Political History Biography

This book explores the powers, activities, and accountability of MI5 from the end of the Second World War to 1964. It argues that MI5 acted with neither statutory authority nor statutory powers, and with no obvious forms of statutory accountability. It was established as a counter-espionage agency, yet was beset by espionage scandals on a frequency that suggested if not high levels of incompetence, then high levels of distraction and the squandering of resources.

Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. did. For three decades, he was at the center of American foreign policy, serving as advisor to five presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford, and as ambassador to the United Nations, Vietnam, West Germany, and the Vatican.

The Last Liberal Republican is a memoir from one of Nixon's senior domestic policy advisors. John Roy Price-a member of the moderate wing of the Republican Party, a cofounder of the Ripon Society, and an employee on Nelson Rockefeller's campaigns - joined Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and later John D. Ehrlichman, in the Nixon White House to develop domestic policies, especially on welfare, hunger, and health.

The decade of the 1790s has been called the "age of passion". Fervor ran high as rival factions battled over the course of the new republic - each side convinced that the other's goals would betray the legacy of the Revolution so recently fought and so dearly won. All understood as well that what was at stake was not a moment's political advantage, but the future course of the American experiment in democracy. In this epochal debate, no two figures loomed larger than Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Best-selling author J. Randy Taraborrelli reveals the unsung heroines of the inimitable Bush family dynasty: not only First Ladies Barbara and Laura, but other colorful women whose stories have been left out of history for far too long, including Barbara’s mother-in-law, the formidable Dorothy Bush; the enigmatic Columba and the controversial Sharon; and Laura’s twins, Jenna and Barbara.

The plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy has been shrouded in secrecy and deceit, leading most Americans to doubt the veracity of the Warren Commission's findings. Now, after forty years, Barr McClellan exposes the secret, high-level conspiracy in Texas that led to Kennedy's death and L.B.J.'s succession as President.

President Theodore Roosevelt forever transformed America, ushering the country into the arena of world supremacy. His brand of leadership was entirely American: confident, compassionate, energetic, diverse, visionary. But Roosevelt was not a born leader; his ascent to the apex of power was not a foregone conclusion.

Mob opens terrifying windows on the brutal and mysterious world of organized crime. You'll meet murderous wiseguys, scheming Dons and undercover agents risking their lives to break the Mob's most powerful syndicates. The picture that emerges from these stories is astoundingly complex and all too human: a world of warped desire and violent consequences that is at once shocking and fascinating.

George H.W. Bush takes a special look back on the momentous global events of 1989-1992 - the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the liberation of Kuwait, to name a few - and reminisces about what it was like to be President through such unprecedented times. Choosing from among the hundreds of speeches he gave while in office, former President Bush selects the speeches that meant the most to him, and introduces each one with candid comments.

Bertie Ahern, three times Irish Taoiseach, is often described as an enigma. The Old IRA man's son who delivered peace in Northern Ireland. A working class boy responsible for the Celtic Tiger. An ardent nationalist admired by European leaders. Now in this frank and revealing autobiography, Ahern gives his own account of a remarkable political life and the personal story that accompanies it.

In The Queen, Hugh Hewitt's in-depth examination of the career and accomplishments - epic failures, really - of the real Hillary Clinton will show you why - after her decades of working so hard, after surviving Bill and his antics, after losing to an upstart in 2008, submerging her boiling anger and wounded pride, and after enduring the real predations of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that has been dogging her throughout - Hillary is on the brink of achieving it all.

On July 18, 1924, a mob in Tehran killed US foreign service officer Robert Whitney Imbrie. His violent death, the first political murder in the history of the service, outraged the American people. Though Imbrie’s loss briefly made him a cause célèbre, subsequent events quickly obscured his extraordinary life and career.

Signing Their Rights Away chronicles a moment in American history when our elected officials knew how to compromise - and put aside personal gain for the greater good of the nation. These men were just as quirky and flawed as the elected officials we have today: Hugh Williamson believed in aliens, Robert Morris went to prison, Jonathan Dayton stole $18,000 from Congress, and Thomas Mifflin was ruined by alcohol. Yet somehow these imperfect men managed to craft the world’s most perfect Constitution.

July 18, 1969: A car driven by Senator Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, off the coast of Cape Cod. Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old former staffer for Kennedy’s brother Robert, died in the crash. The scandal that followed demeaned Kopechne’s reputation and scapegoated her for Ted Kennedy’s inability to run for the presidency instead of acknowledging her as an innocent victim in a tragedy that took her life. Kashatus’s biography of Mary Jo Kopechne illuminates the life of a politically committed young woman who embodied the best ideals of the 60s.

Fiorello LaGuardia was one of the twentieth century's most colorful politicians—on the New York and national stage. He was also quintessentially American: the son of Italian immigrants, who rose in society through sheer will and chutzpah. Almost one hundred years later, America is once again grappling with issues that would have been familiar to the Little Flower, as he was affectionately known. It's time to bring back LaGuardia, argues historian and journalist Terry Golway, to remind us all what an effective municipal officer (as he preferred to call himself) can achieve . . .

No skeletons were rattling in his closet, Thomas Eagleton assured George McGovern’s political director. But only eighteen days later—after a series of damaging public revelations and feverish behind-the-scenes maneuverings—McGovern rescinded his endorsement of his Democratic vice-presidential running mate, and Eagleton withdrew from the ticket. This fascinating book is the first to uncover the full story behind Eagleton's rise and precipitous fall as a national candidate.

The veteran political journalist and New York Times best-selling author goes behind the scenes at the White House to recount the dramatic tale of a pivotal period in the Obama presidency, from the game-changing 2010 midterm elections to the beginning of the critical 2012 campaign season - a tumultuous time that tested the president as never before and set the stage for a titanic clash over the future of the nation.

After suffering stinging defeats in the 1960 presidential election against John F. Kennedy, and in the 1962 California gubernatorial election, Nixon's career was declared dead by Washington press and politicians alike. Yet on January 20, 1969, just six years after he had said his political life was over, Nixon would stand taking the oath of office as 37th President of the United States. How did Richard Nixon resurrect a ruined career and reunite a shattered and fractured Republican Party to capture the White House?

They were the political odd couple - the two most powerful men in the country, a pair who "couldn't be more different or more the same." For six years, Matthews was on the inside, watching the evolving relationship between President Reagan and Speaker of the House O’Neill. Drawing not only on his own remarkable knowledge but on extensive interviews with those closest to his subjects, Matthews brings this unlikely friendship to life in his unique voice.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner at the executive mansion with the First Family. The next morning, news that the president had dined with a Black man-and former slave-sent shock waves through the nation. Although African Americans had helped build the White House and had worked for most of the presidents, not a single one had ever been invited to dine there. Fueled by inflammatory newspaper articles, political cartoons, and even vulgar songs, the scandal escalated.