"Alexis Coe energetically dusts off an old-boys genre to present a life in full, without sentiment or whitewashing. It's a public service, and it's also a lot of fun." --Irin Carmon, New York Times bestselling co-author of Notorious RBGAlexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he is not quite the man we rememberYoung George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency--twice. When he retired years later, no one talked him out of it. He left the highest office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created. Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy--what to do with the men, women, and children he owns--before he succumbs to death. With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers--including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads--inhaling every page.
Viking
|
9780735224100
|
Hardcover
The Struggle for Democracy
By Mason, Roger
Britain's voting arrangements prior to the 1832 Reform Act are almost unbelievable to us now. Only 12 percent of men (and no women) had the vote, a single person controlled a rotten borough that returned two Members of Parliament (one of whom was the Prime Minister) , and voting was in public, with landlords evicting tenants who voted against their wishes. In The Struggle for Democracy, Roger Mason tells the story of how we got from then to now. All major reforms are covered, such as Catholic Emancipation, further Reform Acts, the end of the House of Lords veto, and of course votes for women. This fascinating history offers a complete insight into the way we have voted from the beginnings of parliament through to the future of democracy.
This item is Non-Returnable.
The History Press
|
9780750964609
|
eBook
On the Other Side of Freedom
By Mckesson, Deray
"On the Other Side of Freedom reveals the mind and motivations of a young man who has risen to the fore of millennial activism through study, discipline, and conviction. His belief in a world that can be made better, one act at a time, powers his narratives and opens up a view on the costs, consequences, and rewards of leading a movement." (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) Named one of the best books of the year by NPR and EsquireFinalist for the Lambda Literary Award From the internationally recognized civil rights activist/organizer and host of the podcast Pod Save the People, a meditation on resistance, justice, and freedom, and an intimate portrait of a movement from the front lines. In August 2014, 29-year-old activist DeRay Mckesson stood with hundreds of others on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, to push a message of justice and accountability. These protests, and others like them in cities across the country, resulted in the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, in his first book, Mckesson lays down the intellectual, pragmatic, and political framework for a new liberation movement. Continuing a conversation about activism, resistance, and justice that embraces our nations complex history, he dissects how deliberate oppression persists, how racial injustice strips our lives of promise, and how technology has added a new dimension to mass action and social change. He argues that our best efforts to combat injustice have been stunted by the belief that racisms wounds are history, and suggests that intellectual purity has curtailed optimistic realism. The book offers a new framework and language for understanding the nature of oppression. With it, we can begin charting a course to dismantle the obvious and subtle structures that limit freedom. Honest, courageous, and imaginative, On the Other Side of Freedom is a work brimming with hope. Drawing from his own experiences as an activist, organizer, educator, and public official, Mckesson exhorts all Americans to work to dismantle the legacy of racism and to imagine the best of what is possible. Honoring the voices of a new generation of activists, On the Other Side of Freedom is a visionarys call to take responsibility for imagining, and then building, the world we want to live in.
Viking
|
9780525560326
|
Audiobook
Bobby Kennedy
By Tye, Larry
From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel comes an in-depth, vibrant, and measured biography about the most complex and controversial member of the Kennedy family. History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy's enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure. To capture the full arc of his subject's life, Tye draws on unpublished memoirs, unreleased government files, and fifty-eight boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for the past forty years. He conducted hundreds of interviews with RFK intimates - including Bobby's widow, Ethel, his sister Jean, and his aide John Siegenthaler - many of whom have never spoken to another biographer. Tye's determination to sift through the tangle of often contradictory opinions means that Bobby Kennedy will stand as the definitive one-volume biography of a man much beloved, but just as often misunderstood. Bobby Kennedy's transformation from cold warrior to fiery liberal is a profoundly moving personal story that also offers a lens onto two of the most chaotic and confounding decades of twentieth-century American history. The first half of RFK's career underlines what the country was like in the era of Eisenhower, while his last years as a champion of the underclass reflect the seismic shifts wrought by the 1960s. Nurtured on the rightist orthodoxies of his dynasty-building father, Bobby Kennedy began his public life as counsel to the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy. He ended it with a noble campaign to unite working-class whites with poor blacks and Latinos in an electoral coalition that seemed poised to redraw the face of presidential politics. Along the way, he turned up at the center of every event that mattered, from the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis to race riots and Vietnam. Bare-knuckle operative, cynical White House insider, romantic visionary - Bobby Kennedy was all of these things at one time or another, and each of these aspects of his personality emerges in the pages of this powerful and perceptive new biography.Advance praise for Bobby Kennedy"It is difficult to envision anyone getting Robert F. Kennedy more right than biographer Tye does in this superb book. Tye beautifully captures Kennedy's contradictions, his emergence from under the hard-to-like father to whom he remained forever loyal, and his growth into a public figure killed by an assassin's bullet." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This is not just another Bobby Kennedy book. It is the definitive biography of one of America's most compelling political figures. Tye's book rests on prodigious and original research including rare, on-the-record interviews with Bobby's widow, Ethel, who confesses that seeing Bobby for the first time was like meeting George Clooney." - Roger Mudd, winner of the Peabody Award and former co-anchor of NBC Nightly News"Robert Kennedy led one of the great unfinished lives in American history. With skill and verve, Tye has written a fascinating account of a transformative figure." - Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power "This biography will appeal not only to those wanting a portrait of a dynamic idealist, but also to those seeking to understand the emotions of the times in which he lived." - Henry A. Kissinger
Random House
|
9780812993349
|
Print book
The NRA
By Smyth, Frank
For the first time, the definitive account of America's most powerful, most secretive, and most controversial nonprofit, and how far it has strayed from its origins. The National Rifle Association is unique in American life. Few other civic organizations are as old or as large. None is as controversial. It is largely due to the NRA that the U.S. gun policy differs so extremely -- some would say so tragically -- from that of every other developed nation. But, as Frank Smyth shows, the NRA has evolved from an organization concerned above all with marksmanship -- and which supported most government efforts around gun control for a hundred years -- to one that resists all attempts to restrict guns in any way. At the same time, the organization has also buried its own remarkable history.
Flatiron Books
|
9781250210289
|
Hardcover
Beneath the Tamarind Tree
By Sesay, Isha
"It is no accident that the places in the world where we see the most instability are those in which the rights of women and girls are denied. Isha Sesay's indispensable and gripping account of the brutal abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists provides a stark reminder of the great unfinished business of the 21st century: equality for girls and women around the world." - Hillary Rodham ClintonThe first definitive account of the lost girls of Boko Haram and why their story still matters - by celebrated international journalist Isha Sesay.In the early morning of April 14, 2014, the militant Islamic group Boko Haram violently burst into the small town of Chibok, Nigeria, and abducted 276 girls from their school dorm rooms. From poor families, these girls were determined to make better lives for themselves, but pursuing an education made them targets, resulting in one of the most high-profile abductions in modern history. While the Chibok kidnapping made international headlines, and prompted the #BringBackOurGirls movement, many unanswered questions surrounding that fateful night remain about the girls' experiences in captivity, and where many of them are today. In Beneath the Tamarind Tree, Isha Sesay tells this story as no one else can. Originally from Sierra Leone, Sesay led CNN's Africa reporting for more than a decade, and she was on the front lines when this story broke. With unprecedented access to a group of girls who made it home, she follows the journeys of Priscilla, Saa, and Dorcas in an uplifting tale of sisterhood and survival. Sesay delves into the Nigerian government's inadequate response to the kidnapping, exposes the hierarchy of how the news gets covered, and synthesizes crucial lessons about global national security. She also reminds us of the personal sacrifice required of journalists to bring us the truth at a time of growing mistrust of the media. Beneath the Tamarind Tree is a gripping read and a story of resilience with a soaring message of hope at its core, reminding us of the ever-present truth that progress for all of us hinges on unleashing the potential of women.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780062686671
|
Hardcover
The Shadow Docket
By Vladeck, Stephen
An acclaimed legal scholar exposes the Supreme Court's increasing use of unsigned, unexplained orders to change the law - all behind closed doors The Supreme Court has always had the authority to issue emergency rulings in exceptional circumstances. But since 2017, the Court has dramatically expanded its use of the behind-the-scenes "shadow docket," regularly making decisions that affect millions of Americans without public hearings and without explanation, through cryptic late-night rulings that leave lawyers - and citizens - scrambling. The Court's conservative majority has used the shadow docket to green-light restrictive voting laws and bans on abortion, and to curtail immigration and COVID vaccine mandates. But Americans of all political stripes should be worried about what the shadow docket portends for the rule of law, argues Supreme Court expert Stephen Vladeck.
Basic Books
|
9781541602632
|
Hardcover
Sins of the Father
By Mccabe, Conor
The questions surrounding how the Irish economy was brought to the brink - who was to blame, and who should pay for these mistakes - have been rightly debated at length. But beyond this very legitimate exercise, there are deeper questions that need to be answered. These questions relate to why we made the decisions we did, not just in the last ten years, but over the last eighty. How did certain industries become more prominent at the expense of others, banking as opposed to fisheries, international markets as opposed to indigenous industry and job creation? Are our problems structural in nature, and most importantly, what do we need to know to make sure that this crisis does not happen again? These are the questions set by this book. It will look at the development of the Irish economy over the past eight decades, and will argue that the 2008 financial crisis, up to and including the IMF bailout of 2010 and the subsequent change of government, cannot be explained simply by the moral failings of those in banking or property development alone.
History Press
|
9781845887193
|
Book
We Were Eight Years in Power
By Coates, Ta-nehisi
In these "urgently relevant essays,"* the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me "reflects on race, Barack Obama's presidency and its jarring aftermath"* - including the election of Donald Trump."We were eight years in power" was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South.
In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America's "first white president." But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period - and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation's old and unreconciled history.
Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective - the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.
We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates's iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including "Fear of a Black President," "The Case for Reparations," and "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration," along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coates's own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era.
You Never Forget Your First
By Coe, Alexis
"Alexis Coe energetically dusts off an old-boys genre to present a life in full, without sentiment or whitewashing. It's a public service, and it's also a lot of fun." --Irin Carmon, New York Times bestselling co-author of Notorious RBGAlexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he is not quite the man we rememberYoung George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency--twice. When he retired years later, no one talked him out of it. He left the highest office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created. Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy--what to do with the men, women, and children he owns--before he succumbs to death. With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers--including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads--inhaling every page.
The Struggle for Democracy
By Mason, Roger
Britain's voting arrangements prior to the 1832 Reform Act are almost unbelievable to us now. Only 12 percent of men (and no women) had the vote, a single person controlled a rotten borough that returned two Members of Parliament (one of whom was the Prime Minister) , and voting was in public, with landlords evicting tenants who voted against their wishes. In The Struggle for Democracy, Roger Mason tells the story of how we got from then to now. All major reforms are covered, such as Catholic Emancipation, further Reform Acts, the end of the House of Lords veto, and of course votes for women. This fascinating history offers a complete insight into the way we have voted from the beginnings of parliament through to the future of democracy. This item is Non-Returnable.
On the Other Side of Freedom
By Mckesson, Deray
"On the Other Side of Freedom reveals the mind and motivations of a young man who has risen to the fore of millennial activism through study, discipline, and conviction. His belief in a world that can be made better, one act at a time, powers his narratives and opens up a view on the costs, consequences, and rewards of leading a movement." (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) Named one of the best books of the year by NPR and EsquireFinalist for the Lambda Literary Award From the internationally recognized civil rights activist/organizer and host of the podcast Pod Save the People, a meditation on resistance, justice, and freedom, and an intimate portrait of a movement from the front lines. In August 2014, 29-year-old activist DeRay Mckesson stood with hundreds of others on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, to push a message of justice and accountability. These protests, and others like them in cities across the country, resulted in the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, in his first book, Mckesson lays down the intellectual, pragmatic, and political framework for a new liberation movement. Continuing a conversation about activism, resistance, and justice that embraces our nations complex history, he dissects how deliberate oppression persists, how racial injustice strips our lives of promise, and how technology has added a new dimension to mass action and social change. He argues that our best efforts to combat injustice have been stunted by the belief that racisms wounds are history, and suggests that intellectual purity has curtailed optimistic realism. The book offers a new framework and language for understanding the nature of oppression. With it, we can begin charting a course to dismantle the obvious and subtle structures that limit freedom. Honest, courageous, and imaginative, On the Other Side of Freedom is a work brimming with hope. Drawing from his own experiences as an activist, organizer, educator, and public official, Mckesson exhorts all Americans to work to dismantle the legacy of racism and to imagine the best of what is possible. Honoring the voices of a new generation of activists, On the Other Side of Freedom is a visionarys call to take responsibility for imagining, and then building, the world we want to live in.
Bobby Kennedy
By Tye, Larry
From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel comes an in-depth, vibrant, and measured biography about the most complex and controversial member of the Kennedy family. History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy's enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure. To capture the full arc of his subject's life, Tye draws on unpublished memoirs, unreleased government files, and fifty-eight boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for the past forty years. He conducted hundreds of interviews with RFK intimates - including Bobby's widow, Ethel, his sister Jean, and his aide John Siegenthaler - many of whom have never spoken to another biographer. Tye's determination to sift through the tangle of often contradictory opinions means that Bobby Kennedy will stand as the definitive one-volume biography of a man much beloved, but just as often misunderstood. Bobby Kennedy's transformation from cold warrior to fiery liberal is a profoundly moving personal story that also offers a lens onto two of the most chaotic and confounding decades of twentieth-century American history. The first half of RFK's career underlines what the country was like in the era of Eisenhower, while his last years as a champion of the underclass reflect the seismic shifts wrought by the 1960s. Nurtured on the rightist orthodoxies of his dynasty-building father, Bobby Kennedy began his public life as counsel to the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy. He ended it with a noble campaign to unite working-class whites with poor blacks and Latinos in an electoral coalition that seemed poised to redraw the face of presidential politics. Along the way, he turned up at the center of every event that mattered, from the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis to race riots and Vietnam. Bare-knuckle operative, cynical White House insider, romantic visionary - Bobby Kennedy was all of these things at one time or another, and each of these aspects of his personality emerges in the pages of this powerful and perceptive new biography.Advance praise for Bobby Kennedy"It is difficult to envision anyone getting Robert F. Kennedy more right than biographer Tye does in this superb book. Tye beautifully captures Kennedy's contradictions, his emergence from under the hard-to-like father to whom he remained forever loyal, and his growth into a public figure killed by an assassin's bullet." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This is not just another Bobby Kennedy book. It is the definitive biography of one of America's most compelling political figures. Tye's book rests on prodigious and original research including rare, on-the-record interviews with Bobby's widow, Ethel, who confesses that seeing Bobby for the first time was like meeting George Clooney." - Roger Mudd, winner of the Peabody Award and former co-anchor of NBC Nightly News"Robert Kennedy led one of the great unfinished lives in American history. With skill and verve, Tye has written a fascinating account of a transformative figure." - Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power "This biography will appeal not only to those wanting a portrait of a dynamic idealist, but also to those seeking to understand the emotions of the times in which he lived." - Henry A. Kissinger
The NRA
By Smyth, Frank
For the first time, the definitive account of America's most powerful, most secretive, and most controversial nonprofit, and how far it has strayed from its origins. The National Rifle Association is unique in American life. Few other civic organizations are as old or as large. None is as controversial. It is largely due to the NRA that the U.S. gun policy differs so extremely -- some would say so tragically -- from that of every other developed nation. But, as Frank Smyth shows, the NRA has evolved from an organization concerned above all with marksmanship -- and which supported most government efforts around gun control for a hundred years -- to one that resists all attempts to restrict guns in any way. At the same time, the organization has also buried its own remarkable history.
Beneath the Tamarind Tree
By Sesay, Isha
"It is no accident that the places in the world where we see the most instability are those in which the rights of women and girls are denied. Isha Sesay's indispensable and gripping account of the brutal abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists provides a stark reminder of the great unfinished business of the 21st century: equality for girls and women around the world." - Hillary Rodham ClintonThe first definitive account of the lost girls of Boko Haram and why their story still matters - by celebrated international journalist Isha Sesay.In the early morning of April 14, 2014, the militant Islamic group Boko Haram violently burst into the small town of Chibok, Nigeria, and abducted 276 girls from their school dorm rooms. From poor families, these girls were determined to make better lives for themselves, but pursuing an education made them targets, resulting in one of the most high-profile abductions in modern history. While the Chibok kidnapping made international headlines, and prompted the #BringBackOurGirls movement, many unanswered questions surrounding that fateful night remain about the girls' experiences in captivity, and where many of them are today. In Beneath the Tamarind Tree, Isha Sesay tells this story as no one else can. Originally from Sierra Leone, Sesay led CNN's Africa reporting for more than a decade, and she was on the front lines when this story broke. With unprecedented access to a group of girls who made it home, she follows the journeys of Priscilla, Saa, and Dorcas in an uplifting tale of sisterhood and survival. Sesay delves into the Nigerian government's inadequate response to the kidnapping, exposes the hierarchy of how the news gets covered, and synthesizes crucial lessons about global national security. She also reminds us of the personal sacrifice required of journalists to bring us the truth at a time of growing mistrust of the media. Beneath the Tamarind Tree is a gripping read and a story of resilience with a soaring message of hope at its core, reminding us of the ever-present truth that progress for all of us hinges on unleashing the potential of women.
The Shadow Docket
By Vladeck, Stephen
An acclaimed legal scholar exposes the Supreme Court's increasing use of unsigned, unexplained orders to change the law - all behind closed doors The Supreme Court has always had the authority to issue emergency rulings in exceptional circumstances. But since 2017, the Court has dramatically expanded its use of the behind-the-scenes "shadow docket," regularly making decisions that affect millions of Americans without public hearings and without explanation, through cryptic late-night rulings that leave lawyers - and citizens - scrambling. The Court's conservative majority has used the shadow docket to green-light restrictive voting laws and bans on abortion, and to curtail immigration and COVID vaccine mandates. But Americans of all political stripes should be worried about what the shadow docket portends for the rule of law, argues Supreme Court expert Stephen Vladeck.
Sins of the Father
By Mccabe, Conor
The questions surrounding how the Irish economy was brought to the brink - who was to blame, and who should pay for these mistakes - have been rightly debated at length. But beyond this very legitimate exercise, there are deeper questions that need to be answered. These questions relate to why we made the decisions we did, not just in the last ten years, but over the last eighty. How did certain industries become more prominent at the expense of others, banking as opposed to fisheries, international markets as opposed to indigenous industry and job creation? Are our problems structural in nature, and most importantly, what do we need to know to make sure that this crisis does not happen again? These are the questions set by this book. It will look at the development of the Irish economy over the past eight decades, and will argue that the 2008 financial crisis, up to and including the IMF bailout of 2010 and the subsequent change of government, cannot be explained simply by the moral failings of those in banking or property development alone.
We Were Eight Years in Power
By Coates, Ta-nehisi
In these "urgently relevant essays,"* the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me "reflects on race, Barack Obama's presidency and its jarring aftermath"* - including the election of Donald Trump."We were eight years in power" was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South.
In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America's "first white president." But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period - and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation's old and unreconciled history.
Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective - the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.
We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates's iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including "Fear of a Black President," "The Case for Reparations," and "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration," along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coates's own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era.