Election Political

While quackery—loosely defined as the spread of false "knowledge," often accompanied by various versions of "snake oil"—is not a novel phenomenon, it has never posed as great a threat to public health as today. In Quack Quack, Dr. Joe Schwarcz focuses on the deluge of anecdotes, cherry-picked data, pseudoscientific nonsense, and seductive baseless health claims that undermine efforts to educate the public about evidence-based science. The wide scope of the topics drawn from past and present aims to cast a life preserver to people drowning in a sea of misinformation.

Too often, textbooks turn the noteworthy details of government into tedious discourse that would put even the president to sleep. American Government 101 cuts out the boring explanations, and instead provides a hands-on lesson that keeps you engaged as you learn. From the backstory of the Constitution to the institution of the Electoral College, this primer is packed with hundreds of entertaining tidbits and concepts to help you learn about how the government of the United States actually works.

Lis Smith isn’t your average political strategist and Any Given Tuesday isn’t your typical political memoir. At once a revealing look at human nature at the highest levels of power and an intimate portrayal of a sometimes rocky personal journey, it breaks all the rules. Smith doesn’t pretend to be perfect—she owns the controversial choices that landed her in the tabloids, as well as the unorthodox ones that have paid off and defined her successful career.

We live in the age of disinformation - of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm, even before the 2016 election. But this is not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the clash between communism and capitalism after the Russian Revolution.

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best - covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN - 24 hours of mainline news.

The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America’s unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William "Pig Iron" Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation’s politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis.

The New York Times best seller about a noted tech venture capitalist, early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook investor, who wakes up to the serious damage Facebook is doing to our society—and sets out to try to stop it.

In a manifesto that renders all previous attempts at political satire obsolete, The Chapo Guide to Revolution shows you that you don’t have to side with either the pear-shaped vampires of the right or the craven, lanyard-wearing wonks of contemporary liberalism. These self-described “assholes from the Internet” offer a fully ironic ideology for all who feel politically hopeless and prefer broadsides and tirades to reasoned debate.

A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one-year anniversary of the Trump presidency.

Spin Dictators traces how leaders such as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Peru's Alberto Fujimori pioneered less violent, more covert, and more effective methods of monopolizing power. They cultivated an image of competence, concealed censorship, and used democratic institutions to undermine democracy, all while increasing international engagement for financial and reputational benefits.

Russia expert Luke Harding lays out the most in-depth look to date at the Trump campaign's dealings with Russia. Beginning with a meeting with Christopher Steele, the man behind the shattering dossier that first brought the allegations to light, Harding probes the histories of key Russian and American players with striking clarity and insight. Harding exposes the disquieting details of the Trump-Russia story - a saga so huge it involves international espionage, offshore banks, sketchy real estate deals, mobsters, money laundering, disappeared dissidents, and more.

Over the course of the last four years, the American public looked on as the former president faced a series of daunting obstacles to return to the White House. The lingering cloud of January 6, a shadow effort within the Republican establishment to defeat him in the primary, multiple indictments, assassination attempts, and an 11th hour change of his opponent all threatened to derail his return to power at any moment.

Renowned interviewer David Barsamian showcases his unique access to Chomsky's thinking on a number of topics of contemporary and historical import. Chomsky offers insights into the institutions that shape the public mind in the service of power and profit. In an interview conducted after the important November 1999 "Battle in Seattle", Chomsky discusses prospects for building a movement to challenge corporate domination of the media, the environment, and even our private lives.

Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasion-ally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

Matthew Continetti gives a sweeping account of movement conservatism’s evolution, from the Progressive Era through the present. He tells the story of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures, resembling national populist movements. Drawing out the tensions between the desire for mainstream acceptance and the pull of extremism, Continetti argues that the more one studies conservatism’s past, the more one becomes convinced of its future.

This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs. In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence - and derail - the larger agendas of a political party.

The culmination of nearly 30 years of reporting on Donald Trump, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston takes a revealingly close look at the mogul's rise to power and prominence. Covering the long arc of Trump's career, Johnston tells the full story of how a boy from a quiet section of Queens, New York, would become an entirely new and complex breed of public figure. Trump is a man of great media savvy, entrepreneurial spirit, and political clout. Yet, his career has been plagued by legal troubles and mounting controversy

The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is at it again. A quarter century ago, in his international bestseller Red Horizons, Pacepa exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and inspiring him to send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. They failed.

Canadians are becoming increasingly skeptical about their chameleon prime minister. When he entered politics, Justin Trudeau came across as a person with no fixed principles. Now, he presents himself as a conviction politician. What motivated his metamorphosis - belief or opportunism? From one of Canada's most popular and connected political journalists, an unblinkered warts-and-all look at Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government's record in power. A must-listen as we head into the 2019 federal election.

Dispatches from the 2016 election that provide an eerily prescient take on our democracy's uncertain future, by the country's most perceptive and fearless political journalist.