Showing titles in Elections & Political Process

Here is a tour de force of American politics from one of journalism's most acclaimed commentators. History turns on a dime. A missed meeting, a different choice of words, and the outcome changes dramatically. Nowhere is this truer than in American politics, and in three dramatic narratives based on memoirs, histories, oral histories, fresh reporting with journalists and key participants, and Jeff Greenfield's own knowledge of the principal players, he shows just how extraordinary those changes would have been.

The saga of the Freedom Riders is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, 450 Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account.

America's political parties are hollow shells of what they could be, locked in a polarized struggle for power and unrooted as civic organizations. The Hollow Parties takes listeners from the rise of mass party politics in the Jacksonian era through the years of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Today's parties, overbearing and ineffectual, have emerged from the interplay of multiple party traditions that reach back to the Founding.

The story of America is the struggle between our liberal ideal and illiberal resistance. Donald Trump catalyzed a reactionary revolution by tapping into the dark, shadowy side of American democracy that embraces exclusion and inequality. Throughout American history these alarming impulses have come to the forefront of our culture — during the Civil War, the era of the Robber Barons, and the Civil Rights Movement — but have now come to fruition in the presidency of Donald Trump.

Lying has consequences, but generally for the one deceived. Advertisers, salespeople, media, and politicians often use some form of deception to conceal information. Even more critical, institutions you learned to trust from a young age have become untrustworthy and wield power for the sake of their benefit and not yours.

In presenting the ideal skills, abilities, and qualities of a successful politico, The Capitol Hill Playbook speaks to today’s generation of staffers like no other book before it. Weaving together Renaissance-era political philosophies and contemporary illustrations, Nicholas Balthazar enlists the help of Niccolò Machiavelli, author of the venerable political treatise The Prince, and Baldassare Castiglione, author of The Book of the Courtier - the authoritative account of Renaissance court life - to demonstrate two models of political life and their applicability today.

There was entertainment at the Republican Gala on Sunday night. The climax was a full marching band of bagpipers. They must have been hired for the week since one kept hearing them on the following days, and at all odd times, heard them even in my hotel room at four am for a few were marching in the streets of San Francisco, sounding through the night, giving off the barbaric evocation of the Scots, all valor, wrath, firmitude, and treachery - the wild complete treachery of the Scots finding its way into the sound of the pipes.

From the pursuit of potentially apocalyptic artificial intelligence to life-extension start-ups that promise billionaires eternal youth and those who encourage the political far right around the world, the Silicon Valley techno-utopian dream has curdled. The global innovator class has the world in their hands, but they can't stand the touch.

The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America’s unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William "Pig Iron" Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation’s politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis.

With her characteristic outspokenness and irrepressible sense of humour, Carol Vorderman here reveals the intricate web of influence responsible for our nation's unravelling. Part diary, part political manifesto, this is the story of how an old bird with an iPhone exposed the incompetence and lies of the Tory establishment, and inspired countless others to find their voice and stand up for what they believe in.

Trump: The Art of the Rally unveils the strategic genius behind these events, breaking down how Trump captivated millions, controlled the media narrative, and built an unshakable connection with his supporters. Whether you’re a political strategist, public speaker, or simply curious about the mechanics of influence, this book offers invaluable insights into one of the most effective mass-communication strategies of our time.

Because we are continuously taking in information from a variety of sources, we are under constant threat from those who would intentionally (or accidentally) misinform - from foreign operatives, advertisers, politicians, and general scammers to our own friends and family. To better prepare you, IREX (International Research & Exchanges Board) has teamed up with The Great Courses to provide a guide for navigating this tricky landscape with this eight-lecture course designed to arm you with the skills you need to be a savvy media consumer.

The one real difference between the American press and the Soviet state newspaper Pravda was that the Russian people knew they were being lied to. To expose the lies our media tell us today, controversial journalist James O'Keefe created Project Veritas, an independent news organization whose reporters go where traditional journalists dare not. Their investigative work - equal parts James Bond, Mike Wallace, and Saul Alinsky - has had a consistent and powerful impact on its targets.

A clear-eyed account of the realities of life in America’s overlooked heartland, The View from Flyover Country is a piercing critique of the labor exploitation, race relations, gentrification, media bias, and other aspects of the post-employment economy that gave rise to a president who rules like an autocrat. The View from Flyover Country is necessary listening for anyone who believes that the only way for America to fix its problems is to first discuss them with honesty and compassion.

The Great Retreat explores the development of political parties as democracy expanded across the West in the nineteenth century. It focuses in particular on mass parties, and the ways they served as intermediaries that fostered ties between citizens and governments. For democracy to adapt to a new era of global capitalism, Kuo makes the case that we need strong intermediaries like mass parties—socially embedded institutions with deep connections to communities and citizens.

Every day, President Obama received 10,000 letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read 10 of them before going to bed. This is the story of how they shaped his presidency. Together they reveal the diary of a nation. They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, with anger, fear and respect. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.

Our media environment is in crisis. Polarization is rampant. Polluted information floods social media. Even our best efforts to help clean up can backfire, sending toxins roaring across the landscape. In You Are Here, Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner offer strategies for navigating increasingly treacherous information flows. Using ecological metaphors, they emphasize how our individual me is entwined within a much larger we, and how everyone fits within an ever-shifting network map.

While the major media were spinning their collective fairy tale about the Obama presidency, the alternative conservative media - America's "samizdat" - were telling the truth.

The mainstream media and ultra-liberal Democrats can't understand why white voters, especially white men, are so angry. Wayne Allyn Root is an angry white male, and he knows why. This is his story, his testimony, and a look at what's happening to an entire group of good people: law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working, middle-class people. They're being targeted, silenced, intimidated, persecuted - virtually wiped off the planet.

Can a football game affect the outcome of an election? What about shark attacks? Or a drought? In a rational world the answer, of course, would be no. But as best-selling historian Rick Shenkman shows in Political Animals, our world is anything but rational. This isn't because we aren't smart. Instead, modern cues are setting off ancient, instinctive responses that worked to keep us safe in the Stone Age but lead us astray today.