Political Culture

Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom explores the reach, penetration, power, and impact of Big Digital or the mega-information managers, social media platforms, Artificial Intelligence developers, providers of other web applications and functionalities, and the architects and proponents of the promised Internet of Things.

Surviving the Future is a story drawn from the fertile ground of the late David Fleming's extraordinary Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It. That hardback consists of 404 interlinked dictionary entries, inviting listeners to choose their own path through its radical vision. Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure can be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has selected and edited one of these potential narratives to create Surviving the Future.

What makes a country fall to a dictator? How are authoritarian leaders - strongmen - capable of killing millions acquire their power? How are they able to defeat the ideal of democracy? And what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again? By profiling five of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history - Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein - Kenneth C. Davis seeks to answer these questions, examining the forces in these strongmen's personal lives and historical periods that shaped the leaders they'd become.

More than a hundred lives are lost to firearms every day in America. The cost is more than the numbers—it is the fear, the anxiety, the dread of public spaces that an armed society has created under the tortured rubric of freedom. But the norms of today are not the norms of American history or the values of its founders. They are the product of a gun culture that has imposed its vision on a sleeping nation. Historian Dominic Erdozain argues that we have wrongly ceded the big-picture argument on guns.

Many Americans believe that their own government is guilty of shocking crimes. Although paranoia has been a feature of the American scene since the birth of the Republic, in Real Enemies, Kathryn Olmsted tells us that it was only in the 20th century that strange and unlikely conspiracy theories became central to American politics, In particular, she posits World War I as a critical turning point and shows that as the federal bureaucracy expanded, Americans grew more fearful of the government itself.

As a child he dreamt of changing South Africa; as a man he changed the world. Nelson Mandela spent his life battling apartheid and championing a peaceful revolution. He spent 27 years in prison and emerged as the inspiring leader of the new South Africa. He became the country’s first Black president and went on to live his dream of change.

Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today's digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement. As Charlton D. McIlwain shows in this book, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know. Beginning with the simultaneous rise of civil rights and computer revolutions in the 1960s, McIlwain, for the first time, chronicles the long relationship between African Americans, computing technology, and the Internet.

Malala's memoir of a remarkable teenage girl who risked her life for the right to go to school is now abridged and adapted for chapter book listeners. Raised in a changing Pakistan by an enlightened father from a poor background and a beautiful, illiterate mother, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. Her story of bravery and determination in the face of extremism is more timely than ever.

The death of a chief executive, regardless of the circumstances—sudden or expected, still in office or decades later—is always a moment of reckoning and reflection. Mourning the Presidents brings together renowned and emerging scholars to examine how different generations and communities of Americans have eulogized and remembered United States presidents since George Washington's death in 1799. Over twelve individually illuminating chapters, this volume offers a unique approach to understanding American culture and politics by uncovering parallels between different generations of mourners.

Dan Savage eviscerates the right-wing conservatives as he commits each of the Seven Deadly Sins himself (or tries to) and finds those everyday Americans who take particular delight in their sinful pursuits. Combine a unique history of the Seven Deadly Sins, a new interpretation of the biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, and enough Bill Bennett, Robert Bork, Pat Buchanan, Dr. Laura, and Bill O'Reilly bashing to more than make up for their incessant carping, and you've got the most provocative book of the fall.

Bestselling author Peter Block is a true visionary: author of the classic Flawless Consulting, his work is about empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability, and reconciliation of community. In The Empowered Manager, he returns his eye toward management to renew our efforts to create a shift in the traditional hierarchy. Twenty years after the original book, Block talks of why it is so difficult to both open the door to empowerment and more importantly, have people walk through it.

To put it plainly then: the vast majority of people tasked with creating our media simply lack the sensibilities that have always driven artistic innovation. Steal as Much as You Can is the story of how this bright generation came to be, and what effective means are still at their disposal to challenge the establishment and ultimately win. By rejecting the established routines of achieving prosperity, and by stealing what you can from them on the way, this audiobook offers hope to anyone who feels increasingly frustrated by our increasingly unequal society.

Alan Dershowitz has been called "one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America" by Politico and "the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights" by Newsweek. He is also a fair-minded and even-handed expert on the Constitution and our civil liberties, and in this book offers his knowledge and insight to help listeners understand the war being waged against free speech by the ostensibly well-meaning forces seeking to constrain this basic right.

For the last 60 years, fear has seeped into every area of American life: Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country, sequester themselves in gated communities, and retreat from public spaces. And yet, crime rates have plummeted, making life in America safer than ever. Why, then, are Americans so afraid - and where does this fear lead to? In this remarkable work of social history, May demonstrates how our obsession with security has made citizens fear each other and distrust the government, making America less safe and less democratic.

Political Realignment tracks the evolution of citizen and elite opinions on economic and cultural issues from the 1970s to the 2010s - and the impact of these changes on electoral politics and public policy. Citizen positions on these cleavages have realigned over time, producing a similar realignment in the structure of the party systems to represent these demands. Economic issues remain important, now joined by divisions on cultural issues as a backlash to modernization. Assembling a time series of empirical evidence, this study explains the new forces of elector change in both Europe and the United States.

Whether you're a high-powered CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a college student studying tirelessly through the night, or a hard-working member of society not living under a rock, chances are you've seen how dangerous the Cancel Mob can be. They point out problems without providing real solutions and insist on firing, doxing, and harassing others before any facts or evidence are produced. In an attempt to understand the use of cancellation as a political tactic, I researched notable cancellations of celebrities, politicians, and many others in the public sphere.

On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald J. Trump's inauguration, more than three million marchers of all ages and walks of life took to the streets as part of the largest protest in American history. In celebration of the one-year anniversary of Women's March, this audiobook offers an unprecedented, front-row seat to one of the most galvanizing movements in American history, with exclusive interviews with Women's March organizers and essays by feminist activists.

Bloody Crossroads 2020 takes a deep dive into the role that mass-appeal movies, television, videos, and music played in America's political culture in the year of Donald Trump's failed reelection campaign. The book also explores the impact of entertainment celebrities in communications, fundraising, and campaigning to support the election of Joe Biden.

Bill O'Reilly is the very embodiment of the idea of a Culture Warrior, and in this book he lives up to the title brilliantly, with all the brashness and forthrightness at his command. He sees that America is in the midst of a fierce culture war between those who embrace traditional values and those who want to change America into a "secular-progressive" country.

Born in the British West Indies and orphaned as a child, Alexander Hamilton made his way to the American colonies and studied to become a lawyer. He joined a local militia during the American Revolution, rose to the rank of major general, and became the chief aide to General George Washington. After the war he became the first US secretary of the Treasury. He founded the Bank of New York and the New York Post newspaper.