Social Democracy

In this short accessible book, leading democratic theorist Jason Brennan guides listeners through the evolution of the concept of democracy and actual democratic practice over time to help them understand the foundations of this longstanding and yet newly fragile political system. In his wide-ranging tour of the concept, Brennan will examine what democracy meant to the Greeks who first developed the concept before examining how it changed throughout European and later Western history.

The world-renowned philosopher and author of the best-selling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgment it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life.

The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people’s minds in order to change things. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. As the book’s subjects grapple with how to call out injustices while calling in those who don’t agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a fracturing country.

Behind today's headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did.

For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist, Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not.

In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.

Enough of the imbalance that is causing the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. Enough of the pendulum politics of left and right and paralysis in the political center. We require an unprecedented form of radical renewal. In this book Henry Mintzberg offers a new understanding of the root of our current crisis and a strategy for restoring the balance so vital to the survival of our progeny and our planet.

Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed translation by Allan Bloom was the first to take a strictly literal approach. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay—as well as indices—which will enable listeners to better understand the heart of Plato's intention.

Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive - and where elites are eager to keep them that way.

To a unique degree, Christopher Steele has been an eyewitness observer of modern Russian history. He was a British diplomat and intelligence professional in Moscow when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Steele was there when the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev took place and when Boris Yeltsin took over the newly independent Russia. After Vladimir Putin came to power, Steele rose to become one of British government’s leading Russia experts and played a central role in the investigation into the Kremlin-ordered murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Donald Trump will be president again, whether he is on the ballot or not. That is because Trumpism is overtaking the Republican Party and will mount a vigorous comeback, potentially in the hands of a savvier successor. This prophecy will come true, according to Miles Taylor, if we do not learn the lessons of the recent past. With the 2024 election approaching, the formerly “Anonymous” official is back with bombshell revelations and a sobering national forecast. Taylor predicts what could happen inside “Trump 2.0,” the White House of a more competent and more formidable copycat.

Should Christians be politically withdrawn, avoiding participation in politics to maintain their prophetic voice and to keep from being used as political pawns? Or should Christians be actively involved, seeking to utilize political systems to control the levers of power? In Jesus and the Powers, N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird call Christians everywhere to discern the nature of Christian witness in fractured political environments.

Tocqueville n'est pas seulement un analyste politique exceptionnel, c'est aussi un philosophe politique qui aide à comprendre les problèmes se posant dans les démocraties modernes. L'égalité des conditions, l'individualisme, le despotisme démocratique, les relations entre maîtres et serviteurs, l'esprit de liberté et l'esprit de religion, autant de notions qui dessinent aujourd'hui encore les contours d'une philosophie de la démocratie.

In his riveting new book, noted forecaster and best-selling author George Friedman turns to the future of the United States. Examining the clear cycles through which the United States has developed, upheaved, matured, and solidified, Friedman breaks down the coming years and decades in thrilling detail.

Fukuyama examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West.

Over the past three decades, citizens of democracies who claim to value freedom, tolerance, and the rule of law have increasingly embraced illiberal politicians and platforms. Democracy is in trouble - but who is really to blame? In Our Own Worst Enemy, Tom Nichols challenges the current depictions of the rise of illiberal and antidemocratic movements in the United States and elsewhere as the result of the deprivations of globalization or the malign decisions of elites. Rather, he places the blame for the rise of illiberalism on the people themselves.

The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.

In the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the world, Donald Trump was made president of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power. For the first time, The Plot to Destroy Democracy reveals the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 US election. It will show how Russia and its fifth column allies tried to flip the cornerstones of democracy in order to reengineer the world political order that kept most of the world free since since 1945.

Freedom has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the publisher.

How to Lose a Country is a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don't march fully-formed into government; they creep. Weaving memoir, history and clear-sighted argument, Temelkuran proposes alternative answers to the pressing - and too often paralysing - political questions of our time. How to Lose A Country is an exploration of the insidious ideas at the core of these movements and an urgent, eloquent defence of democracy.