Biographies Power

Republic of Outsiders is about the growing number of Americans who disrupt the status quo: outsiders who seek to redefine a wide variety of fields, from film and mental health to diplomacy and music, from how we see gender to what we eat. They include professional and amateur filmmakers crowd-sourcing their work, transgender and autistic activists, and Occupy Wall Street’s alternative bankers.”

In 2004, Argentina’s President, Nestor Kirchner, appointed Martín Redrado to lead their country’s Central Bank. It was the logical choice, considering that Harvard-educated and Wall Street-seasoned Redrado brought to the table an extensive knowledge of world economics. Redrado’s primary assignment as president was to provide monetary and financial stability to a country wrecked with cyclical breakups. In early 2010, Cristina Kirchner ordered the Central Bank to fund public spending and pay national debts. Martín Redrado refused.

In this inspirational and informative book, Latham demonstrates how the power of sound entrepreneurial thinking can lead to positive results in the most daunting of circumstances. Latham’s company, Thermagon Inc., evolved as an offshoot of the explosive growth of silicon chips driving the computer industry and the information age. As a female, Latham defied all odds by successfully creating the products, the facilities, and the funding for a thriving and much sought-after company in a world of technology overwhelmingly dominated by men.

A board of directors should hold wrongdoers accountable, but sometimes that responsibility falls to righteous employees. A riveting and relevant memoir, The Intrepid Brotherhood details a classic story of enlightened leaders’ war against oppressive management when private misconduct evokes public resistance.

In 1971, Rod Barton applied for a junior scientist role in the Australian Department of Defence. Little did he know what it entailed: As the Cold War intensified, Barton was inducted into the murky world of espionage. This is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes account of a world marked by risk, secrecy and individual acts of courage. The Life of a Spy will introduce you to a man of principle in a time of chaos, and take you to the frontlines of politics and war.

In June 2017, an earthquake shook the very foundations of British politics. With Labour widely predicted to suffer a crushing defeat in the general election, Jeremy Corbyn instead achieved a stunning upset - a hung parliament, the humiliation of Theresa May's government, and more than 40 percent of the vote. A lifelong and uncompromising socialist, Corbyn had, against all expectations, been dramatically elected leader of the party in September 2015. How these events came about is the subject of Alex Nunns' highly listenable and richly researched account.

In Show, Don't Tell, Kristine Gasbarre shares the wisdom she gleaned from the teacher who shaped her own life so significantly--from her career to her relationships to her thoughts on the meaning of life. It shines a spotlight on the power of sharing our lives and our stories with each other as it moves listeners with tragedy, awe, and the heartwarming relationship forged over three decades between two women from different generations.

A feminist biography of the only woman to become prime minister of Israel In this authoritative and empathetic biography, Pnina Lahav reexamines the life of Golda Meir (1898-1978) through a feminist lens, focusing on her recurring role as a woman standing alone among men. The Only Woman in the Room is the first book to contend with Meir’s full identity as a woman, Jew, Zionist leader, and one of the founders of Israel, providing a richer portrait of her persona and legacy.

With Her Fist Raised is the necessary biography of Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pivotal figure in women’s history and Black feminism whose story will finally be told. Historian Laura Lovett weaves together a biography of an activist who was intersectional to the core revealing a remarkable legacy that few have known until now.

In his outrageous memoir, McSweeney's contributor Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label. Whether he's directing a gangsta rapper's commercial or battling his punk roots to create an ad campaign celebrating the love songs of Phil Collins, Kennedy's in way over his head. And from the looks of those sitting around the boardroom, he's not alone.

Every summer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Nick Baumgartner went to work pouring concrete, taking on the harsh physical conditions of the construction trade to support his professional snowboarding dreams come winter. To limit travel time while he trained for the Olympics an hour and a half away from home, he lived out of a crusty, old construction van, parked anywhere he could find a spot. And in 2022, after seventeen years of failure—all the crashes, injuries, and personal setbacks—he won Olympic gold at forty years old, becoming the oldest Olympic snowboard medalist in history.

El camino y la llegada al poder, la forma de vivirlo y ejercerlo, los conflictos con su liturgia y protocolo, el encuentro con figuras como Obama, Fidel Castro, Putin, Chávez o Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, la soledad de sentirse a veces en un mundo ajeno. Todo contado a los autores por su protagonista, Pepe Mujica, y por muchos testigos.

From the author of the New York Times best sellers First Women and The Residence, an intimate, news-making look at the men who are next in line to the most powerful office in the world - the vice presidents of the modern era - from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden to Mike Pence. In interviews with more than 200 people, Kate Andersen Brower pulls back the curtain and reveals the sometimes cold, sometimes close, and always complicated relationship between our modern presidents and their vice presidents.

She never imagined the pursuit to parenthood would involve the emotional assault of an adoption agency's flexible morality or invasive surgical procedures that brutalize both their bodies - but it did. Lauri M. Velotta-Rankin and her husband were sent overseas by an unscrupulous adoption agency to chase the ghosts of children they'd never bring home. After turning to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a life-threatening diagnosis sent them reeling with fear and to the brink of emotional collapse.

This audiobook delves into six distinct episodes that helped to define the character of a Lincolnian foreign policy: his debate, as a young congressman, with law partner Billy Herndon over the conduct of the Mexican war; his conflict with William Seward over the control of the State Department; his standoff with Britain's Lord Palmerston during the Trent crisis of 1861; his race with Karl Marx to master the new art of molding public opinion; his deadlock with Napoleon III over the French occupation of Mexico; and John Hay's post-assassination battle to define Lincoln's legacy.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has become a national Republican Party figure, famous for his blunt public statements, his willingness to confront powerful special interests, and his determination to change the ingrown, corrupt, backroom political culture of New Jersey. In just two years as governor, Christie has moved aggressively to reduce the state's ballooning deficit, rein in lucrative entitlements for teacher, police, fire, and public employee unions, cut out-of-control government spending, and create jobs by reducing counterproductive business regulations.

Susan Ronald, acclaimed author of Hitler’s Art Thief takes listeners into the shadowy world of the aristocrats and business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who secretly aided Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hitler said, “I am convinced that propaganda is an essential means to achieve one’s aims.” Enlisting Europe’s aristocracy, international industrialists, and the political elite in Britain and America, Hitler spun a treacherous tale everyone wanted to believe: he was a man of peace. Central to his deception was an international high society Black Widow.

Ellen Keane spent most of her teens uncomfortable with her limb difference and battling to hide her insecurities. It was only when she embraced her difference that she found her superpower. She started to believe in her unique abilities and gradually find the success that she had never dreamed possible. Perfectly Imperfect is for anyone struggling to accept who they are. With anecdotes from her own life, practical advice and good-natured humour, Keane challenges you to let go of waiting until everything is perfect and instead embrace your imperfections and accept who you are, flaws and all.

In 1998, at the very moment that a publisher had approached Bruce Davidson about a book of his 1959 Brooklyn Gang photographs, former gang leader Bobby Powers unexpectedly telephoned the Davidsons. Over the next decade, Emily Davidson maintained an ongoing conversation with Powers in order to bring to light his struggle to overcome his drug-ridden and violent past and to inspire others with his example.

"Big Bob" Bashara put on a respectable face. To his friends in Detroit's affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe, he was a married father of two, Rotary Club President, church usher, and soccer dad who organized charity events with his wife, Jane. To his "slaves", he was "Master Bob", a cocaine-snorting slumlord who operated a sex dungeon and had a submissive girlfriend to do his bidding - and he wanted more slaves to serve him. But Bashara knew he couldn't rule a household of concubines on his income alone. He eyed his wife's sizable retirement account and formulated a murderous plan.