofer came to prominence after predicting the size (to the seat) of the Democrats' rare Blue Wave in the 2018 midterms. At the heart of her prediction lay a powerful concept--negative partisanship, or the idea that voters, even most so-called independents, don't vote for their candidate so much as they vote against their candidate's opponent. Seen through this lens, Hit 'Em Where It Hurts is a deep dive into the Republicans' own playbook, sharing how Democrats can turn the Right's own tactics against them. The way for Democrats to wage--and win--electoral war, Bitecofer writes, is to present themselves as "brand ambassadors for freedom, health, wealth, safety, and common sense," the very opposite of the extremist, freedom-fearing Right. This is a last-ditch effort to armor democracy while there is still time to save and strengthen it against hijacking by a small minority of ideologues.

As America careens into the election cycle that will determine its democratic future, Hit 'Em Where It Hurts is the book for any Democrat who has ever banged their head against a wall when obvious reasoning failed to sway voters over to their side. This guide is a lifeline to save American democracy in its darkest hour.

The State of Housing Design 2023 is the first report in a new series that reviews national trends, ideas, and critical issues as they relate to residential design. This volume examines recently built housing projects of notable design that address issues of affordability, social cohesion, sustainability, aesthetics, density, and urbanism. Through critical essays, visual content, and a crowdsourced survey of responses, it provides both designers and the general public with an overview of the forces at play in contemporary design of housing.

The State of Housing Design series is published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies, a research center affiliated with the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, that has produced analyses of housing markets and policy for over sixty years.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Just Ask! comes a fun and meaningful story about making the world--and your community--better, one action at a time, that asks the question: Who will you help today?

Every night when Sonia goes to bed, Mami asks her the same question: How did you help today? And since Sonia wants to help her community, just like her Mami does, she always makes sure she has a good answer to Mami's question.

In a story inspired by her own family's desire to help others, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor takes young readers on a journey through a neighborhood where kids and adults, activists and bus drivers, friends and strangers all help one another to build a better world for themselves and their community.

With art by award-winning illustrator Angela Dominguez, this book shows how we can all help make the world a better place each and every day.

Praise for Just Help!

"Generosity proves contagious in this personal portrait of community service by Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor." --Publishers Weekly

"For use in civics units or in lessons on being a good neighbor, this provides wonderful encouragement to show that children can help in big and small ways." --School Library Journal

Complete 1935 edition of War is a Racket by retired Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC. Butler turns against his life-long profession and exposes war as a racket, in which the few profit and the many pay the aching costs.

This is a hard-hitting book by a hard-hitting soldier.

He does more than expose and denounce the racket of war. He outlines a program for the control of wars in future-a simple, hard headed program, based on his own experience, his knowledge, and his patriotism. Here is a man who knows, writing of things he knows about.

All students of thought should get this historic book. This 1935 edition is provided in a slim volume with full text at an affordable price.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE WAR IS A RACKET

CHAPTER TWO WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?

CHAPTER THREE WHO PAYS THE BILLS?

CHAPTER FOUR HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!

CHAPTER FIVE TO HELL WITH WAR!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Why capitalism cannot overcome its internal contradictions and the working class cannot "reform" away exploitation and economic crises.

Named a Best Biography Book for 2023

Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Books of 2023

"Richard Norton Smith had brought a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and storytelling verve to the life of a consequential president--Gerald R. Ford. Ford's is a very American life, and Smith has charted its vicissitudes and import with great grace and illuminating perspective. A marvelous achievement!" -- Jon Meacham

From the preeminent presidential scholar and acclaimed biographer of historical figures including George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller comes this eye-opening life of Gerald R. Ford, whose presidency arguably set the course for post-liberal America and a post-Cold War world.

For many Americans, President Gerald Ford was the genial accident of history who controversially pardoned his Watergate-tarnished predecessor, presided over the fall of Saigon, and became a punching bag on Saturday Night Live. Yet as Richard Norton Smith reveals in a book full of surprises, Ford was an underrated leader whose tough decisions and personal decency look better with the passage of time.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, Smith recreates Ford's hardscrabble childhood in Michigan, his early anti-establishment politics and lifelong love affair with the former Betty Bloomer, whose impact on American culture he predicted would outrank his own. As president, Ford guided the nation through its worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War and broke the back of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression--accomplishing both with little fanfare or credit (at least until 2001 when the JFK Library gave him its prestigious Profile in Courage Award in belated recognition of the Nixon pardon).

Less coda than curtain raiser, Ford's administration bridged the Republican pragmatism of Eisenhower and Nixon and the more doctrinaire conservatism of Ronald Reagan. His introduction of economic deregulation would transform the American economy, while his embrace of the Helsinki Accords hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Illustrated with sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, this definitive biography, a decade in the making, will change history's views of a man whose warning about presidential arrogance ("God help the country") is more relevant than ever.

Winner of the 2022 Palestine Book Award

"An artistic triumph that will stand as an enduring testament to the spirit of the Palestinian people. Mohammad Sabaaneh is a master."--Joe Sacco, winner of the American Book Award for Palestine

What does freedom look like from inside an Israeli prison?

A bird perches on the cell window and offers a deal: "You bring the pencil, and I will bring the stories," stories of family, of community, of Gaza, of the West Bank, of Jerusalem, of Palestine. The two collect threads of memory and intergenerational trauma from ongoing settler-colonialism. Helping us to see that the prison is much larger than a building, far wider than a cell; it stretches through towns and villages, past military checkpoints and borders. But hope and solidarity can stretch farther, deeper, once strength is drawn of stories and power is born of dreams. Translating headlines into authentic lived experiences, these stories come to life in the striking linocut artwork of Mohammad Sabaaneh, helping us to see Palestinians not as political symbols, but as people.

The stunning story of one of America's great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough.At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal. Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.

AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - A vivid and enthralling account of the historical and cultural events that defined Budapest, a unique city in the heart of Europe, on the fault line between East and West--from the critically acclaimed author of Lenin

"A compelling portrait of one of the most important cities in Europe. Full of sharp insights, elegant writing and vivid characters." --Andrew Roberts, author of The Chief

Victor Sebestyen has written a sweeping, colorful and immersive history of the capital of Hungary, from the fifth century to the present day: a metropolis whose location in Europe has marked it as a crucial city--at times rich and prosperous, at times enduring unbearable hardship. It has stood at the center of the world-changing historical developments for hundreds of years: the Muslim invasion, The Reformation, both World Wars, fascism, the Holocaust and Communism.

Sebestyen mixes colorful details and anecdotes about the people, streets and neighborhoods of his hometown with its rich cultural legacy of literature, music, and architecture. He shows how its people have shifted culturally, politically and emotionally between East and West, through many revolutions, bloody battles, uprisings, and wars of conquest won and lost. He vividly brings to life the many rulers: the ruthless early Magyar, Hun, and Mongol chieftains, celebrated medieval kings and princes, Ottoman Turks, and the Hapsburgs, including the beloved Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi"). We also learn about colorful figures in politics, the arts and the sciences, among them Theodor Herzl, father of modern political Zionism; film pioneer Alexander Korda who held court with the director of Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, young reporter Billy Wilder, and photographer Robert Capa in the glamorous New York Café still going today; Edward Teller, inventor of the H bomb; and Countess Elisabeth Báthory, a cousin of the King of Poland, who became a serial killer, among many others.

Sebestyen's compelling history of Budapest is a lively page-turner as well as being uniquely revelatory and authoritative account of one of the most important cities of Europe.

This guide to U.S. politics features surprising stories, hidden history, and clear explanations of how our government works--plus loads of weird but true facts!

Why is the president called the "commander-in-chief"? And did you know that during a filibuster senators can talk about whatever they want? They have read the phone book, a recipe for fried oysters, and even Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss!

In this next WBT Know-It-All, readers dive deep into the U.S. Capitol to uncover everything they need to know about our government--how things get done, who is who, and why things are the way they are.

After reading this book, kids will walk away with a wealth of practical knowledge about our government, including the roles of each branch and how things get done. From the Senate to the Supreme Court and everything in between, readers will learn if a vote in Washington, D.C., really "counts," how the two-party system got started, how many representatives each state has and why, and more. They'll also be wowed by a ton of weird but true information, like funny laws in some states--in one, it's illegal to kill Bigfoot!--how members of Congress ride their own mini-subways under the Capitol, and the surprising secrets of the dollar bill!

Jam-packed with photos, illustrations, fun facts and info, the Weird But True Know-it-all series is the anything-but-boring way to boost your brain!

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives.

You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love.

In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth--the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries--from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete--Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work.

As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.

Are you ready to change the world? The eleven teen activists in this book were!

Tomorrow Begins Now: Teen Heroes Who Faced Down Injustice tells the inspiring stories of activists fighting for their civil rights and liberties while still in their teens.

These stories, spanning from the 1950s to today, show the real impact teens have had on the most important issues of their day⁠-from racial equality to freedom of speech to LGBTQ+ rights.

This book features exclusive interviews with activists such as:

• Minnijean Brown Trickey. A member of the Little Rock Nine who fought for school desegregation.
• Constance McMillen. The teen who fought to bring her girlfriend to prom, inspiring the Broadway musical "The Prom".
• Martín Batalla Vidal. A DACA recipient who fought for children of undocumented immigrants, protecting them from deportation.
• Brandi Levy. A cheerleader who fought at the Supreme Court to protect freedom of speech for students online.

Empowering and hopeful, it's a must read if you're interested in creating change for a better tomorrow!

Retirement often marks the beginning of a new chapter in life, but for those who have dedicated their lives to a career in law enforcement, the transition can be particularly challenging. In "Surviving Retirement: Finding Purpose and Fulfillment Beyond the Badge," esteemed psychologist and spouse to a retired police officer, Medina Baumgart, PsyD, ABPP, offers a comprehensive guide to navigating the complex emotional landscape that accompanies retirement from the force.

Drawing upon her personal experiences and her expertise in psychology, Dr. Baumgart provides a heartfelt and practical roadmap for law enforcement professionals embarking on this profound life change. From the initial stages of preparing for retirement to the lifelong process of finding purpose and fulfillment, this book offers invaluable insights and strategies to help officers make a successful transition and create a meaningful life beyond their badges.

Within the pages of "Surviving Retirement," readers will discover:

• Emotional challenges: Explore the range of emotions commonly experienced during retirement, including loss, identity crisis, and feelings of disconnection. Learn how to recognize and cope with these emotions effectively.
• Identity beyond the badge: Understand the importance of shifting identity from a law enforcement professional to a retiree. Discover strategies to develop a new sense of self and redefine personal values and goals.
• Relationships and support systems: Navigate the complexities of relationships with family, friends, and fellow retirees. Learn effective communication techniques and strategies for maintaining and building strong connections in retirement.
• Mental health and self-care: Prioritize mental health and well-being during retirement. Uncover strategies for managing stress, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and seeking professional help when needed.

With empathy, wisdom, and a deep understanding of the unique challenges retired law enforcement professionals face, Dr. Medina Baumgart provides a guidebook that offers reassurance and empowers readers to create a fulfilling and purpose-driven retirement. "Surviving Retirement: Finding Purpose and Fulfillment Beyond the Badge" is an essential resource for those seeking a meaningful life after leaving the force, reminding them that their journey doesn't end with retirement; it's a new beginning.