Showing titles in 21st Century

The election of 2008 shattered political barriers; illuminated undercurrents of race, gender, and class; and ignited an extraordinary battle among some of the most formidable rivals ever to seek the presidency: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. It was an election that played out against a backdrop of war, economic collapse, and deep pessimism about the future.

The Arctic century is upon us. A great jockeying for power and influence has erupted among nations in the high north. At stake are trillions of dollars in profit or loss, US security, geopolitical influence and the fate of a fragile environment as well as the region's traditional people. As the ice melts and oil companies venture north, the polar regions may become the next Panama Canal, the next Arabian Peninsula-places on earth that remain relatively unknown in one century and become pivotal in the next.

In The Safety of the Kingdom, J. Michael Martinez takes up the question of how the United States government has responded to terrorist attacks and, in the absence of an attack, the fear of foreign and subversive elements that may harm the nation. In some cases the government “overreaction” led to a series of abuses that amplified the severity of the original threat.

In May 2010, an intelligence analyst in the US Army's 10th Mountain Division was arrested on suspicion of leaking nearly half a million classified government documents, including the infamous "Collateral Murder" gunsight video and 260,000 State Department cables. After nine months in solitary confinement, the suspect now awaits court-martial in Fort Leavenworth. He is 24, comes from Crescent, Oklahoma, and his name is Bradley Manning.

Before its destruction in the attacks on September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New York consisted of two of the world's most recognizable buildings, representing the strength and wealth of New York City in particular and the United States in general. That was the goal all along for philanthropist David Rockefeller, who had largely self-financed the development of One Chase Manhattan Plaza in the late 1950s in the hopes that the 70 story skyscraper would help spur further development nearby.

In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady and Capt. Bob Wright were on a routine combat air patrol mission in June 1995 when they were suddenly jarred by the buzz and amber flash of their cockpit missile-warning instruments. Two supersonic SA-6 SAMs, hidden by the overcast, were streaking toward them.

Have you ever witnessed 200 dancers in gold-lamé trousers invade a Los Angeles department store? Or maybe 300 nude cyclists riding down Paris' Champs-Elysees? Or perhaps you've received a text message inviting you to an impromptu 500-person pillow fight in London's Piccadilly Circus?

If you answered yes to any of the above, chances are you've unwittingly been exposed to the contemporary but curious cultural phenomenon of the flash mob.

Historian and geopolitical expert Michael Auslin argues that far from being a cohesive powerhouse, Asia is a fractured region threatened by stagnation and instability. Here he provides a comprehensive account of the economic, military, political, and demographic risks that bedevil half of our world, arguing that Asia, working with the United States, has a unique opportunity to avert catastrophe - but only if it acts boldly.

In my humble opinion, I find it difficult to understand how detractors of the investigation or any fair-minded person for that matter could say this investigation was not warranted, or even that it was a total waste of time. Unfortunately, partisan politics entered the picture. The Obama administration was facing re-election, and the Democratic Party wanted to prevent any bad news from hampering their chances to gain power in the House and Senate.

Bobby Fischer won the world chess championship in 1972 and the chess boom started. The Village Chess Shop opened on Thompson Street, Washington Square Park chess tables turned into a regular venue, Times Square 42nd Street opened chess tables not only at Bryant Park but also on Broadway and several indoors clubs. Chess was every where. This book covers 40 years of history of the NY Chess scene. Great reading for tourists and locals alike.

The world stopped for America on September 11, 2001, the day of the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil. It was also the day America showed its true colors. Firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and EMTs sped to the scene. Concerned more about others' safety than their own, they raced into the very buildings workers were fleeing from. Hundreds gave their lives so that others might live.

On September 11, 2001, as Central Intelligence Agency analyst Philip Mudd rushed out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, he could not anticipate how far the terror unleashed that day would change the world of intelligence and his life as a CIA officer. Takedown sheds light on the inner workings of the intelligence community during the global counterterror campaign.

In this incisive, personal account, David Brock disarms the major tentacles of the Republican Leviathan: the Koch Brothers, the Clinton haters, and the Fox noise machine. With the acumen of a seasoned political player, Brock takes listeners inside his Democratic war rooms and their 24/7 battles with right-wing forces for control of the story lines and messages that will decide the 2016 election. And he chronicles his own evolution from lead Clinton attack dog to one of Hillary Clinton's fiercest defenders as he knocks down the conservative case against her.

On June 25, 2013, the US Supreme Court handed down its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, invalidating a key provision of voting rights law. The decision - the culmination of an eight-year battle over the power of Congress to regulate state conduct of elections - marked the closing of a chapter in American politics. That chapter had opened a century earlier in the case of Guinn v. United States, which ushered in national efforts to knock down racial barriers to the ballot.

The world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans in August 2005, and the calamity seemed all the worse because many felt that technology had advanced far enough to prevent such tragedies, whether through advanced warning or engineering. Spawning off the Bahamian coast that month, Katrina quickly grew to be one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history, killing more than 1,800 people and flooding a heavy majority of one of America's most famous cities.

On the morning of April 15, 2004, the world woke up to the extraordinary news of the kidnap in a little known hamlet of Nigeria of some 276, primarily Christian schoolgirls, by the radical militant Nigerian insurgent group Boko Haram.

Res Gestae Christiani: My Time as the President of the Cambridge University Korean Society 2002-2003by Christian Kim is a heart-warming real-life account of the struggle of Korean students at Cambridge University to empower themselves against all odds. At the helm of this endeavor is Christian Kim, who was the President of Cambridge University Korean Society from 2002 to 2003.

For the first time since that extraordinary day, investigative journalist Kris Hollington lays bare the bones of the case, using exclusive, in-depth interviews with the Diamond Geezers, the police, Dome workers and De Beers employees to get to the heart of the heist. Discover who was crazy enough to want to buy the hottest diamonds in the world, as well as the shocking secrets of the planet's most precious diamond collection.

Boiling Mad is Kate Zernike's eye-opening look inside the Tea Party, introducing us to a cast of unlikely activists and the philosophy that animates them. She shows how the Tea Party movement emerged from an unusual alliance of young Internet-savvy conservatives and older people alarmed at a country they no longer recognize. The movement is the latest manifestation of a long history of conservative discontent in America, breeding on a distrust of government that is older than the nation itself.