Local Government

Almost everyone has faced the frustrating task of negotiating with a local, state, national, or foreign government at some point in their lives. Whether they are applying for a building permit from their local zoning board, trying to sell software to the US Defense Department, looking for approval for a merger, or planning to set up a business in Limerick or Bangalore, businesspeople confront a unique set of challenges when dealing with any form of government.

In the turbulent world of Chicago politics, Boss dives deep into the captivating life and legacy of Richard J. Daley, the influential politician and mastermind behind the city's Democratic Party machine. Mike Royko's scathing and meticulously researched account follows Richard J. Daley's rise to power, from his inauspicious youth on Chicago's South Side through his rapid climb to the seat of power as the city's mayor. This engrossing biography brings to life the most powerful political figure of his time.

Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress - Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham - Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history.

At least thirteen million Americans will have to move away from American coasts in the coming decades, as rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms put lives at risk and cause billions of dollars in damages. In Charleston, South Carolina, denial, boosterism, widespread development, and public complacency about racial issues compound; the city, like our country, has no plan to protect its most vulnerable. Susan Crawford tells the story of a city that has played a central role in America's painful racial history for centuries and now stands at the intersection of climate and race.

Recalling the classic warnings against militarism, from George Washington's farewell address to Dwight Eisenhower's denunciation of the military-industrial complex, Johnson explores the trend of militarism that is bankrupting the United States and creating conditions for a new century of virulent blowback.

Ancient Futures is a lyrical and moving portrait of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet", as it was once known. The book is also an engaging critique of the global economy and a call for economic localization. When author Helena Norberg-Hodge first arrived in Ladakh in the 1970s, she found a pristine environment and a people who exhibited remarkable vitality and joy. Not long after, came economic growth and development, and Norberg-Hodge watched how a whole range of problems began to appear for the first time.

Engine 40, Ladder 35 was one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse, located on the West Side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center; 12 of the men would never return. The story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day, it is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.

This new South End Press edition makes available the full text of this out-of-print classic - along with a new foreword by Manning Marable, interviews with participants in DRUM, and reflections on political developments over the past three decades by Georgakas and Surkin.

Reporting on news-impoverished areas in the US and around the world, America's premier media critic, Margaret Sullivan, charts the contours of the damage but also surveys some new efforts to keep local news alive - from nonprofit digital sites to an effort modeled on the Peace Corps. No nostalgic paean to the roar of rumbling presses, Ghosting the News instead sounds a loud alarm, alerting citizens to the growing crisis in local news that has already done serious damage.

In the book How to Run for Local Office, you will learn insider tricks from 20-plus-year political veteran Michael Cole. He brings to you step-by-step instructions on how to look with a critical eye of the expert in planning, launching, and executing a successful bid for local office. As Michael says in his book, elected office is for everyone that has a passion for public service, the secrets on how to run should not be hidden away for a few insiders, but for anyone with the drive and determination to do it.

The life of John Marshall, founding father and America's premier chief justice. In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the US. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again.

Ambassador C. Donald Johnson's The Wealth of a Nation is an authoritative history of the politics of trade in America from the Revolution to the Trump era.

Brian Phillips Murphy follows the collaborations between political leaders and a group of unelected political entrepreneurs, including Robert R. Livingston and Alexander Hamilton, who persuaded legislative powers to grant monopolies corporate status in order to finance and manage civic institutions.

How do taxes work? How do governments collect and spend them? Lean the ways of the government through this informative audiobook for kids. It’s important that your child is aware of how societies are run so that he/she can help in safeguarding the nation later in life. Build your child’s knowledge with one topic at a time. Buy this audiobook today.

After the 2016 election, Republicans had their largest majority in the states since 1928, controlling legislative chambers in 32 states and governor offices in 33. They also held both chambers of Congress and the presidency despite losing the popular vote. What happened? Meaghan Winter shows how the Democratic Party and left-leaning political establishment have spent the past several decades betting it all on the very risky and increasingly foolhardy strategy of abandoning the states to focus on federal races.

In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected international relations scholars, explores the dynamics of the new competition for control of the region since 9/11. All three great powers have crafted strategies to increase their power in the area, which includes Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Each nation is pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians.

Fear swept Zhenjiang as British soldiers gathered outside the city walls in the summer of 1842. Already suspicious of foreigners, locals had also heard of the suffering the British inflicted two months earlier, in Zhapu. A wave of suicides and mercy killings ensued: rather than leave their families to the invaders, hundreds of women killed themselves and their children or died at the hands of male family members. British observers decried an "Asian culture" of ritual suicide. In reality, the event was sui generis—a tragic result of colliding local and global forces in nineteenth-century China.

This brilliantly original book dismantles the underlying assumptions that drive the decisions made by companies and governments throughout the world, to show that our shared narrative of the global economy is deeply flawed. If left unexamined, they will lead corporations and countries astray, with dire consequences for us all.

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In The Fight to Save the Town, urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places.