Political Biographies

New York Times White House correspondent Mark Landler takes us behind the speeches and press conferences, to the Situation Room debates and picnic-table lunches, where Obama and Clinton honed their two competing worldviews: his, cautious, inward-looking, suffused with a sense of limits; hers, muscular, optimistic, unabashedly old-fashioned.

Say the name 'Enron' and most people believe they've heard all about the story that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. But in the hands of Kurt Eichenwald, the players we think we know and the business practices we think have been exposed are transformed into entirely new, and entirely gripping, material.

How much do you know about George Washington? Find out the facts you need to know about the 1st president of the United States. You'll learn about the early life, challenges, and major accomplishments of this important American.

Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the best-selling "Gonzo Papers" is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful '60s and '70s.

Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America's approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations. Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is a must-listen for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.

At the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War ended, many, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, believed that democracy had triumphed politically once and for all. Yet nearly 30 years later, the direction of history no longer seems certain. A repressive and destructive force has begun to reemerge on the global stage - sweeping across Europe, parts of Asia, and the United States - that to Albright, looks very much like fascism.

A provocative, lively deep dive into the meaning of America's first Black president and first Black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (

Vanity Fair).

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe's people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than 40 years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events.

India’s tumultuous political history, revealing backroom stories, humorous anecdotes and invaluable life lessons come together in Azaad, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s frank, unflinching autobiography about his life and career alongside some of the most powerful leaders from India and the world. As Ghulam Nabi charts his political odyssey, he showcases the grand arc of the great India story through the most dramatic political transformations of the last five decades.

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.

The first-hand account of the life, career, and the practices of horror at Auschwitz, written by Auschwitz Kommandant SS Rudolf Hoss as he awaited execution for his crimes. Including his psychological interviews at Nuremberg.

He was a husband, a father, a preacher - and the preeminent leader of a movement that continues to transform America and the world.

Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing with headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward kept the tale of conspiracy and the trail of dirty tricks coming - delivering the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon's scandalous downfall. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post and toppled the president. This is the book that changed America.

Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff, with the photos hung on his bedroom wall to prove it. Decades later, Ferguson's latent buffdom is reignited. In Land of Lincoln, he embarks on a curiosity-fueled coast-to-coast journey through contemporary Lincoln Nation, encountering everything from hatred to adoration to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between.

In 1940, against the explosive backdrop of the Nazi onslaught in Europe, two farsighted candidates for the U.S. presidency - Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, running for an unprecedented third term, and talented Republican businessman Wendell Willkie-found themselves on the defensive against American isolationists and their charismatic spokesman Charles Lindbergh, who called for surrender to Hitler's demands.

With intrigue that rivals the best le Carre novels, Russians Among Us tells the urgent story of Russia’s espionage efforts against the United States and the West from the end of the Cold War to the present.

Over 4,000 students gathered at the University of Michigan to hear Republican Party candidate Ron Paul speak. As he began to address the topics of monetary policy and the coming depression, a chant rose from the crowd, "End the Fed! End the Fed!" As dollar bills were lit on fire and thrown into the night skies, it became clear that the real problem, one that nobody in the media was talking about, was the central bank-an unconstitutional entity and a political, economic, and moral disaster.

For all of the West's failings—terrible food, cold weather and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few—it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn't until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant society, receiving countless opportunities he would never have had otherwise.

Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island, where corruption is entertainment and Mayor Buddy Cianci presided over the longest-running lounge act in American politics. In The Prince of Providence, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike Stanton tells a classic story of wiseguys, feds, and politicians on a carousel of crime and redemption.

It was never supposed to be this close. And of course she was supposed to win. How Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump is the tragic story of a sure thing gone off the rails. For every Comey revelation or hindsight acknowledgment about the electorate, no explanation of defeat can begin with anything other than the core problem of Hillary's campaign - the candidate herself.