Collection: Politics

"Joe McCarthy's Cold War witch-hunts targeted people with same-sex attractions as much, maybe more than those with Communist sympathies." This introduction to Rodger McDaniel's book sets the stage for a story of the most wretched political blackmail in American history. Lester Hunt was the kind of person we'd all want to be a part of our national government. Kind and empathetic, honest and hardworking, he was as one of his eulogists said, "ill prepared for the cruel, brutal, rough aspect of national partisan politics." Hunt committed suicide in his Senate office in 1954. His death was tragic enough. Yet readers will find even more about which to lament reading of his extraordinary life. Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins is not only Lester Hunt's story. It's the story of America during the virulent years of the early Cold War, of McCarthyism, and the way the voluntary death of a Wyoming senator helped to bring the curtain down on Joe McCarthy.

A young South Asian American woman's story of reconnecting with her identity, family, and heritage through sustainable farming

In 2012, 25-year-old Jackie Moyer--the daughter of a forbidden marriage between a white American father and a Punjabi American mother--leased 10 acres of land in Gold Hill, California, and embarked on a career in organic farming. With a fractured relationship to her heritage, Moyer saw an opportunity for repair when she learned of a nearly lost heirloom wheat variety called Sonora.

Sonora wasn't just an heirloom wheat strain; it was her own cultural heirloom. Its history can be traced back to Punjab, the Indian state where Moyer's own roots are planted. In growing the grain on her farm, she began to uncover the multigenerational story of her family's resilience.

From California to Punjab, the past to the present, Jackie maps her personal story atop the entangled histories of wheat cultivation and the rise of the organic farming movement. With a passion for dismantling the exploitative big-agriculture industry, she examines how the development of high-yielding varieties and chemical fertilizers has harmed our relationship with food, the planet, and each other.

Braiding memoir with historical inquiry, On Gold Hill explores the complexities of the immigrant experience, illuminates the ways colonialism and capitalism constrain our food system, and investigates what it means to lose--and to reclaim--one's heritage.

An urgent, intimate investigation into the experience of seeking an abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade, and the economic, emotional, and life-threatening consequences of being denied reproductive freedom.

On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2023, abortion was virtually unavailable or significantly restricted in 21 states. As other nations largely expand legal abortion access, the U.S. has gone backwards; the bans being enforced in many states are some of the most severe in the entire world.

In Undue Burden, reporter Shefali Luthra traces the unforgettable stories of patients faced with one of the most personal decisions of their lives. Outside of Houston, there's a 16-year-old girl who becomes pregnant well before she intends to. A 21-year-old mother barely making ends meet has to travel hundreds of miles in secret to access care in another state. A 42-year-old woman with a life-threatening condition wants nothing more than to safely carry her pregnancy to term, but her home state's abortion bans fail to provide her with the options she needs to make an informed decision. And a 19-year-old trans man struggles to access care in Florida as abortion bans radiate across the American South.

Before, it was a common misconception that abortion restrictions affected only people in certain states, but left one's own life untouched. Now, patients forced to travel to access care creates a domino effect across the entire country. As the landscape of abortion rights continues to shift, the experiences of these patients--those who had to cross state lines to seek life-saving care, who risked everything they had in pursuit of their own bodily autonomy, and who were unable to plan their reproductive future in the way that they deserved--illustrates how fragile the system is, and how devastating the consequences can be.

Through the perspectives of patients, providers, activists, and lawmakers, Undue Burden is a revelatory portrait of human rights, healthcare, and economic and racial inequality in America.

Justice brings together in one indispensable volume essential readings on justice and moral reasoning. With readings from major thinkers from the classical era up to the present, the collection provides a thematic overview of the concept of justice. Moreover, Sandel's organization of the readings and his own commentaries allow readers to engage with a variety of pressing contemporary issues. Looking at a host of ethical dilemmas, including affirmative action, conscription, income distribution, and gay rights, from a variety of angles--morally, legally, politically--the collection engages with the core concerns of political philosophy: individual rights and the claims of community, equality and inequality, morality and law, and ultimately, justice. With concise section introductions that put the readings in context, this anthology is an invaluable tool for students, teachers, and anyone who wishes to engage in the great moral debates that have animated politics from classical times to our own.

Sex Cells is the tale of getting the scientific and medical world to recognize that women are unique.

This book gives readers access to the wide world of sex-specific medical issues as they play out in the research labs and doctor's offices, and how women pay the price, with a close look at the impact that has on minority populations.

It has been challenging to get individual researchers and practitioners to accept this, as well as research and medical institutions, and manufacturers of medications and devices. The journey towards equal treatment and the understanding of sex and gender differences in prevention, diagnosis and treatment is still unfolding. This book is the story of that journey--why it was, and still is, so important to do research specific to women/females.

The story is told by Phyllis Greenberger--the woman who is recognized as the driving force for change over the past 25 years--and her allies in government, NGOs, academia, medical research, the US government, and public health advocacy. The array of experts who have contributed to the book offer an insiders' up-close view of the battle to have female cells, lab animals and humans brought into medical research, so that women can receive treatment that is appropriate and effective for a wide range of conditions.

Told with humor, ferocity and passion, Sex Cells appeals to anyone interested in health, women's rights, and public health policy.

"This fascinating, profound and engrossing book places Legacy Russell as one of the more provocative, radical and original thinkers of her generation."
-Lynn Hershman Leeson, artist and filmmaker (praise for Glitch Feminism)

A history of Black imagery that recasts our understanding of visual culture and technology

In Black Meme, Legacy Russell, award-winning author of the groundbreaking Glitch Feminism, explores the "meme" as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to the present, mining both archival and contemporary media.

Russell argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form. These meditations include the circulation of lynching postcards; why a mother allowed Jet magazine to publish a picture of her dead son, Emmett Till; and how the televised broadcast of protesters in Selma changed the debate on civil rights.

Questions of the media representation of Blackness come to the fore as Russell considers how a citizen-recorded footage of the LAPD beating Rodney King became the first viral video. And the Anita Hill hearings shed light on the media's creation of the Black icon. The ownership of Black imagery and death is considered in the story of Tamara Lanier's fight to reclaim the daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors from Harvard. Meanwhile the live broadcast on Facebook of the murder of Philando Castile by the police after he was stopped for a broken taillight forces us to bear witness to the persistent legacy of the Black meme.

Through imagery, memory and technology Black Meme shows us how images of Blackness have always been central to our understanding of the modern world.

Discover the life of Kamala Harris--a story about fighting for justice for kids ages 6 to 9

Kamala Harris is the first woman, Black American, and South Asian American to become vice president of the United States. Before she made history, Kamala was a passionate kid who enjoyed traveling and attended civil rights protests with her family. She always wanted to help people, so she worked hard to become a lawyer, then a U.S. senator, and now, vice president! Explore how Kamala went from being a young girl to an American leader and role model.

The Story of Kamala Harris includes:

• Core curriculum--Learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Kamala's life, and take a quick quiz to test your understanding.

• Short chapters--Explore brightly illustrated, easy-to-read chapters that make you want to keep reading and learning more about Kamala Harris.
• A visual timeline--Watch Kamala progress from a little girl to vice president of the United States with a visual timeline marking the major milestones in her life.

How will Kamala's fight for a better world inspire you?

What Would It Be Like to Restore Sanity? What would it be like to work together again in creative and generous ways? What would it be like to be curious about who you're with rather than judging or fearing them? What would it be like to engage together in exploring possibilities rather than withdrawing in conflict or disagreement? What would it be like to be working well together?

From 50 years working with leaders globally, I state with full confidence that leadership has never been more difficult. And it's not our fault. We've been good and caring leaders, we've led people in empowering, engaging ways to create meaningful, productive work. But now we face external conditions far beyond our control to change, dynamics intensifying at shocking speed.

The perfect storm is here, created by the coalescence of climate and human-created catastrophes. As leaders dedicated to serving the causes and people we treasure, confronted by this unrelenting tsunami, what are we to do? I state my answer to this also with full confidence:

We need to restore sanity by awakening the human spirit. We can achieve this only if we undertake the most challenging and meaningful work of our leader lives: Creating Islands of Sanity.

An Island of Sanity is a gift of possibility and refuge created by people's commitment to form healthy community to do meaningful work. It requires sane leaders with unshakable faith in people's innate generosity, creativity, and kindness. It sets itself apart as an island to protect itself from the life-destroying dynamics, policies, and behaviors that oppress and deny the human spirit. No matter what is happening around us, we can discover practices that enliven our human spirits and produce meaningful contributions for this time.

For fans of Steve Sheinkin and Deb Heiligman, a riveting true story of the West Virginia coal miners who ignited the largest labor uprising in American history.

In May of 1920, in a small town in the mountains of West Virginia, a dozen coal miners took a stand. They were sick of the low pay in the mines. The unsafe conditions. The brutal treatment they endured from mine owners and operators. The scrip they were paid-instead of cash-that could only be used at the company store.

They had tried to unionize, but the mine owners dug in. On that fateful day in May 1920, tensions boiled over and a gunfight erupted-beginning a yearlong standoff between workers and owners.

The miners pleaded, then protested, then went on strike; the owners retaliated with spying, bribery, and threats. Violence escalated on both sides, culminating in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in United States history.

In this gripping narrative nonfiction book, meet the resolute and spirited people who fought for the rights of coal miners, and discover how the West Virginia Mine Wars paved the way for vital worker protections nationwide. More than a century later, this overlooked story of the labor movement remains urgently relevant.

What qualities make a leader succeed in business or politics? In an era when the information revolution has dramatically changed the playing field, when old organizational hierarchies have given way to fluid networks of contacts, and when mistrust of leaders is on the rise, our ideas about leadership are clearly due for redefinition.

With The Powers to Lead, Joseph S. Nye offers a sweeping look at the nature of leadership in today's world, in an illuminating blend of history, business case studies, psychological research, and more. As he observes, many now believe that the more authoritarian and coercive forms of leadership--the hard power approaches of earlier military-industrial eras--have been largely supplanted in postindustrial societies by soft power approaches that seek to attract, inspire, and persuade rather than dictate. Nye argues, however, that the most effective leaders are actually those who combine hard and soft power skills in proportions that vary with different situations. He calls this smart power. Drawing examples from the careers of leaders as disparate as Gandhi, Churchill, Lee Iacocca, and George W. Bush, Nye uses the concept of smart power to shed light on such topics as leadership types and skills, the needs and demands of followers, and the nature of good and bad leadership in terms of both ethics and effectiveness. In one particularly instructive chapter, he looks in depth at contextual intelligence--the ability to understand changing environments, capitalize on trends, and use the flow of events to implement strategies.

Thoroughly grounded in the real world, rich in both analysis and anecdote, The Powers to Lead is sure to become a modern classic, a concise and lucid work applicable to every field, from small businesses and nonprofit organizations to nations on the world stage. This paperback edition includes a new preface by the author.

A thorough investigation of the current combination of austerity and extravagance that characterizes government spending and central bank monetary policy

At the close of the 1970s, government treasuries and central banks took a vow of perpetual self-restraint. To this day, fiscal authorities fret over soaring public debt burdens, while central bankers wring their hands at the slightest sign of rising wages. As the brief reprieve of coronavirus spending made clear, no departure from government austerity will be tolerated without a corresponding act of penance.

Yet we misunderstand the scope of neoliberal public finance if we assume austerity to be its sole setting. Beyond the zero-sum game of direct claims on state budgets lies a realm of indirect government spending that escapes the naked eye. Capital gains are multiply subsidized by a tax system that reserves its greatest rewards for financial asset holders. And for all its airs of haughty asceticism, the Federal Reserve has become adept at facilitating the inflation of asset values while ruthlessly suppressing wages. Neoliberalism is as extravagant as it is austere, and this paradox needs to be grasped if we are to challenge its core modus operandi.

Melinda Cooper examines the major schools of thought that have shaped neoliberal common sense around public finance. Focusing, in particular, on Virginia school public choice theory and supply-side economics, she shows how these currents produced distinct but ultimately complementary responses to the capitalist crisis of the 1970s. With its intellectual roots in the conservative Southern Democratic tradition, Virginia school public choice theory espoused an austere doctrine of budget balance. The supply-side movement, by contrast, advocated tax cuts without spending restraint and debt issuance without guilt, in an apparent repudiation of austerity. Yet, for all their differences, the two schools converged around the need to rein in the redistributive uses of public spending. Together, they drove a counterrevolution in public finance that deepened the divide between rich and poor and revived the fortunes of dynastic wealth.

Far-reaching as the neoliberal counterrevolution has been, Cooper still identifies a counterfactual history of unrealized possibilities in the capitalist crisis of the 1970s. She concludes by inviting us to rethink the concept of revolution and raises the question: Is another politics of extravagance possible?

An inspiring and eye-opening look at the unsung women of the Civil Rights Movement.

For decades, the women toiling both in the forefront and behind the scenes of the Civil Rights Movement have been overlooked. These women forced integration of schools, bus terminals, and restaurants. They organized protests attended by hundreds of thousands. They pressured lawmakers to give all Americans equal access to the ballot box. And they were doing their part in virtual anonymity and at great personal risk.

The Spirit of Freedom: Powerful Women of the Civil Rights Movement honors the incredible contributions that women made to the Civil Rights Movement. Featuring the stories of seventeen women, including Ella Baker, Dorothy Height, Ruby Hurley, Gloria Richardson, and Jo Ann Robinson, this book highlights their life stories, personal struggles, and influences on the movement. It reveals how these women overcame enormous odds, confronted sexism, racism, risk of bodily harm, and threats to their lives, to impact a movement that resulted in attaining legal equality for Black Americans.

The work of these women helped achieve the unequivocal right to vote, end segregation in public places, and open the doors for African Americans in all areas of society. Their contributions have been too-often ignored but are finally brought to life in The Spirit of Freedom.

The ultimate, comprehensive guide to official country data and statistics, from the world's most sophisticated intelligence-gathering organization.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, The CIA World Factbook 2024-2025 offers complete and up-to-date information on the world's nations. This comprehensive guide is packed with data on countries' politics, populations, economics, and environment for 2024 and looks ahead to 2025.

The CIA World Factbook 2024-2025 includes the following for each country:

• Updated geopolitical maps
• Population statistics, with details on languages, religions, literacy rates, age structure, HIV prevalence, and much more
• Up-to-date data on military expenditures and capabilities
• Geography information, including climate and natural hazards
• Details on prominent political figures and parties
• Contact information for diplomatic missions
• Facts on transportation, trade, and communication infrastructure

Also included are appendices with useful abbreviations, international environmental agreements, international organizations and groups, terror organizations, and more. Originally intended for use by government officials and policymakers as well as the broader intelligence community, this is a must-have resource for students, travelers, journalists, and anyone with a desire to know more about their world.

An exposé of how society pays for corporations' "free lunch" and the cost of environmental damage, low wages, systemic discrimination, and cheap goods.

In an age when business leaders solemnly profess dedication to principles of environmental and social justice, Christopher Marquis's provocative investigation into the real costs of doing business reveals the way that leaders of the corporate world gaslight to evade responsibilities by privatizing profits and socializing costs. "Who pays?" for the resulting climate and environmental damage, racism, low wages, and cheap goods: the average citizen and the taxpayer.

By bringing to light ideas that today are on the fringe but rapidly making their way into the mainstream, Marquis outlines a new regenerative paradigm for business in society. He tells of a group of pioneers trying to not just reform but transform the way business is conducted all over the world. By taking novel actions to reimagine business operations in responsible ways, minimize their negative impacts, and create new ways for business to properly absorb their hidden costs, these leaders provide blueprints to move the needle on vexing social and environmental issues.

What's in it for leaders of the corporate world? The model of reform presented provides clear guidance on how to get ahead of the curve as an emerging economic order is formed. No business can lead from the front if it is morally-backward looking. History has shown time and again that those who get out in front of emerging changes in our social and environmental landscape protect themselves from inevitable eclipse.

When most Americans think of poverty, they imagine Black faces. As a teenager, Reverend William J. Barber II recalls seeing Black mothers interviewed on television whenever there was a story on food stamps or unemployment; poverty, then as now, was depicted as an essentially Black problem. In a work that promises to have lasting repercussions, Barber--now a leading advocate for the rights of our nation's poor and the "closest person we have to Dr. King" (Cornel West)--addresses white poverty as a hugely neglected subject that might just be the key to mitigating racism and bringing together the tens of millions working-class and impoverished whites with low-income Blacks. Recognizing that angry social media posts have replaced food, education, and housing as a "salve" for the white poor, Barber contends that the millions of America's lowest-income earners have much in common, and together with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, provides one of the most sympathetic and visionary approaches to endemic poverty in decades.