Political History Biography

Back by popular demand, the bestselling Politically Incorrect Guides provide an unvarnished, unapologetic overview of the topics every American needs to know. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents, Part 1 profiles America’s early presidents, from George Washington to William Howard Taft.

Academics, journalists, and popular historians agree: our greatest presidents are the ones who confronted a national crisis and mobilized the entire nation to face it. That’s the conventional wisdom. The chief executives who are celebrated in textbooks and placed in the top echelon of presidents in surveys of experts are the bold leaders - the Woodrow Wilsons and Franklin Roosevelts - who reshaped the United States in line with their grand “vision” for America. Unfortunately, along the way, these “great” presidents inevitably expanded government - and shrank our liberties.

In his audiobook, A Higher Loyalty, former FBI director James Comey shares his never-before-told experiences from some of the highest stakes situations of his career in the past two decades of American government, exploring what good, ethical leadership looks like and how it drives sound decisions. His journey provides an unprecedented entry into the corridors of powe, and a remarkable lesson in what makes an effective leader.

In this remarkably human portrait of one of the 20th century's most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers.

Theodore Rex is the story—never fully told before—of Theodore Roosevelt’s two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in the aftermath of an act of terrorism.

The Sit Room brings you inside the secretive Situation Room of the White House, the most important deliberative room in the world, during the early 1990s when the author was one of the policymakers who framed the Clinton Administration's policy toward the bloody Balkans War. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and his own notes, David Scheffer, who later became America's first Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, weaves the true story of how policy options were debated in the Sit Room among the highest national security officials.

On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and prompted the United States’ entry into the bloodiest war in human history. Americans have long debated the cause of the bombing; many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup or a failure of US intelligence agencies or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery - until now.

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.

The gripping account of how the Royal family really operates, from the journalist who has spent years studying them. Who really runs the show and, as Charles III begins his reign, what will happen next?

MBS is the untold story of how a mysterious young prince emerged from Saudi Arabia’s sprawling royal family to overhaul the economy and society of the richest country in the Middle East - and gather as much power as possible into his own hands. Since his father, King Salman, ascended to the throne in 2015, Mohammed bin Salman has leveraged his influence to restructure the kingdom’s economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes, and confront its enemies around the region, especially Iran.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was one of the few men in history to fight simultaneously on moral, religious, political, social, economic, and cultural fronts. During his time as a lawyer in South Africa he developed his strategy of non-violence: the idea of opposing unjust laws by non-violent protest. He led the Indian National Congress party in three major campaigns against British rule, each culminating in his arrest.

Conrad Black, bestselling author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, turns his attention to his "friend" President Donald J. Trump and provides the most intriguing and significant analysis yet of Trump's political rise. Ambitious in intellectual scope, contrarian in many of its opinions, and admirably concise, this is surely set to be one of the most provocative political books you are likely to listen to this year.

Antonio Mendez and his future wife, Jonna, were CIA operatives working to spy on Moscow in the late 1970s, at one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War. Soviets kept files on all foreigners, studied their patterns, tapped their phones, and even planted listening devices within the US embassy. In short, intelligence work was effectively impossible. The Soviet threat loomed larger than ever. The Moscow Rules tells the story of the intelligence breakthroughs that turned the odds in America's favor.

Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in America - more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society.

Donald Trump v. The United States tells the dramatic story of those who felt compelled to confront and try to contain the most powerful man in the world as he shredded norms and sought to expand his power. Michael S. Schmidt takes listeners inside the defining events of the presidency, chronicles them up close, and records the clash between an increasingly emboldened president and those around him, who find themselves trying to thwart the president they had pledged to serve, unsure whether he is acting in the interest of the country, his ego, his family business, or Russia.

Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run.

From day one, the truth behind JFK's assassination has been mired in controversy and dispute. The Warren Commission, established just seven days after Kennedy's death, delved into the who, what, when, and where of the tragedy, and over the course of the following year compiled an 889-page report that arrived at the now widely contested conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin. In Who Really Killed Kennedy?, Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., provides listeners with the ultimate JFK assassination theory book.

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.

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.

Time correspondent Simon Shuster chronicles the life and wartime leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky from the dressing rooms of his variety show in Ukraine to the muddy trenches of his war with Russia. Based on four years of reporting; extensive travels with President Zelensky to the front; and dozens of interviews with him, his wife, his friends and enemies, his advisers, ministers and military commanders, The Showman tells an intimate and eye-opening story of the President’s evolution from a slapstick actor to a symbol of resilience.