Public History

The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 after eight years of fighting, bloodshed, and loss. Yet the terms of the truce that ended the war were effectively identical to what had been offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America and Vietnam thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and they were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.

Through economics, our politicians have the power to transform people's lives for better or worse. Think Deng Xiaoping who lifted millions out of poverty by opening up China; Franklin D Roosevelt whose 'New Deal' helped the USA break free of the Great Depression; or Peron and his successors in Argentina who brought the country to the brink of ruin. In this magisterial history, economist and politician Vince Cable examines the legacy of 16 world leaders who transformed their countries' economic fortunes and who also challenged economic convention.

A United States minister, senator, president, and congressman in turn, John Quincy Adams was one of the most prevalent and dedicated Americans in history. Drawing from Adams' 70-year diary, author Paul Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned so many offices.

Deeply sourced within Obama's economic team, Noam Scheiber is uniquely qualified to profile the squad of elite administration insiders who have set and managed the president's economic policies from before the start of his term in office, through the crisis, and into our current prolonged recovery. These are people we know - or think we know: Obama, Geithner, Summers, Orszag, and a host of others.

When Barack Obama took office, he brought with him a new group of foreign policy advisors intent on carving out a new global role for America in the wake of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Now the acclaimed author of Rise of the Vulcans offers a definitive, even-handed account of the messier realities they’ve faced in implementing their policies. In The Obamians, acclaimed author James Mann tells the compelling story of the administration’s struggle to enact a coherent and effective set of policies in a time of global turmoil.

The recent economic crisis was a dramatic reminder that capitalism can both produce and destroy. It's a system that by its very nature encourages predators and creators, locusts and bees. But, as Geoff Mulgan argues in this compelling, imaginative, and important book, the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose a radically different future for capitalism, one that maximizes its creative power and minimizes its destructive force.

Through painstaking research, Geoffrey Perret located thousands of revealing documents on national security issues and foreign affairs, subjects to which John F. Kennedy devoted most of his time and energy. Perret has mined the Kennedy Library in a way few others have, finding letters and diaries that have never before seen the light of day. With style and substance, Perret brings to life again the man who left such an indelible impression on our century.

According to business reporter Charles Gasparino, President Obama is faking his outrage at Wall Street, and his calls for new policies to rein in banks that are "too big to fail" are just pabulum. In reality, Obama has climbed into bed with Wall Street CEOs, giving them what they want so they will support his liberal, big-government agenda.

Many see China's rise as a threat to US leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues instead that the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while eliciting its global cooperation. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a deep perspective on China's military and economic capacity. Assessing China's political outlook and strategic goals, Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party's decisions about regional and global affairs.

Written by an eminent economist, Bimal Jalan, Emerging India: Economics, Politics and Reforms talks about India's growth from the post-reform 1991 era to the modern days and the various challenges plaguing various arms of the government. In this book, Jalan praises the democratic setup that runs this complex and diverse country. Jalan produces a detailed account of the Indian economy and the way it has functioned and the various obstacles in front of it.

Every four years on January 20, the President of the United States is sworn into office. Most often following a hard-fought campaign season, the voters determine the number of electoral votes each candidate is awarded and the winner takes the oath of office given by the chief justice of the United States. The Inaugurations is a compilation of every inauguration speech given by the newly sworn-in president, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt through Donald J. Trump.

This comprehensive military biography of George Washington entertainingly examines Washington's capacity as a military leader. Acclaimed historian Edward G. Lengel, an associate editor of the University of Virginia's Papers of George Washington project, bases this engrossing work on the most extensive collection of Washington's personal correspondence.

Der Krieg in der Ukraine stellt das politische und wirtschaftliche Handeln Deutschlands auf den Prüfstand. Jahrzehntelang wurde über den zweitgrößten Staat Europas hinweggeschaut und Russland hofiert. Mit fatalen Folgen. Deutschland hat versagt, konstatiert die Osteuropa-Expertin Sabine Adler. Ihre Analyse nimmt nicht nur die Ukraine und den aktuellen Krieg in den Blick, sondern vor allem Deutschlands Rolle - wirtschaftlich, politisch, medial - in Bezug auf das von Russland überfallene Land.

George Bancroft was an American historian, statesman, and Democratic politician who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state of Massachusetts and at the national and international levels.

In Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control, Dali L. Yang scrutinizes China's emergency response to the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, delving into the government's handling of epidemic information and the decisions that influenced the scale and scope of the outbreak. Yang's research reveals that China's health experts had an excellent head start when they implemented a health emergency action program to respond to the outbreak at the end of December 2019.

This book focuses on the constant tension between democracy and conspiratorial behavior in the new global order. It addresses the prevalence of conspiracy theories in the phenomenon of Donald Trump and Trumpism, and the paranoid style of American politics that existed long before, first identified with Richard Hofstadter. Hellinger looks critically at both those who hold conspiracy theory beliefs and those who rush to dismiss them.

No one understands the "Make America Great Again" effort with more insight and more experience than former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In Trump's America: The Truth About Our Nation's Great Comeback, Gingrich describes our country's tremendous turnaround under President Donald Trump's leadership - and confronts the desperate efforts by the elites in academia, the media, and the Washington establishment to undermine and distort his achievements.

America in Retreat identifies a profound crisis on the global horizon. As Americans seek to withdraw from the world to tend to domestic problems, America’s adversaries spy opportunity. Vladimir Putin's ambitions to restore the glory of the czarist empire go effectively unchecked, as do China's attempts to expand its maritime claims in the South China Sea, as do Iran's efforts to develop nuclear capabilities.

As AI and robotics eliminate jobs across the spectrum, governmental revenues will plummet while the debt increases dramatically. This crisis of limited resources on all levels - underfunded or nonexistent pensions, health problems, lack of savings, and job destruction without comparable job creation - will drive many into homelessness and produce a dramatic rise in violence as we fight over shrinking resources.

This book offers a series of problems in thinking that require no special knowledge and no mathematics. The problems are designed to let readers find out about their personal style of thinking, its weaknesses and strengths, and the potential methods that they never use. Being right is not always important - an error can lead to the right decision.